Hassan Sherwani ROLE OF SALES AND MARKETING IN ... - Oulu

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86 and creating value and thus, co-creation experience of the customer has become very basis of innovation for <strong>Oulu</strong>n Sähkönmyynti. The big questions is, do the marketing and sales functions of <strong>Oulu</strong>n Sähkönmyynti require further integration or not? As stated earlier, a higher level of integration is not always better for a company, but it rather depends on the organizational and market factors. Also, if the current arrangement is working well and fits the current business situation, further integration might be more harmful than useful. According to the interviewees (Sutinen, 2013; Tuomi and Lehto, 2013), the current situation is good, although communication between the functions could be more frequent. According to Tuomi and Lehto (2013), the relationship between marketing and sales is on a healthy basis, and the mutual collaboration is working well. One could question the effects of procurement of marketing functions instead of handling those activities by their own. On one hand, it may give a better collaboration within the organization but one the other hand, this divide might also be more helpful in avoiding conflicts and the formation of a negative atmosphere between the departments, compared to situation where both functions operated under the same roof. The existence of shared values is hard to estimate more in depth, but both functions seem to highlight the consultative approach towards dealing and communicating with the customers. Overall, the question regarding further integration is difficult to answer, especially without having any deeper insight into the business field in question. However, the situation can be hypothetically estimated. If the rewards and incentives systems are not aligned (of which author is not sure), it might create problems in the long-run. Both functions should be informed of the overall basis on which the rewards and incentives are given, and at least the heads of the marketing department and those of the sales units should be aware of the aligned rewards. Also, another thing that should be tackled is the misalignments in the measuring criteria of success, e.g. regarding the ROI of generating new leads. Agreeing upon common success metrics might help in avoiding conflicts and ensure that the reactions both functions have towards the results are aligned. Further collaboration between the functions in the form of more frequent teamwork and job rotation could help marketing and sales in gaining a better understanding of the specific roles and contributions of each other’s functions.
87 In this thesis work, though the theoretical framework offers guidance for a local company in certain geographic context that is seeking a right set of strategies for its growth yet this research work may come helpful for transitional companies having their operations and key activities in different countries. Moreover, the transformative elements in the framework may acts as a tool for companies to actively draw a comprehensive strategy which may provide an alignment between management vision and employee’s objects. 6.4 Limitations and Suggestions The main limitation of research work is of context. The study has been conducted in Finnish context and therefore, it does not highlight business law and regulation issues at large related to energy business. The reason is that Finland follows its energy policy according to unified European Union (EU) regulation and therefore, there is a consistency. However, if companies would tend to implement this study out of EU geography, they might have to counter different challenges imposed at macro-level. The other limitation of research work is related to unit of analysis. The case study has been implemented to a company which is yet to enter international market. The case company has homogeneous Finnish culture and therefore, some of the conflicts and potential challenges remained untouched during the study. Though size of company is of small to medium yet the case study is no case sensitive. Size of the company is not a limitation because the results and key finding of empirical analysis can be generalization to multi-national context as well. The reason is that case study is limited to Finnish context however; the theoretical framework is broad and can be implemented anywhere in electricity business. In addition, the study highlights global challenges stemmed with other key business issues that might be beneficial for the case company as they seem open for international venture in near future. Some suggestions can be made for the future work and research. As the thesis only highlight the micro level issues at marketing and sales unit, it can be interesting to view issues related to macro level at a comprehensive scale under the proposed framework of changing trends. The way companies and their customers are being influenced by these changes, there is no doubt that overall macro structure especially government laws and
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OULU BUSINESS SCHOOL Hassan Sherwan
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3 CONTENTS Abstract Contents Figure
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5 Figures Figure 1: The scope of th
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7 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction a
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9 Electricity industry used to be c
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11 Monopoly: A market with a single
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13 2 RESEARCH CONTEXT This chapter
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15 produced but, resources to gener
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17 through bioenergy largely in the
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19 framework. There is a need to re
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21 the companies make themselves en
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23 Monopoly Traditional Model Value
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25 once a company at local market a
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27 It is vital to notice that these
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29 In the global arena, companies m
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31 known as Uppsala Model and is wi
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33 vital part so the parties must a
Page 35 and 36: 35 provides to the company, in the
Page 37 and 38: 37 way of achieving this goal is to
Page 39 and 40: 39 Figure 7: The Emerging Concept o
Page 41 and 42: 41 who actually creates values and
Page 43 and 44: 43 value of the organization in its
Page 45 and 46: 45 being an extension to resource b
Page 47 and 48: 47 knowledge management process is
Page 49 and 50: 49 widely agreed on the negative ef
Page 51 and 52: 51 need to be coordinated and consi
Page 53 and 54: 53 responsibilities, and of the int
Page 55 and 56: 55 is equally important to manage i
Page 57 and 58: 57 All these four stages are follow
Page 59 and 60: 59 5 ANALYSIS As there was a brief
Page 61 and 62: 61 company’s individual needs irr
Page 63 and 64: 63 In other words, the market is fr
Page 65 and 66: 65 to seek more control in their en
Page 67 and 68: 67 themselves, who may be capable o
Page 69 and 70: 69 to enhance innovation (Pomeda &
Page 71 and 72: 71 Marketing is responsible for dev
Page 73 and 74: 73 Customer satisfaction is conside
Page 75 and 76: 75 clear picture of the role and co
Page 77 and 78: 77 more and more companies operatin
Page 79 and 80: 79 What level of integration betwee
Page 81 and 82: 81 There is a good opportunity to i
Page 83 and 84: 83 internationalization in Finnish
Page 85: 85 chaos within the company and man
Page 89 and 90: 89 described by Valocchi et al. (20
Page 91 and 92: 91 Cavusgil, S. T. (1980). On the I
Page 93 and 94: 93 Henry, A. (2008). Understanding
Page 95 and 96: 95 Metaxiotis K, Ergazakis K and Ps
Page 97 and 98: 97 Tykesson, D. and Alserud, M(2011
Page 99 and 100: 99 APPENDICES Interview Questions:
Page 101: 101 Are you familiar with va
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Hassan Sherwani ROLE OF SALES AND MARKETING IN ... - Oulu

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