Marketing and Finance

The truest sign that an executive has reached, or is on a trajectory towards a senior position is when they start to look outside of their own functional silo and consider business issues that normally lie within the remit of other departments. Nowhere is this more true than at the marketing/finance interface. At this mission-critical boundary, senior marketers must understand the implications of their strategies not just for sales or profit, but on risk adjusted rate of return. Similarly, senior finance executive can no longer manage the numbers; they must make critical assessments of commercial goals and understand how alternative marketing strategies may create or destroy shareholder value.

The Marketing and Finance Solution is the first book of its kind to address this interface, not from a marketing or finance angle, but from a combined perspective that incorporates leading knowledge in both disciplines. Written by three leading academics with decades of experience working across this functional boundary in major multinationals, The Marketing and Finance Solution is a unique and essential addition to the library of senior marketing and finance professionals.

This updated, revised, 2nd edition of the critically acclaimed Marketing Due Diligence includes a re-written first chapter that compares effective and ineffective business plans to identify the fundamentals of commercially successful strategies. Filled with examples from both business-to-business as well as consumer markets from a wide range of sectors, this new edition includes a thorough update of those examples for the modern, post-financial crash world.

Professor Malcolm McDonald was recently cited as one of the top marketing gurus in the world, along with Philip Kotler and Michael Porter and, in a 2006 Times HE piece, he was named as one of the top ten consultants in the UK. He is now Emeritus Professor at Cranfield University School of Management where, until recently, he was Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director. Formerly Marketing Director of Canada Dry, he is Chairman of six companies and works with many of the operating boards of the world’s biggest multinationals on every continent. He is the author of over 40 books, many of which have been translated into several foreign languages and has published hundreds of articles and papers. Malcolm continues to research and teach at Cranfield and other universities around the world, in addition to speaking engagements, visiting lectures, and consultancy work.

Professor Brian D. Smith is a world-recognised expert on competitive strategy in pharmaceutical and medical markets. He is Adjunct Professor at Bocconi SDA and Visiting Research Fellow at the Open University Business School, where his research interests include strategy making and implementation in medical markets. He is the editor of the Journal of Medical Marketing and the author of over 200 books, papers and articles in the field of marketing and competitive strategy. He also runs Pragmedic, a specialist strategy consultancy and works with many of the world’s leading pharma and medtech companies. Brian has over 30 years experience in medical technology and pharmaceutical markets in both R&D and commercial roles. He has been a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing for over 20 years and is a former International Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. He currently serves on the committees of two CIM groups, The Levitt Group and the Medical Marketing Group.

Keith Ward studied economics at Cambridge and then qualified as both a chartered accountant and a chartered management accountant. He worked both in the City and abroad as a consultant and held senior management positions in manufacturing and trading companies (the last being as group financial director of Sterling International). In 1981 Keith joined Cranfield School of Management, where he progressed to become Professor of Financial Strategy, as well as being Head of the Finance and Accounting Group and Director of the Research Centre in Competitive Performance. In addition to his academic work, he developed his own international consultancy practice. He then moved to a Visiting Professorial role at the School, while continuing with his research and consultancy interests, until retiring at the end of 2009. He is the author of a number of books including Marketing Finance. He has also published numerous papers and articles, and contributed to several other books, including as editor.