Teamwork to Convert Marketing Efforts into Sales

I read an interesting post today on Todd Ebert's B2Bad Marketing blog about how important it is to have integrated marketing and sales functions in any company. This is not a new idea, and I was surprised to see that, according to recent research, less than 20% of companies say that their Sales and Marketing teams are extremely collaborative. Is this due to fear of competition or pressure on the behalf of the two departments, or is it due to the sheer difficulty of co-ordinating these two functions?

To make the process easier, I like seedsofgrowth.com's 35 Ways to Improve Collaboration in Sales and Marketing - especially no.s 1, 5 and 35.

I also love Todd Eberts analogy of a Marketing Department as a Motor-racing Pit Crew...