Editorial & Advertiser disclosure

Global Banking and Finance Review is an online platform offering news, analysis, and opinion on the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the banking and finance industry worldwide. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website.

Home > Business > The worrying cost of sales and marketing misalignment (and how tech can help)

The worrying cost of sales and marketing misalignment (and how tech can help)

Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts

Posted on August 1, 2022

4 min read

Last updated: January 20, 2026

Three businessman working and discussing business together in a meeting

By James Frampton, Senior Vice President and General Manager EMEA, at SugarCRM

The post-pandemic business world is merciless. Having had to rethink operational strategy and seek support from digital products and services to stay afloat during the past two years, companies are facing another scenario – the cost of the misalignment between sales and marketing teams.

New research from SugarCRM shows that the majority (58%) of sales and marketing professionals are not able to identify customers at the risk of leaving, with 74% suspecting customers are leaving due to poor customer service or experience.

These figures allude to yet another challenge for brands fighting an onslaught of forces including supply chain disruption, rising energy and fuel prices, inflation and staffing shortages.

The impact of this misalignment on customer churn now threatens the financial stability and growth of companies across all industries worldwide and firms need to act fast. Last year, SugarCRM’s global survey research reported that customer churn was costing mid-market companies an average of £4M per year. This year, 58% of global respondents reported their rate of customer churn has increased over the last 12 months.

To end this customer relationship crisis and avoid being left behind, organisations need to unite the efforts of their sales and marketing teams and deliver exceptional customer experiences

Breaking down the issue

The Sugar research reveals a key issue – 63% of sales and marketing leaders agree that marketing, sales, and service misalignment prevents their organisation from growing their business. The equation is simple, when sales and marketing teams work well together, the business prospers and vice versa.

Good organisational alignment is driven by several key factors, including seeing and utilising relevant data, establishing mutual goals and metrics, and creating a seamless handoff process to improve productivity and ensure ownership. However, the research found that 45% sales and marketing leaders experience poor communication between the teams and 44% find that incentivising the teams by different goals causes misalignment.

Without sales and marketing alignment, an information gap causes qualified leads to leak out the sales funnel, making the issue of customer flight even more pronounced. A whole quarter of sales leads generated by marketing is deemed poorly qualified and an additional 28% of leads is considered underqualified. As if this wasn’t problematic enough, on average, 27% of sales leads go to the wayside, receiving zero follow up.

Add the increasing customer churn and you are faced with a rather daunting scenario where companies are struggling to fill the top of the funnel with qualified leads while losing customers at the bottom of the funnel. By better scoring account opportunities, tracking conversion rates, and sharing customer preference insights, sales and marketing can synchronise their strategy for generating and acting on the most valuable leads.

Missing data

To enable sales and marketing teams to act decisively, organisations must ensure a constant and smooth flow of data that will form the basis of real-time actionable insights. While 71% of sales and marketing professionals claim they need to do more to improve the customer perception of their organisation, 59% admitted to missing data to improve marketing campaigns and sales conversions. Additionally, one in four sales respondents worldwide believe they could miss a quota due to incomplete data across the customer lifecycle.

Most modern marketing teams rely on marketing automation platforms (MAP), while sales teams handle customer relationship management (CRM). Often, this can lead to customer insights that are differentiated and critical information that is stored in separate systems. It’s no surprise then that 40% of sales and marketing professionals say using different technology platforms is causing misalignment between the two business functions. On the other hand, by combining their systems into a single integrated CX platform, everyone benefits from quick access, real-time insights, and 360-degree views.

Software that doesn’t meet the needs

However, these platforms must be selected and vetted with great care. The research shows that 58% of sales and marketing leaders think their CRM system is wasting time and money, while over half (56%) say their current CRM system cannot be customised properly to meet their specific needs.

A consolidated and intuitive CRM system also allows salespeople to focus more on revenue generation and less on busy work. Currently, salespeople spend on average 5 hours a week updating their CRM and it’s costing their company £1.4 million in lost sales opportunities. It’s no wonder then that 66% of sales and marketing leaders agree they are frustrated with the admin burden placed on their organisation’s sales team which is taking employees away from customer facing activities.