Picture this: The board members of a company decide that the company now will focus on developing a new line of products for an emerging customer segment. The senior management has to plan and supervise implementation of the new product line. But the actual implementation team is unclear about the company’s vision, and don’t even know why they are selling to a whole new type of customer. Does this scenario sound familiar?

People cannot align their actions and decisions with the strategies and priorities of the company if they lack an accurate understanding of the company’s strategy, its performance, the resulting priorities, and the ways in which their actions affect the performance of the company. Such a condition can create a myopia that grossly underutilizes the intelligence and motivation of large portions of the organization. It can also make it very difficult for people to work cohesively with colleagues across other business units or functions.

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Marketers continue to face an uphill battle when it comes to creating an effective marketing organization that demonstrably drives business growth. Chief executives and other senior management want every marketing penny to lead to business and revenue growth. Most leading companies are beginning to critically analyze the returns they get for their marketing dollars. And as global competition intensifies, they are far less tolerant of spending that is difficult to quantify. Senior management looks to marketing to enable, if not drive, short- and long-term business growth.

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