How Shareholder Value Analysis Re-Defines Marketing

Peter Doyle

There is a paradox in how top management view marketing. On the one hand, marketing has become accepted as the central driver of shareholder value. Every world-class company now puts building long-term relationships with customers, based on satisfying their needs, at the forefront of strategy. Yet while the central role of marketing in achieving competitiveness and creating shareholder value is undisputed, the role of marketing professionals appears increasingly questioned.

Throughout the 1990s management consultants reported studies describing marketing as being in crisis. Indeed, a recent survey of major companies by the Marketing...