(Extended Abstract) 

The two main income-generating functions in most companies are marketing and sales. Yet for a long time these two functions operate as separate units both structurally and culturally, having different time horizons, performance metrics and professional outlooks. The academic literature suggests that the marketing sales alignment (MSA), which reflects the degree to which these functions share their goals, technology, processes, communications data and accountability for results, is directly related to shorter sales cycles, higher lead conversion rates and greater sales growth. However, these findings come mainly from developed Western markets. The evidence of the relationship between MSA and firm’s sales performance is relatively scarce for emerging economies. In Georgia, characterized by a rapidly developing private sector, uneven digital infrastructure and a relationship-based business culture, this relationship has not been studied previously. Yet the specific characteristics of Georgian business environment may cause alignment mechanisms that differ substantially from those examined in developed countries. This study is exactly exploring the organizational factors that are associated with MSA and the link between the MSA and sales performance of Georgian companies.

The study draws on the conceptual framework, which comprises the concept of the Sales–Marketing Interface continuum developed by Kotler et al. (2006) and extended and empirically validated by Biemans et al. (2022), as well as on the antecedent literature on cross-functional integration. In this study we identify five antecedents of MSA, i.e. leadership support, communication quality, goal interdependence, shared technology, and cultural orientation toward collaboration. Sale growth represents and outcome variable.   We elaborate and test six research hypotheses.

The study employs cross-section survey design. The target population comprised active B2B distributor SMEs with 1-249 employees working in B2B markets. The sampling frame was drawn from the JSC BIA database, which contained 1,823 qualifying firms, of which 95.3% were small and 4.7% medium sized. We applied a stratified random sampling techniques since simple random sampling would have yielded an almost entirely small-firm sample. The response rate was 45.8% (out of 120 questionnaires distributed to owners, directors and senior managers responsible for marketing and/or sales, 55 usable responses were obtained). Measurement tools were adapted from existing international scales via translation and independent back-translation, measured using five-point Likert scales, and conducted online in Georgian. The procedure included exploratory factor analysis, reliability testing, and two OLS regressions run in SPSS.

The reliability analysis revealed that only five of six constructs met reliability and validity requirements. Since, Communication quality construct showed a low reliability index (α = 0.471) we could not use it as a composite index. Thus, we were not able to test formally H2 hypotheses. The goodness-of-fit of the antecedents model was satisfactory, the predictors and controls jointly explained approximately 62% of the variance in alignment (adjusted R² = 0.622; F(6,48) = 15.796, p < 0.001). The strongest predictor is Goal interdependence (β = 0.419, p = 0.001), followed by shared technology (β = 0.263, p = 0.016). Leadership support and collaborative cultural orientation were not significant in the multivariate model despite strong bivariate correlations with alignment (r = 0.597 and r = 0.640). This outcome indicates that the latter two factors operate as underlying enabling conditions expressed through shared goals and technological mechanisms rather than as direct operational levers. In the outcome model, alignment was a significant predictor of sales growth (β = 0.388, B = 0.585, p = 0.003; adjusted R² = 0.383). The significance of the effect was retained after controlling for digital maturity, which was also statistically significant (β = 0.295, p = 0.012). Neither firm size nor firm age was significant in either model.

The results show that the alignment is not something that is a privilege of large, well-endowed corporations but an organizational capability developed via two easy to implement managerial actions: formalization of a revenue objective and joint responsibility between the two departments, as well as implementation of a CRM or similar digital platform. The main contribution of the research is that it provides evidence of the existence of the same link between performance and alignment observed in developed countries in transition economies.

The research is constrained by its cross-sectional methodology, use of a small sample of firms, single-source reporting, and focus only on the Tbilisi-based distributors. The study establishes several important directions for future research: conducting longitudinal studies that will establish cause-and-effect relationships between synchronization and sales growth; creating a new communication quality measurement tool adapted to the Georgian context; examining the mediating effects of leadership, culture, shared goals, and technology using structural equation modeling (SEM). 

Keywords: marketing–sales alignment (MSA); sales growth; B2B markets; SMEs; Georgia.