Sometimes the tension between finance and marketing teams is so familiar it practically has its own calendar invite. One side is chasing growth, the other is watching the numbers, and somewhere in the middle a product quietly loses its footing before anyone agrees on why.
This push and pull is not new, but it is one of the most overlooked reasons products fail. When the two teams are not aligned, decisions get made in silos. Marketing commits to a promise the budget cannot support. Finance cuts spending that marketing needed to build momentum. The product ends up caught between two versions of reality.
What makes this conversation so uncomfortable is that both sides usually have valid points. The friction is not about competence. It is about priorities that were never properly reconciled at the start.
The question worth sitting with is this: at what stage in your product cycle does finance actually come into the room with marketing, and are they speaking the same language when they do?
Originally published by BusinessDay.