Breakfast In Bangalore

I just finished breakfast with one of my customers out here in Bangalore. He runs a 90 person Asia-Pacific SE team. It's insightful, yet also disappointing, to hear about the apparent global mismatch between sales and presales during the middle of the sales cycle.

Now we both want the same thing - great success for our customers and great revenue for ourselves. It's the speed of the salescycle which causes the discord. Presales views sales as charging through the sales phases as quickly as possible, short-cutting or omitting steps where possible. Sales views presales as an anchor to the process, always slowing things down with questions and yet more questions.

Both sides (and maybe that is the root cause - that there are sides instead of a true single team) believe their approach is correct. Since sales usually trumps presales in >90% of companies - speed rules. The resultant chaos keeps people like me in business. So where is the middle ground? What is the balance between speed and caution? How do we avoid "the dash to demo" yet get the deal done in the shortest time possible?

Many questions . interested in hearing what you do in your company to strike the appropriate balance?