The Integration Imperative™

In 2008 Suzanne Lowe will be busy working on her new book, The Integration Imperative™: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos – Once and For All – in Professional Services.

Professional service firms’ overly silo’ed and disjointed marketing and selling functions seriously hamper them from competing effectively.

To achieve marketplace success (beyond simple serendipity, that is), professional firms must recognize that Marketing and Business Development should be – and can be – embedded into every person’s job. Many professional firms believe they’ve already “gotten” this notion. But so far, most firms’ attempts to improve their effectiveness in marketing and business development have not addressed the core problem: the traditional structure of these functions simply no longer works in today’s complex marketplace.

Professional service firms must move quickly and deliberately to build a new organizational construct that connects Marketing and Business Development – once and for all – throughout the entire enterprise.

Lowe will outline the evidence that there is indeed an Integration Imperative™. She will summarize three flexible frameworks that professional firms can deploy to connect each person’s function together, to achieve new effectiveness in Marketing and Business Development, and ultimately, to improve the firm’s value to clients.

Content Previews

As 2008 progresses, she will provide previews of the book’s content and key points, in the Marketplace Master™ newsletter and Expertise Marketplace™ blog.

A Call for Interview Subjects

Do you know of a professional service firm that is taking steps to integrate its marketing and business development functions? If so, Suzanne Lowe would love to talk to them for the new book. Please e-mail Suzanne with information.