Technology companies tend to evolve from product-driven to sales-driven to marketing-driven. The process starts when you introduce an innovative technology—the proverbial "better mousetrap"—and, as the proverb suggests, the world beats a path to your door. This is the product-driven phase of development. All you have to do is show up and hungry prospects will buy. Because your product is unique, margins are substantial, so sales and marketing can be (and often are) inefficient, even sloppy, and you still make a profit.

Once you’ve sold to the early adopters and your product has developed some competition, sales are harder to come by. Margins get slimmer. This is the sales-driven phase, in which you rely on your sales force to identify prospects, overcome objections, and take on the competition, and the primary role of marketing is to support sales.

As the market matures, the challenge is to maintain leadership and expand your market while avoiding commoditization. This is where marketing can be a powerful strategic resource, analyzing the market, positioning the company and its products, and communicating both internally and externally to help reduce the cost of sales and maximize revenue. This is the final, marketing-driven phase of development.

Because technology companies are oriented toward innovative product, they run the risk of stalling in the product- or sales-driven phase of development and losing ground as the market matures. Early adoption of a marketing focus—even before competition gets a foothold—helps you maintain leadership, expand and control your market(s), and master competition and change. Marketing can assume an expanded role as the market matures, but the final transition to marketing-driven is a strategic choice that must be made at the highest levels of the organization.