The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos -- Once and for All -- In Professional Service Firms Paperback - 2009

When it comes to competing effectively, achieving financial success and delivering optimal client service, professional and B2B firms keep looking for the Holy Grail in all the wrong places: "Hire big-time rainmakers!" "Acquire that hot boutique firm!" Pursuing these solutions avoids the real problem: Marketing and selling are disconnected. The real Holy Grail can be found by ensuring that marketing and business development are integrated into every function. The Integration Imperative summarizes three structural and cultural frameworks that professional- and B2B service firms can employ to achieve new effectiveness in marketing and business development, and ultimately, improve the firm's value to clients. Lowe has done a great job of capturing the core messages of why and how marketing and business development functions within professional services firms need to be more effectively integrated to drive revenue and market share results. Russ Molinar, Director, Global Markets, Ernst & Young LLP Professional service firms tend to look for easy answers to the question of how to get new clients. Suzanne Lowe puts her finger on the biggest and hardest challenges and who shares responsibility for meeting them. Bill Matassoni, Retired McKinsey Partner and Marketing Director The Integration Imperative offers a potent cocktail of robust theory, insightful case histories, and lateral thinking any marketer will find something to chew on here. Sholto Douglas-Home, Group Marketing Director, Hays Plc This book will be an instant classic. Thanks to Suzanne Lowe s insights, we finally have practical guidance on overcoming an essential challenge for professional service firms: how to bridge the divide between marketing and business development functions. Michael W. McLaughlin, Author, Winning the Professional Services Sale Professional service firms leave so much money on the table because of the lack of integration between marketing and selling, and this book demonstrates the path to getting it right. Don Spetner, Executive Vice President and Chief Integration Officer, Korn/Ferry International An amazing blend of insight and in-depth real world examples. All professional firm marketers and managers should read this book. David Maister, Author and Consultant Suzanne Lowe s depth of knowledge and thoughtful presentation, particularly the case studies, provide hands-on, targeted, and relevant information that helped me to gain some important and actionable insights. This book should be mandated reading for professional service firm marketers and would also be meaningful for marketers in many other sectors. Barbara Gyde, Executive Director, Marketing and Business Development, Columbia Business School Executive Education Suzanne Lowe is so qualified to tackle this age-old challenge. She has been studying the role of the CMO in professional service organizations and leading CMO roundtable discussions for nearly 10 years, always with the goal of finding ways to do things differently and to do things better. Connie Bennett, Retired Senior Vice President Enterprise Customer Management, The McGraw-Hill Companies Suzanne Lowe makes a compelling argument regarding the often disconnected marketing and sales activities that take place in professional service firms. More importantly, The Integration Imperative offers the insights needed to overcome internal barriers to integration and offers examples of how it can be done. Paul R. Brown, Executive Vice President, Global Market Development, CDM "