Marketing needs supply chain intelligence for manufacturers to win with customers | MarTech

"Here's what it looks like when your marketing team is writing checks your operations can't cash: The perfect lead from a Fortune 500 manufacturer lands in your CRM at 9:47 AM. They downloaded your white paper, attended your webinar and submitted a quote request for a six-figure order. Your automated email promises a "rapid response from our team." But four days later, you're still waiting for sales engineering to generate that quote. Meanwhile, your competitor responds to the same prospect in two hours."

"Welcome to the $47.8 billion manufacturing AI revolution, with manufacturers paying $30 billion of that by 2027, according to IDC. Most of those AI-earmarked dollars will target supply chain and customer experience transformation, which means the current gap between marketing's promises and operational reality is a profit killer. The brutal truth is 50% of B2B deals go to whoever responds first, yet most manufacturing marketing teams remain hostage to backend systems that move at the speed of 1985."

"Marketing spends millions on tech stacks, crafting perfect customer journeys and promising ease at every touchpoint. But at the same time, too many actual quote-to-cash processes run on spreadsheets, email chains and that one sales engineer who knows how to price custom configurations. And consider this: 90% of B2B buyers globally have experienced critical delays, and two-thirds say a vendor's response speed is a deciding factor in purchasing decisions."

A perfect enterprise lead can be lost when backend quote-to-cash processes are slow, despite marketing capturing high-intent signals. Manufacturing is investing heavily in AI—IDC projects $47.8 billion overall and $30 billion by 2027—mostly for supply chain and customer experience improvements. Fast response matters: 50% of B2B deals go to the first responder, 90% of buyers have faced delays, and two-thirds cite response speed as decisive. Manufacturers show under 2% sales growth despite increased marketing spend, while firms that respond one day faster see roughly 5% revenue gains. The core issue is misalignment between marketing systems and operational execution.

Read at MarTech