The Sales-Marketing Interface in Consumer Packaged-Goods Companies: A Conceptual Framework

For those companies marketing branded consumer packaged-goods to an increasingly powerful retail trade, collaborative relations within the marketing function are crucial, particularly between trade customer-focused sales personnel and brand-focused marketing personnel. Yet although there is a well-developed body of literature on marketing's relations with other major business functions, relations within the marketing function itself remain unresearched. Drawing on theory and empirical results from studies of marketing's cross-functional interfaces, the authors develop a framework for understanding the nature, causes and effects of relations between sales and marketing in consumer packaged-goods firms. Propositions to guide further research are also developed.