The Marketing CEO

insight

What steps can a CEO take to create a market- and customer-focused company?

1. Convince senior management of the need to become customer focused. The CEO personally exemplifies strong customer commitment and rewards those who do likewise.
2. Appoint a senior marketing officer and marketing task force. The marketing task force should include the CEO; C-level executives from sales, R&D, purchasing, manufacturing, finance, and human resources; and other key individuals.
3. Get outside help and guidance. Consulting firms have considerable experience helping companies adopt a marketing orientation.
4. Change the company’s reward measurement and system. As long as purchasing and manufacturing are rewarded for keeping costs low, they will resist accepting some costs required to serve customers better. As long as finance focuses on short-term profit, it will oppose major investments designed to build satisfied, loyal customers.
5. Hire strong marketing talent. The company needs a chief marketing officer who not only manages the marketing department but also gains respect from and influence with other C-level executives.
6. Develop strong in-house marketing training programs. Design marketing training programs for corporate management, divisional managers, marketing and sales personnel, manufacturing personnel, and others.
7. Install a modern marketing planning system. The planning format will require managers to think about the marketing environment, opportunities, competitive trends, and other forces as they prepare strategies—and hold them accountable for performance.
8. Establish an annual marketing excellence recognition program. Business units that believe they’ve developed exemplary marketing plans should submit a description of their plans and results. Reward winning teams and share winning ideas across the company.
9. Shift from a department focus to a process- outcome focus. Appoint process leaders and crossdisciplinary teams to reengineer and implement key fundamental processes.
10. Empower the employees. Encourage and reward employees for new ideas and empower them to settle customer complaints.

Legal Behavior Organizations must ensure every employee knows and observes relevant laws.²² For example, it’s illegal for salespeople to lie to consumers or mislead them about buying a product. They may not offer bribes to influence a B-to-B purchase. Their statements must match advertising claims, and they may not obtain or use competitors’ technical or trade secrets through bribery or industrial espionage. They must not disparage competitors or competing products by suggesting things that are not true.

Ethical Behavior It’s not always easy to draw a clear line between normal marketing practice and unethical behavior. Some issues can generate controversy or sharply divide critics, such as acceptable marketing to children.²³ Of course, certain business practices are clearly unethical or illegal. These include bribery, theft of trade secrets, false and deceptive advertising, exclusive dealing and tying agreements, quality or safety defects, false warranties, inaccurate labeling, price-fixing or undue discrimination, and barriers to entry and predatory competition.

Companies must adopt and disseminate a written code of ethics, build a company tradition of ethical behavior, and hold their people fully responsible for observing ethical and legal guidelines. The general distrust of companies among U.S. consumers is evident in research showing the percentage of those who view corporations unfavorably is almost 40 percent.²⁴

Social Responsibility Behavior Increasingly, people want information about a company’s record on social and environmental responsibility to help them decide which companies to buy from, invest in, and work for.²⁵ Corporate philanthropy also can pose dilemmas. Merck, DuPont, Walmart, and Bank of America have each donated $100 million or even more to charities in a year. Yet good deeds can be overlooked—even resented—if the company is seen as exploitive or fails to live up to a “good guys” image. Some critics worry that cause marketing or “consumption philanthropy” may replace virtuous actions with less thoughtful consumer buying, reduce emphasis on real solutions, or deflect attention from the fact that markets may create many social problems to begin with.²⁶