Growth dies in the gaps between functions

When companies fail to meet their growth targets, marketers are criticised for lacking creativity or deep audience understanding, whilst sales professionals are reprimanded for missing sign-up targets. But according to marketing strategist Julia Payne, what many bosses to realise is that this culture of finger-pointing allows deeper causes of growth-limiting failures to persist.

Marketing, sales, product, finance, and customer success teams have long worked in parallel rather than in partnership – each operating on separate datasets and departmental KPIs. In fast-paced business environments, this separation can inadvertently encourage competition. Rather than driving productivity, as many would expect, this leads to duplicated efforts and mixed messages reaching consumers, ultimately weaking trust and performance.

Leaders must replace this patchwork approach with connected workflows if they want to see sustainable growth. When everyone works towards the same commercial goals, operations become more efficient and effective. Campaigns land with greater clarity, customers experience a consistent journey, and confidence begins to build – both internally and externally.

Connecting the dots

In order for this shift to take hold, leaders must adopt a Revenue Operations (RevOps) mindset. Shared databases ensure decisions are made from the same information, eliminating mixed messaging. And by celebrating group achievements, rather than isolated successes, blame is replaced with collective accountability. With these foundations in place, collaboration becomes the new, growth-promoting standard.

Modern firms depend on extensive tech stacks, though many have outgrown what they can manage. MuleSoft, for instance, reports that the average enterprise now uses over 1,000 apps, yet fewer than 30% of these are integrated. When systems can’t communicate with one another because of this – data passing easily between them – human collaboration is inhibited. Decisions are still made disparately and mistakes are still made – not to mention, technological silos slowing things down. Leaders must therefore identify which tools add real value across the organisation and which create bottlenecks. Progress is very much a case of ‘less is more’ when it comes to tech.

Once systems are aligned, leaders must tackle a more complex challenge: behaviour. Many teams are used to defending their own patch. Marketing criticises sales for slow follow-up, as sales faults product teams for missing features. Customer success blames everyone as it grapples with the fallout. When rewards are tied to team-specific targets, these dynamics only deepen.

To overcome this, leaders must promote shared responsibility. Interdepartmental plans need to be built collaboratively – not handed down from one function to another. Regular, whole-company check-ins must be held to keep everyone informed too, eliminating the conditions where assumptions thrive. Likewise, by openly recognising achievements that required joint effort, leaders can reinforce the value of co-operation and encourage more. Over time, accountability becomes something people lean into rather than fear, as a result.

Ending the relay-race mindset

With stronger systems and healthier culture, workflows stop resembling a relay race – where each team completes its run, passes the baton, and moves on – instead, becoming more unified. Shared planning, insights, and ownership improve the entire customer journey, and consequently, produce outcomes beneficial to the entire company – such as growth and revenue.

When teams operate in sync under RevOps alignment, expectations remain clear and the gaps that once slowed progress begin to close.

Of course, even the strongest processes can still fail if the wrong metrics are in place. Many organisations continue to measure activity rather than outcomes, focusing on lead counts, call volumes, or ticket closures, for example, without considering whether or not these really support wider, more significant goals such as revenue, retention, and customer lifetime value.

To counter this, leaders must establish shared commercial measures. One definition of each customer-lifecycle stage, one scorecard that everyone contributes to, and one view of performance that reveals how every function influences the whole. RevOps underpins this by consolidating data into a single, reliable source of truth; but leaders must reinforce it by regularly reviewing progress against unified goals. When people can clearly see their impact company wide, alignment becomes much easier to sustain.

When everything connects

With joined-up systems, aligned teams, and shared metrics, progress becomes far more predictable. Marketing builds campaigns designed to convert, not just impress. Sales receives leads they understand and trust. And customer success teams can support buyers who received an accurate picture from the word ‘go’. Finance can finally forecast using data the entire organisation stands behind, too.

Each department still delivers its own specialist work; but these efforts now fit together as part of a connected revenue engine.

Growth rarely falters because one team underperforms. Rather, it breaks down in the spaces between functions – where systems fail to connect, handoffs become unclear, incentives clash, and no one has full visibility of the customer journey.

If leaders want meaningful change, they must stop searching for a single team to blame and start targeting the structural gaps where growth truly dies. RevOps provides the foundations for doing so, aligning data, processes, culture, and measurement so all teams now move in the same, progress-driving direction.

When teams operate as one, the customer hears a single confident story, momentum builds, and firms finally have the conditions they need to thrive. Growth doesn’t die in the marketplace; it dies in the gaps between functions. Close these gaps and progress will inevitably follow.