In a market environment where there is one monopolizing company, there would be no need to have employees undergo coaching in sales and marketing. The product sells as there is no competition.
Now however, the technology industry is a completely different story. Even while your prototype is being developed by your design and development department there is a rival company somewhere making a similar or even better product to sell to exactly the same market that you plan to sell to. The only way to stay afloat in the harsh competition is to keep a close watch over the market trends and patterns.
The marketing department will keep closely studying the market to ensure that no consumer needs are missed, and they will pass this information on to other departments within the company. However they must keep rallying new information back as the product is being designed and developed because the final product has to meet all of the consumers needs, even those that have recently come up, when it is given to the sales team to sell. If all of the customer needs are definitely met, then the sales team can aggressively sell to the best of their ability with the knowledge that they are providing a genuine solution to a real problem.
There have been companies in the past that have thought that they could save on costs by not carrying out a market survey before releasing their product. The result was bad losses in more or less all of these cases. The companies that have always conducted thorough market research and then discussed their findings with their design and development teams however have seen great success with their products.
Think for a moment about the design and development teams within a technology company. They will undoubtedly be highly skilled and very able to handle the technical side of developing the products. However, if the marketing team does not relay to them the exact needs of the potential customers, how are they going to create a product that they want to buy? Fluent internal communication within companies is essential. It can mean the difference between the success and failure of a product.
So back to the original point, is it necessary to have your staff coached in sales and marketing?
The answer is a BIG yes as only when all the different employees in the company understand customer expectations will they be able to deliver the goods.