Alignment and strategic change: a challenge for marketing and human resources

Alignment is a key aspect of strategic change. Alignment between customers and employees is a critical component. Two functional areas ‐ marketing and human resources ‐ are well positioned to play important roles in the alignment process, and they share similar methods. But in most organizations they are often not linked. The authors argue for leadership to overcome the functional barriers, avoid duplicate effort and gain fuller utilization of potential. They present a model for the alignment process and a set of tools to analyze alignment gaps and facilitate the cross‐functional linkage. The efficacy of the tools is illustrated by case examples. At the same time, the authors caution that continuously building alignment is more akin to a trek than a sprint.