\"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only these two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.\"



These were the words of the late Peter Drucker, a man that Jack Welch refers to as the \"greatest management thinker of the 20th century\", and Tom Peters refers to as the \"inventor of modern management\".





Having spoken with hundreds of business executives in recent years, I found that marketing has failed in its promise to produce results. Marketers are under siege from management executives in the sales, finance, and human resource departments, who are often cynical of the contributions of marketing departments. They perceive (correctly or incorrectly) that marketing teams spend a lot but have little to show for it. Sales executives complain about the lack of leads coming from campaigns like advertising, events, or mailers. Finance executives look at marketing expense, associate it with golf outings and flashy public relations parties, and see it as an easy target for cost-cutting measures. Human resource executives, steeped in the tribal knowledge that marketing departments should be the first to cut staff in a downturn, are naturally suspect about the importance of marketers. It is tough to be a marketer.



Are these perceptions about marketing fair? Has marketing lost track of its charter to create the customer? Does marketing still deliver on its promise to produce results? Is marketing actually the distinguishing function of the business?



If you ask anyone outside the marketing department, we know what the answer would be: no! And if you ask any marketer off-the-record, you would probably get the same answer. So what is the problem? And why isnt something being done to fix it?