A disconnect between marketing and business development can always make it challenging for AEC firms to get work. But the problem can be acute during difficult economic times, said marketing experts at a think tank in New York City on Nov. 13. The event was organized by the SMPS Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes research and education.
“The most vexing question” is why marketing and business-development professionals are not working well together, said panelist Suzanne C. Lowe, president of Expertise Marketing LLC, Concord, Mass. “A huge part of it” is because roles are not clearly defined and responsibility and accountability may be split, she explained. Lowe’s recently published book, “The Integration Imperative,” cites a study that found no one person is in charge of “demand creation” in almost a third of professional-services firms. One attendee noted that, in hard times, firms try to hire a “combo package,” but employees are not always trained to do multiple jobs.