A few weeks back, Martin Roll – regarded as the ‘Asian Branding Guru’ and author of the global bestseller ‘Asian Brand Strategy’ – was in Sri Lanka to share key insights on strategic brand building with Sri Lankan CEOs and marketers.
During the panel discussion which ensued, one participant asked the reason why long-term strategic brand development, which is an important aspect of marketing, is not valued by Sri Lankan companies.
The immediate response of one of leading CEOs from the banking sector in the panel reflected the never-ending battle of marketers to gain influencing power in boardrooms; he said that the biggest problem in Sri Lankan boardrooms was that they were dominated by finance specialists who value only tangible assets and as a result, there were fewer opportunities for marketers to raise their voice.
As quite rightly discussed at the forum, the dominance of finance professionals in the boardroom is limiting the utilisation of non-financial management information – such as brand value, customer satisfaction and sustainability intelligence – in taking long-term strategic decisions which fine-tune the direction of any company.
It is true that the board is supposed to be accountable to shareholders for the proper management of company assets. However, boards of directors are not required (or do not take the trouble) to report to investors what they are doing with their most important assets created through marketing efforts such as ‘branding’.
Who is blamed for not having enough marketers and marketers’ voice in boardrooms? Is it because companies do not recognise the value of marketing in deciding on the strategic direction of an organisation or marketers’ inability to understand boardroom language?
It is important for any marketer to understand the real cause of their role not being sufficiently recognised at boardroom level and how to fix the issue.
As Peter Drucker said, the only two functions of any organisation are innovation and marketing. Irrespective how innovative a company is, how committed the employees are and how competent the top management is, unless the company connects with the customer, success will be elusive.
The top management should constantly evaluate their strategic decision in the context of customer feedback, what the customers value and how the customers can help the company in co-creating value. This process is only possible with the presence of a marketer at board level. But so far how successfully marketers ‘market’ this idea is questionable!
At the same time with marketers’ knowledge about customers and other stakeholders, marketing plays a central role in leveraging internal capabilities. But to assert such a central role within any company, marketers should be able to understand the different aspects of the company, its strategies, resources and limitations. Marketers are often involved in their own jobs and fail to leverage their centrality in a company. This has made the marketers’ case to justify their presence in the boardroom worse and more difficult.
Though that is the case, it has been long argued that one of the fundamental challenges of marketing that has undermined the credibility of marketing, threatened the standing of marketing within a company and even questioned the existence of the very discipline as a distinct entity is marketing’s failure to quantify its outcomes and justify investments into marketing activities.
Marketing fundamentally differs from other functions within a company like finance or operations in a few aspects. As marketing deals with people, their attitudes, inner feelings and eventual behaviours, they are not as predictable as an outcome of a machine or production process. It is always a complex mental progression which cannot be explained through straight forward methods. As a result, there can be a considerable time lag between marketing actions and the intended outcomes.
Further, measuring these outcomes will have to involve both financial and nonfinancial metrics. Given these underlying challenges, it is often challenging for the marketer to survive at board level since nonfinancial metrics are not an inbuilt element in boardroom language.
Having said that, marketers can’t get away with the responsibility of their own weaknesses in failing to make an impression at the board level. Many companies still continue to equate marketing with advertising and sales. But marketing has long evolved from being a tactical departmental function to an organisation-wide strategic discipline. But marketers are still struggling to highlight this and develop a strong case to open the door of a boardroom.
In order for marketing to rise up to boardroom level, marketers should be able to thoroughly understand the strategic imperatives of the company across the board. Such a state can be reached through formalised internal cross disciplinary training. Such a training system would allow marketers to understand the dynamics of corporate strategy and also enable marketers to effectively leverage the collective internal resources towards ensuring profitability and optimal results. This will strengthen the position of marketers in the company and open the window to formulate a strategic intent with marketing at its centre.
It is required for marketing departments to become more accountable by linking marketing actions and policies with financial results. Marketers should become capable in analytics and finance. It is evident that marketers hate finance.
To cite a simple example, if you analyse SLIM exam results for the subject Finance for Marketing, the poor emphasis of marketers towards financial aspects is proved. However, ‘finance’ is an integral part of boardroom language and marketers should master it to be competitive and in turn reserve a seat in the boardroom.
In conclusion, it is important to note that boardroom discussions are dominated by the left brain, which represents extreme logical thinking, and marketing is conquered by the right brain. However, it is also noteworthy to mention that when deciding the strategic intent, it is important to count on both aspects.
This will convert the board with the right balance and mix of skills which represent the wider population in an organisation. At the same time, marketers should proactively think of ways and means to bring quantifiable results in everything they do. It is important for marketers to understand how boards work, identify input required by the board and deliver accordingly.
Martin Roll in his presentation to Sri Lankan CEOs said: “Right now marketers are lame ducks and they need to be elevated to the boardroom.”
This statement is a true challenge for all marketers in Sri Lanka.
