Why Does Marketing Have Credibility Issues within the 'C' Suite?
Posted by Chris Quinn
Marketing is the one functional area that struggles for credibility within the 'C' suite amongst all the other functions. This lack of credibility stems from real concerns about the ability of marketing personal to confidently link their spending with the organization's profitability. The quote below resulted from a survey of 'CEO's' which found that more than 50% agreed with the statement:
"The reason for marketing's low level of credibility is largely because marketing lacks disciplined financial-return measures to assess the value of their contribution to the enterprise." - Booz-Allen Consulting
The implications of this are clear- marketing will struggle to make the case for investment spending when competing for finite organizational resources due to the lack of marketing profitability measures.
There are new marketing profitability software tools available to both support the education of marketing personnel and the use of these marketing metrics on an on-going basis. The Marketing Metrics Handbook is being deployed by organizations to accomplish these dual objectives of both educating and providing a job-aide/tool to embed the new marketing profitability practices.
If marketing professionals cannot improve their ability to articulate the profit impact of their spending recommendations in terms that address the organization's profitability while incorporating the external market's realities, the results of the CEO survey will not change and credibility will likely worsen.
With so many MBA's in the workforce- why does this problem persist?