The Influence of Marketing Departments on Strategy

Verhoef and Leeflang (2009) come forward with some pretty compelling evidence about the state of marketing departments and their influence on strategy. I stopped reading JAM in 2009, so the original paper escaped my attention. The updated 2010 version in “New Theories” did capture it though. You can get the paper from either source. You can also read the following summary:

There’s an issue with marketing departments themselves and their relationship with strategy at the C-suite. Its influence within an organization, on strategy, is waning as compared to R&D and the CFO. I thank Peter and Peter for writing the piece and will now shove into analytics.

So, marketing has an issue. There’s good evidence to support that assertion.

I’m concerning myself purely with what those with an analytical mindset could contribute.

Do you believe that those with an analytics toolkit can, or even should, make a major contribution to the formulation of strategy beyond the provision of fact and insight?