Leaders are under relentless pressure to accelerate revenue growth while simultaneously delivering on wider strategic objectives. With markets maturing and client expectations evolving, the challenge grows, making it increasingly important to gain clarity on how the business is driving growth. In other words, “how do we know we’re effective in our approach to growth?”
To fully realise market potential and optimise growth opportunities, there is a well-established correlation between the rate of growth and the alignment of the three core functions that drive it: sales, marketing, and product/proposition management.
Recent research from LinkedIn’s Organisation of Tomorrow Survey, however, highlights that just 35% of (2000) organisations agree their growth functions are highly aligned. These findings are the latest in a series of analyses by market analysts and academic studies, all of which highlight the strategic advantage of growth function alignment and business growth.
The consequences of this misalignment are stark: missed revenue opportunities, slower growth, and an overreliance on existing customers.
The Hidden Costs of Misalignment
Misalignment within the growth function—the interconnected efforts of sales, marketing, and product management—often manifests in several ways:
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- Growth stagnation: Revenue growth stalls, lags behind the market, or depends too heavily on a shrinking base of existing customers.
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- Cross-functional struggles: Marketing campaigns fail to deliver ROI, sales teams struggle to sell on value and outcomes, and product teams lack clarity on competitive differentiation.
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- Team morale and blame-shifting: Sales teams complain about low-quality leads, while marketing insists those leads aren’t being followed up effectively. Meanwhile, product teams feel disconnected from both.
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- Siloed efforts: Teams work hard but remain isolated, with no shared metrics or collaborative strategic planning to unify their efforts.
These challenges don’t just create inefficiencies; they sap the energy of high-performing teams and limit an organisation’s ability to seize market opportunities. Misalignment becomes a bottleneck, preventing leaders from achieving their growth ambitions.
Alignment as a Strategic Advantage: Unlocking the Growth Engine
Alignment is increasingly viewed as a critical driver of competitive advantage. Research from Forrester reveals that highly aligned organisations grow 19% faster than their poorly aligned peers. This level of alignment allows businesses to:
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- Ensure their teams are collectively focused on strategic objectives.
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- Break down silos, fostering collaboration that amplifies the impact of their efforts.
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- Maximise the return on their investment in people, processes, and tools.
Aligned teams transform effort into impact, creating powerful growth engines that deliver consistent results. Leaders who can harness this alignment are better positioned to outperform their competitors and achieve sustainable growth.
Growth Diagnostic: A Baseline for Success
While the benefits of alignment are clear, achieving it effectively requires an impartial and unbiased perspective from which a business can baseline itself. The Growth Diagnostic from Mohala Growth Partners provides this bridge by providing impartial benchmarking, analysis and insights to create greater alignment.
One of the most significant barriers to unlocking growth potential is the difficulty of maintaining objectivity. Internal biases, competing priorities, and day-to-day pressures can cloud judgment and result in inaccurate viewpoints being formed.
A common finding for example, is a perception that the business is fully focused on growth. This is often not the reality, but can be masked very effectively: departments focus on the metrics that drive their individual success which may or may not align with the growth function or indeed the growth strategy itself.
Perception and reality can be very different, with misalignment acting as a silent killer of growth. By providing a clear, data-driven view of current performance, the Growth Diagnostic helps leaders:
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- Identify gaps and inefficiencies in their growth function.
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- Avoid unnecessary expenditure by targeting areas with the highest potential for optimisation.
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- Reduce the pressure on teams by creating clarity and shared purpose.
This baseline provides leaders with objective insights, focusing their efforts on the changes that will have the greatest impact. It shifts the conversation from reactive problem-solving to proactive growth planning, giving leaders the confidence to move forward with purpose.
Why Leaders Need an Objective Perspective
By leveraging the Growth Diagnostic, leaders gain a fresh perspective on their organisation’s strengths and opportunities. This clarity enables them to align their teams more effectively, avoid unnecessary expenditure (especially on Sales recruitment), and create a solid foundation for accelerated growth.
Maximise your revenue potential and deliver your growth strategy faster. Call 01223 828250 or via email at hello@mohalagrowth.co.uk to explore growth alignment further.
