Interface between the Marketing and Sales and Product development departments : A case study

Sammanfattning: Globalization creates for companies’ new opportunities for business development, as well as new challenges. One of the most prevailing challenges is the ability to create new products and services in accordance to diverse customer needs and requirements, as well as implementation of new technologies in future lines of products. Therefore, companies realize the importance of the Marketing and Sales (M&S) and Product Development (PD) departments. The interface between those two departments plays a decisive role in realization of customer needs and requirements, and application of the right technologies in new products. The speed and accuracy with which the information between the M&S and PD department is exchanged directly influences success of one’s products on the market. Consequently, companies strive to achieve greater level of cross-functional integration within the interface, by overcoming barriers to integration, and improving the quality of internal services by utilizing computer based Information Systems (IS). The role of IS in supporting cross-functional work environment is growing, thus companies of all size make investment in IS. Nonetheless, these investments very often fail or not bear expect results, due to lack of alignment of the investment with the business. This thesis documents a diagnosis undertaken for the Case Company. In recent years the Case Company experienced rapid international expansions and fast growth, which in turn exposed a whole new range of problems. The existing work routines turned out to be inadequate to maintain international expansion and growth. A great deal of these problems was enrooted directly in the interface between the M&S and PD departments. Therefore, the company realized a need to isolate and eliminate them, and further foster the cross-functional integration and information flows within the interface by implementation of a computer based Information System. The purpose of this thesis is to enhance the understanding of the integration and communication process within the M&S and PD departments at the Case Company. In order to fulfil the purpose the Enterprise Knowledge Development modelling technique was employed. This allowed tracing the problems to their roots, by mapping business processes, goals, rules, actors, as well as clarification of concepts. As a result an objective snapshot of the current cross-functional integration between the M&S and PD departments was created. Further, this snapshot was compared against a great body of literature in the field of Product Development and Management and Process Management. The comparison made it possible to indicate areas for potential future improvements. The proposed change needs aimed at enhancing the internal customer satisfaction. Last but not the least in deep analysis of the current cross-functional relations within the interface made it feasible to suggest (with literature assistance) initial vital functions of a computer based Information System to enhance the integration and information flows within the studied interface at the Case Company. The proposed functionality corresponds to the current, as well as anticipated needs of the interface that has been derived based on requirements of the actors to fulfil goals and satisfy organizational processes.