Through the vital make-or-break start-up phase, otherwise competent enterprises frequently fail to close key prospects, despite having highly innovative staff and technology. The consequences are major losses in revenue, escalating burn rate, difficulties in raising appropriate capital - even extinction. The Sales Versus Engineering Problem is a dysfunctional relationship between the commercial and technical sides of the organization. Its symptoms are:

In qualifying a prospect, sales and engineering are best equipped to analyse commercial and functional fit, respectively. In effect, they are the eyes and ears of the enterprise. Unless the business and technical fit are mutually understood and agreed, the prospect will not translate into commercial opportunity. This fit can only be achieved through high quality communication and cooperation between sales and engineering.

If either side has too much power then the business will suffer. Overly powerful sales means that product development loses focus and veers with each emerging opportunity. Overly powerful engineering can at best result in an inflexible attitude to prospects, and at worst in developing products that have no market. What is required is a dynamic tension between Sales and Engineering in which the balance of power oscillates between these two functions, but never becomes too one-sided.

Sales and engineering inhabit different cultures, with different goals and values. To ensure high quality teamwork, shared values need to be made explicit, together with recognition and respect for differing values. The ideal mechanism for resolving differing values and objectives is the corporate vision, providing a higher-order motivator to which both sides can unstintingly subscribe, especially when times get tough.

A mechanistic approach to organizational structure and process greatly exacerbates the problem. Poorly designed structures and communication channels severely hamper the best efforts of good, highly motivated people. Careful consideration of structure is essential to avoid myopic viewpoints and communication barriers.

Unlike building a motorway, software development cannot rely on a clear blueprint of the final result. Rather, it must offer a technical vision while flexibly adapting to real market needs that only emerge when customers are seriously engaged. In the course of a constant cycle of re-evaluation and learning, developing a common language between sales and engineering is of vital importance.

In highly strung teams populated by talented and driven people, addressing this problem is hampered by personality clashes, power struggles, poor sales or engineering performance, market conditions, and so on. Fostering and facilitating high quality collaboration is the key to winning and keeping customers. The challenge of senior management is to create acceptance and joint ownership of the Sales Versus Engineering Problem. Read the full article here.