It is not a perception problem. It is a structural fracture, and it is felt most of all on results.
The reason this gap exists is not a lack of goodwill, nor of competence. The companies we meet have capable teams, often with years of B2B experience. The problem is upstream: they work without a shared, co-designed, measurable Go-to-Market process. They work with activities, not with a system. And when an activity does not bring the expected results, the natural response is to add another one.
We do not propose doing more. We propose stopping doing it, and replacing initiatives with a process.
Why spot initiatives are no longer enough
2026 presents us with a B2B market deeply different from the one for which most GTM architectures were designed. According to the report The 2026 State of B2B GTM Strategy published by Outcomes Rocket, from a sample of 511 B2B professionals, the buying committee on enterprise deals today averages over 11.2 stakeholders, with a sales cycle that reaches 218 days. Each stakeholder has different priorities, different sources, and is at a different stage of the decision-making process.
In this context, a marketing initiative, even if well executed, cannot manage the complexity. It can reach a segment of the audience, at a specific moment, with a message that works for that stage. But it cannot hold together the sequence of touchpoints necessary to lead a buying group from problem recognition to decision.
The result is a structure that almost naturally produces this outcome: each function optimizes its own perimeter. Marketing optimizes channel conversions. Sales optimizes closing rates. Events optimize attendance. Everyone does their job well. But no one owns the system that connects them.
"Marketing often works. The problem is that it works for itself, not for the system in which it should be embedded."
When this happens, the problem is not visible in individual metrics. Campaigns run. Leads arrive. Events fill up. Yet the pipeline does not grow with the continuity one would expect. And the response, almost always, is to add activities instead of looking at the architecture.
The real cost of a lack of process
There is a way to quantify the price of this fragmentation. Also according to Forrester calculations, companies with unaligned marketing and sales lose an average of between 10% and 38% of potential revenue. Not in additional costs, in opportunities the market would have granted and the internal architecture failed to convert.
For a company with 10 million euros in turnover, we are talking about 1–3.8 million euros a year. Not in excessive expenses, but in value evaporated in the distance between functions.
It is not a problem that can be solved with new campaigns, new tools, or a change of vendor. It is solved by addressing the structural issue: marketing and sales operate with separate objectives, separate metrics, and often even with a different understanding of who the customer is and what phase they are in within the buying process.
The truth that constantly emerges from field work is this: there is no shortage of ideas, no shortage of resources, no shortage of capabilities. The thread that connects them is missing. The process is missing.
What it means to have a Go-to-Market process
A Go-to-Market process is not a document. It is not the annual plan revisited in an integrated key, nor the alignment model presented to the board. It is an operational discipline, the shared way in which an organization decides how to bring its value to the market: in what sequence, through which functions, measured by which metrics.
The difference compared to the initiative-based approach emerges clearly across three dimensions.
On budget. When a GTM process exists, every activity is evaluated in relation to its contribution to the pipeline, not channel performance. An event that brings 300 attendees and zero qualified conversations has a different return, and a measurable one, compared to one that brings 80 attendees and 15 opportunities. Without a shared process, this distinction is not systematically visible.
On the sales cycle. A co-designed GTM process reduces the time sales reps spend educating the prospect. This happens because marketing has already done part of that work: with the right content, at the right times, for the right profiles. When the two functions work on the same funnel and the same messages, sales conversations start from a higher level of awareness.
On diagnosis. When results do not come, a shared process allows isolating the problem. Does the pipeline freeze in positioning? In nurturing? In sales enablement? In the quality of the events? Without a process, this diagnosis is almost impossible, because the data of the different functions do not talk to each other. The problem remains diffuse, and the default response is to add activities.
It is precisely to meet this need that we built the Line Method: a proprietary three-phase methodology that maps the Go-to-Market on over 64 KPIs, to pinpoint exactly where the process is interrupted, before intervening.
Process as a competitive advantage
There is a data point that summarizes this transition better than others. According to the LeanData GTM State of Efficiency Report 2026, organizations that adopt an integrated Revenue Operations approach grow three times faster than those that manage functions separately.
It is not a matter of sector or size. It is a matter of system. And the difference in speed does not depend on the intensity of activities, but on the consistency with which functions are connected around common goals.
What we observe in organizations growing stably in B2B is not more creative marketing, nor more aggressive sales. It is the presence of a GTM process that works as an architecture: it defines priorities, aligns functions, and measures results where they really count, revenue, not the channel.
This also changes the way marketing is perceived internally. When it is embedded in a process, it stops being evaluated on the activities it produces and begins to be measured on the contribution it brings to the business result. It is a transformation that changes budget allocation criteria, the quality of the dialogue with sales, and the type of decisions made in leadership meetings.
The companies building this advantage are not doing it by adding resources. They are doing it by redesigning the way the resources they already have work together.
Want to learn more?
Do you want to map and write your company's Go-to-Market process? Eliminate historic friction between marketing and sales by designing an integrated, structured, and data-driven Revenue Operations (RevOps) workflow. Request a strategic Go-to-Market consultation