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05/03/2009: "Who let the Barbarians in? Challenges and opportunities facing the marketing discipline."

Courtesy of Pearson, I have given a few talks around the country on the challenges and opportunities facing the marketing discipline. The title of the talk is "Who let the Barbarians in?" Click here to access a Power Point presentation of it.

Based on recent consulting experiences and articles published in the marketing literature, I argue that the marketing discipline is under threat. There are Barbarians at the gate, waiting to take traditional marketing competencies away from the marketing function. Unlike Barbarians of old who were foreigners, these Barbarians are none other than colleagues in other functions such as finance, sales, and operations.

In my talk I present the challenges facing our discipline, but I also offer implications for the teaching and practice of marketing, as well as the implications for our students. I have summarized some of these implications below:

1. Marketing has to demonstrate what value it brings to the corporation.
2. Practitioners have to establish a clear link between marketing expenditures and return on investment.
3. All of us, academics and practitioners alike, have to speak the same language: stop, for example, equating "marketing" with "marketing communications".
4. We should teach students the strategic power of marketing and the role marketing can play in organizational transformation, not just an emphasis on terms and definitions.
5. Students have to learn to be comfortable in unstructured decision making environments, with access to limited data.

I look forward to receiving your thoughts and comments on my presentation. You can always contact me at asirsi@schulich.yorku.ca