obstacles to getting the improvements desired

This morning I was working with the Sales Operations group for a F100 company and experienced one of the major reasons that Marketing frequently does not deliver on its potential in improving selling effectiveness.
There are two perspectives that Sales Operations can take in their work regarding providing the sales channel with resources to use in the selling process:

1 - One option is to identify the requirements and aggressively work with Marketing and Product Management to make certain that the requirements are met. Providing anything less than the standards that have been identified is not acceptable.

2 - The other option is for Sales operations to do the best job possible with whatever is provided

Of course I believe that meeting the quality standards in the selling “supply chain” are as critical as they are in a manufacturing supply chain, and insufficient quality is too costly to accept. Unfortunately I believe that too many sales operations groups may be following the second option and just doing the best they can with whatever Marketing chooses to provide.

The process of generating sales is a process, and the quality of the resources and “components” provided to Sales has a huge impact on selling effectiveness. The issue is having the confidence in the “process” of selling to demand that the resources provided are of sufficient quality to support the level of selling effectiveness desired.