Tech companies often pride themselves on innovation and rapid expansion, yet many find themselves quietly wrestling with stalled revenue, frustrated sales teams, and product pipelines that fail to resonate with the market as strongly as they once did. Formulating a growth strategy is essential to overcoming these challenges—but it requires deeper alignment than most leaders realise.
Research commissioned by Mohala Growth Partners in December 2024 examined the financial performance of the UK technology sector using data from Moody’s FAME business intelligence platform. The findings reveal a stark reality: 55% of technology companies with revenues between £10–150 million face one or more of the following challenges:
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- Revenue and/or EBITDA trending downward
- Low revenue and/or EBITDA growth of between 0–5%
Coupled with high investor expectations—especially from Private Equity—this raises the question of why these problems are so common in the tech sector. Clearly, many issues can affect growth, but there is often a pervasive thread running through numerous companies. It frequently boils down to two flawed assumptions at the leadership level:
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- Leadership believes the entire organisation is focused on delivering the company’s growth plans
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- If growth stalls, the sales team must be at fault—“they just need more training or a harder push.”
Neither assumption is entirely accurate, meaning inefficiency exists at the heart of the company’s growth strategy. The deeper culprit is often the silent presence of siloed functions—Sales, Marketing, and Product (or Service) Management—that are not “hard-wired” together. Conflicting metrics, office politics, and inefficient collaboration lead to a breakdown of alignment that undermines sustainable expansion.
This article explores the uncomfortable truth of tech sales: many companies have done well in the past largely by being in the right place at the right time, taking advantage of a convenient wave of market demand. Yet, as soon as competition intensifies or customers demand newer technology, organisational cracks begin to show. Our aim here is to reveal how these silos develop, why they persist, and what steps can restore genuine alignment for a more robust growth strategy.
Misguided Assumption: “We’re Already Efficient at Achieving Growth”
Many technology leaders point to upbeat figures—like top-line revenue or daily active users—and conclude they are thriving. Indeed, the data may appear solid, especially if the business has historically enjoyed high demand. However, whilst most organisations have strong procedure elsewhere within the organisation, it is commonly found that many lack robust processes for connecting product positioning, marketing efforts, and sales execution. As a result, even companies achieving respectable results often leave significant revenue on the table.
A False Sense of Security
You might observe:
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- Hitting quarterly targets consistently—but only by offering large discounts.
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- Positive brand perception—yet stagnant product usage metrics.
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- Marketing reporting high lead generation—while sales complains of poor conversion.
Leaders, satisfied with superficial data, sometimes neglect to question whether these successes are genuinely optimal or merely “good enough” in a market that could be further penetrated. When the growth curve eventually levels off or dips, hidden inefficiencies become all too apparent.
Misguided Assumption: “It’s the Sales Team’s Fault”
When growth stalls, another widespread belief emerges: the sales force is not trying hard enough or lacks the necessary skills. This convenient narrative often goes, “We hired the wrong people” or “Our sales team needs better training on closing techniques.” While training can help—and poor sales performance does happen—it typically overlooks deeper structural issues.
Sales Teams as the Tip of the Spear
Sales teams are on the frontline, dealing daily with evolving customer requirements and tough competitor pitches. If Marketing has not studied the competition, or if Product does not deliver the outcomes customers expect, sales staff will bear the brunt. An under-informed or under-supported sales team is not the root cause of growth struggles; it is typically a symptom of broader organisational misalignment.
Forrester Research found in its study of 400 technology companies over an eight year period, that those with a cohesive approach to growth performed markedly better, growing at a faster rate and being more profitable than those who were not effectively aligned. This suggests that if your sales team is struggling, you should re-examine your growth strategy—including marketing narratives and product/service development plans..
The Reality: Siloed Functions and Conflicting Metrics
Despite having a clear growth strategy, many tech companies still run Sales, Marketing, and Product Management as separate silos, each with distinct priorities:
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- Marketing might optimise for lead volume, social media reach, or brand recognition.
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- Sales could be fixated on quarterly deals and short-term conversions, potentially neglecting broader brand goals.
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- Product Management may chase cutting-edge features or new technology without validating alignment to genuine customer needs.
Why Metrics Fragmentation Leads to Faux Efficiency
From a leadership perspective, it may look as though every department is meeting its objectives: Marketing generates leads, Product ships new features on schedule, and Sales closes enough deals to hit quota. Yet overall growth can stagnate if these targets do not harmonise. High lead volumes from Marketing may not be sales-ready, or Product’s newly released features may fail to address actual user pain points.
Forrester Research reports that many B2B tech companies suffer 10% to 15% revenue leakage each year because of suboptimal product-market alignment and a lack of synergy in marketing-to-sales handoffs. Such inefficiencies corrode the effectiveness of any purported growth strategy.
How Did We Get Here? Riding the Wave in Tech
Throughout tech history, numerous companies have soared to prominence simply by offering solutions at the perfect moment—cloud computing, mobile apps, data analytics, and AI have each experienced massive growth phases. Being in the right niche at the right time often felt effortless.
The Urgency (& in some cases Complacency) Factor
Many organisations ended up with disjointed structures because of:
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- Speed Over Integration: Rapid growth demanded immediate hiring and scaling, allowing silos to form unchallenged.
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- Easy Sales: High market demand diminished the urgency for cross-functional alignment when clients actively sought out solutions.
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- Leadership Focused on Scale: Leaders and investors prioritised swift expansion of brand presence and user base rather than constructing collaborative frameworks.
These fault lines stayed hidden as long as market momentum endured. Once new competitors emerged or the wave subsided, unaddressed silos became glaring obstacles, undermining the company’s growth strategy.
Symptoms of Siloed Operations
Signs of siloed operations become evident when:
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- Misaligned Messaging: Marketing touts a feature Sales does not fully understand, eroding customer confidence.
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- Pricing Mismatches: Product desires premium pricing to reflect advanced functionality, but Sales must discount heavily because the market sees no compelling differentiation.
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- Slow Response to Market Shifts: A competitor launches a standout feature, yet Product remains stuck “evaluating,” leading to missed revenue as Sales loses deals.
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- Blame Culture: Sales believes leads are poor quality; Marketing thinks Sales is ineffective; Product accuses both of failing to highlight new capability.
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- Lack of Cross-Departmental Understanding: Marketing, Sales, and Product each provide different answers about what constitutes a good lead, what the market really wants, or whether there is a clear, differentiated proposition.
If you experience even one of these pain points, it may be time to investigate company’s growth strategy and where alignment could drive improvement.
Consequences for Tech Sales and Growth
When these silos persist, growth strategy falters, and the impact on sales can be profound:
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- Inconsistent Product Narratives: Without cohesive messaging from Marketing and Product, Sales struggles to present a polished, unified value proposition.
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- Longer Sales Cycles: Potential clients sense confusion, losing confidence in your ability to address needs efficiently, which delays buying decisions.
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- Internal Delays: When Marketing and Product fail to share performance or usage data, Sales ends up working with outdated or irrelevant collateral.
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- Diminished Customer Loyalty: If customers only learn about new features once they complain, or if releases do not solve pressing issues, rivals quickly gain ground.
Unmasking Inefficiency: Leadership Blind Spots
Senior leaders often assess only top-line revenue or general metrics like “market share.” Positive figures can mask underlying inefficiencies. Short-term tactics might inflate these numbers, for example:
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- Heavy Discounting: Sales meets targets, but at the cost of margins, eroding long-term profitability.
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- Over-Reliance on Existing Customers: New customer acquisition lags if your value proposition is unclear or insufficiently differentiated, leaving the door open for competition.
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- Vanity Metrics: Marketing showcases social media engagement or event attendance figures that fail to translate into actual revenue.
Leadership’s Responsibility
C-level executives must look beyond surface-level achievements to ask:
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- Do departmental metrics reinforce a unified growth strategy?
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- Are Sales, Marketing, and Product rewarded in a way that encourages collaboration?
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- Is our communication transparent about missed objectives or delayed product updates?
Only by confronting these questions can leaders address the siloed nature of the organisation and move towards a more cohesive growth plan.
When Replacing or Training Sales Doesn’t Solve the Real Problem
A common reaction to slowing revenue is to reshuffle the sales team or invest heavily in sales training. While this may yield small improvements, it often sidesteps the crux of the issue.
Example: A SaaS Provider Struggling to Differentiate
Picture a mid-sized SaaS company with 30+ sales representatives. In an effort to boost conversions, leadership invests in an expensive training programme. However, the broader growth strategy remains uncoordinated:
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- Marketing’s message is generic, failing to address new competitor offerings.
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- Product focuses on minor interface tweaks rather than rectifying critical performance flaws that customers consistently complain about.
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- Even with enhanced closing techniques, Sales still loses deals when prospects discover missing key features.
Until all functions align to present a distinctive, customer-focused proposition, no individual sales tactic will compensate for a weak strategic foundation.
The Big Three: Why Sales, Marketing, and Product Management Must Align
Sustainable success in the tech sector hinges on three key functions: Sales, Marketing, and Product (including Service) Management. While other departments (finance, HR, operations) are also critical, these three steer the majority of growth-related activities.
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- Sales: Interfaces with customers daily, conveying real-time market feedback and relying on Marketing for quality leads and Product for relevant solutions.
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- Marketing: Crafts narratives to stimulate demand, depending on timely input from Sales and Product to ensure consistency and differentiate against competitors.
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- Product Management: Sets the development roadmap based on evolving customer needs and direct sales feedback, coordinating with Marketing for meaningful launch campaigns.
A unified growth strategy emerges when these three functions are in sync—enabling a fast response to market changes, effectively messaging value, and ensuring the product genuinely meets or exceeds customer expectations.
Conclusion
The uncomfortable truth about tech sales is that it is often not about an ultra-efficient engine or unskilled salespeople. Rather, many established tech companies are shackled by siloed Sales, Marketing, and Product teams, perpetuated by outdated structures, ill-fitting metrics, and complacent leadership. This problem is especially pronounced in companies that rode the wave of early market demand without building strong internal synergy.
A fresh growth strategy begins with acknowledging these silos and dismantling them. By realigning departmental goals under a single vision, encouraging open communication, and deploying data-driven methods to guide product and marketing decisions, businesses can revitalise not only the sales function but the entire organisation. Case studies repeatedly confirm that tech firms addressing these cultural and structural deficits often experience sharper innovation, a quicker reaction to competitive threats, and a healthier trajectory for long-term revenue growth.
If your sales teams are missing deals or your marketing campaigns fail to convert, it might be time to look deeper into how your teams collaborate. Engaging a specialised growth advisory to conduct an impartial organisational diagnostic can rapidly pinpoint areas to enhance revenue and profit. Ultimately, the solution goes well beyond short-term sales fixes; it demands a collective blueprint that ensures everyone is moving in sync towards the same strategic objectives. This is the bedrock for enduring success in the tech sector.
