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Marketing professionals often view their organization’s finance department as the “Ministry of No Way,” while finance professionals view the marketing department as the “Ministry of Fluff.” Thunderbird Professor Richard Ettenson, Ph.D., has seen the often fractious relationship that results when the two sides try to coexist. Despite his background as the Thelma H. Kieckhefer Research Fellow in Global Brand Marketing at Thunderbird, he lays much of the blame on his own colleagues who manage brands and generate leads for their organizations.
“Marketing professionals are the ones who must step up and demonstrate they create business value,” Ettenson told finance professionals gathered Feb. 3, 2011, at the CFO Alliance Breakfast Roundtable in Phoenix, Arizona. “All too often we have not helped our own cause.”
Ettenson said marketing professionals must back their creative ideas with solid research, and they must learn to articulate the scientific foundation for their ideas in language that resonates with the financial officers watching the bottom line.
“I remain a firm believer that executives with a strategic marketing mindset and strong brand focus can play a key leadership role in value creation at the world’s best companies,” Ettenson said. “In doing so, they must demonstrate the business impact that strategic marketing and branding can deliver to the organization.”
The CFO Alliance Breakfast Roundtable Series allows members in about 10 U.S. markets to network, identify issues, analyze problems and explore solutions. Thunderbird School of Global Management serves as the academic partner for the Phoenix group and provides discussion leaders at the bimonthly forums.
Thunderbird Professor Gregory Unruh, Ph.D., led a discussion Dec. 3, 2010, on corporate social responsibility and sustainability. And Thunderbird Professor Paul Kinsinger led a discussion Oct. 7, 2010, on market intelligence gathering.
For information on joining the group, visit http://achievenext.com/cfoa. Watch a video of Ettenson’s presentation here (35:47).
February 8th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Kudoos Prof. Ettenson. As marketing director for a couple of Fortune 500 companies in Asia these last 15 years I can verify what you wrote is often true. From a B2B marketing perspective (I think) marketing is responsible for everything between the factory and the customer. They are the ‘one’ that the CEO can ask, ‘why isn’t product A selling more or selling more profitably?’ No other single person/department (including Sales) can answer such a query. Because marketing often just has the role of advertising and promotion the CEO resorts to talking with either operations or finance about business problems.
Another discovery was that IF marketing comes up with good solutions and proposals that REALLY make a difference – they are considered too risky. I have seen few marketing proposals that considered risk. Perhaps a monte carlo analysis at best. Certainly not in terms that Finance and the CEO can understand. Consequently if 5-10% growth is the goal then hedging, foreign exchange, taking service reserves to profit, cutting costs, reducing headcount, reducing borrowing costs, reducing accounts receivable days and so forth are considered almost zero risk (and zero cash needed) methods to acheive the goal while ‘marketing proposals’ carry almost infinite risk by comparison.
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