The marketers' challenge: aligning companies for success in the real world

Simon Gulliford

This paper is an edited version of a speech given to the Marketing Society in November 2002, in which Simon Gulliford argues that marketers need to think more and analyse and research less.

The Marketers' Challenge:

Aligning companies for success in the real world

Simon GullifordBarclays Bank PLC

One of the most interesting quotes I have come across is from Gary Hamel's book Competing for the Future. In the first chapter he says, 'The company surrenders tomorrow's business when it gets better without changing.' Often organisations judge success on the basis of financial performance compared with the previous year an outlook that leads to organisations tending to see themselves as the sole architects of that success rather than merely the beneficiaries of favourable conditions in the markets in which they compete....

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands