Product Description

The ultimate test of marketing investment, and indeed any investment, is whether it creates value for shareholders. But few marketing investments are evaluated from this perspective. Increasingly, boards of directors and city analysts the world over are dissatisfied with this lack of accountability.

Cranfield School of Management has been addressing this problem by working with a range of blue-chip companies. They have created a new framework which shows how marketing systematically contributes to shareholder value based on three key questions-

. Does the promised market exist?
. Will the strategy deliver the market share promised?
. Will the market share create shareholder value?

This groundbreaking new book explains the principles and practice behind rigorous due diligence in marketing for Marketing and Finance Directors, CEOs, Strategists and MBA students wanting to understand the key drivers of modern business

Surely, the time has come for marketing directors to take their rightful place in the boardroom by proving that what they are doing creates shareholder value added?

* Top level Cranfield based author team utilising latest Cranfield in-company research

* Connects marketing plans and investment to the valuation of the firm and how it can contribute to increasing stakeholder value

* Systematic and practical approach so that it can be used by both practitioners and students

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66029 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
MA(Oxon), MSc, PhD, D.Litt. FCIM FRSA, until recently was Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director Cranfield School of Management, with special responsibility for E-business. Malcolm is a graduate in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, in Business Studies from Bradford University Management Centre, and has a PhD from Cranfield University. He also has an Honorary Doctorate from Bradford University. Malcolm has extensive industrial experience, including a number of years as Marketing Director of Canada Dry.

Customer Reviews

Revolutionary yet applicable in practice
This is one of those rare books that is simultaneously revolutionary and yet is can be applied in the real world.

Anyone who is concerned with the effectiveness of marketing at a senior level will know that it is, frankly, slippery. Those of us who sit on the board are, I think rightly, sceptical of our marketing colleagues. We would like a practical but well-founded way of holding them to account.

This book seems to be it. Unsurprisingly, it's written not just by marketers (McDonald and Smith are two well known names in this field) but also by a finance guy, Keith Ward. Together, they've come up with a very robust process for testing whether a strategy will destroy or create shareholder value BEFORE we go to the expense of implementing it.

In short, they've looked at what makes plans fail to create value and come up with a comprehensive set of tests to evaluate the "market risk", "share risk" and "profit risk" inherent in any plan. From there it's a short step to calculating the shareholder value creation (or more often in my experience, destruction).

After reading it (it's refreshingly succinct and well written), my first thought was "of course, why didn't we think of that before". I think the answer is that these ideas needed a blend of marketing and finance thinking that is rare in this silo'd world.

What I like best about this is the fact that the process can be applied without expensive new market data and research. The raw material for the process is the business plan we write anyway.

What I like least is the title. I suspect a lot of us will pass it over because we mistake it for a marketing book. I only got it because a friend bought it for me. In fact, this book will be far more useful to CEOs and CFOs, I think many marketers will be scared of it as it will reveal the weaknesses of their strategies.

I've no hesitation to recommend this book 100% to anyone at board level in any medium or larger company. If, however, you're a marketer then I suggest you buy every copy you can and burn them, to stop your boss asking you very difficult questions.

Further, I predict it is only a matter of time before this Marketing Due Diligence process becomes as widespread and popular as balanced scorecard and other ideas that are now "de rigeur" in the boardroom.