Marketing skills help to build profitable growth

The first question a head hunter should have for any aspiring marketing director is: ‘What have you done to generate profitable growth for the organisations you have worked for?’ If the answer is not wholly convincing, end of interview. Growth is on the government’s agenda as never before. But growth has always been top of most companies’ agendas and we need to think about the role that marketing could (and should) be playing in building profitable growth. First of all, it’s worth looking generally at the main levers for generating profitable growth, and which department has the most skills to drive them. The table below lists 12 levers and the skills required for them, with no attempt to prioritise; they are all important in one way or another. Of course, these activities cover only the development aspects of people’s jobs. Like everyone else, marketers spend most of their time on housekeeping and maintenance, doing the things that are necessary to keep organisations going on a day-to-day basis. It’s always the shortest-term and least-important aspects of a business that have the tightest deadlines, and make the most noise. But looking at these 12 levers for profitable growth, one can draw some conclusions.

• Half are the primary responsibility of marketing. And marketing is importantly involved in most of the remainder.
• People in finance have few skills either in generating profitable growth, or in raising productivity. Their skills lie in raising capital, managing cash and data, communicating with the City; M&A; and cost reduction. These are important, but much less so than generating profitable growth. It remains a mystery to me why so many CEOs have a finance background.
• Marketers seem to spend a vast amount of their time on communications, worrying whether or not they are doing enough about the internet, and on promotions, in addition to housekeeping. In my career, I’ve spent much of my time on the wrong things. It could be an interesting exercise for marketers to consider: how much of their time is absorbed on housekeeping rather than on the levers of growth; and how much time is spent on each of the 12 individual levers, and whether this allocation should change. Lack of time on M&A has always been a glaring weakness of marketers. They have never got to grips with this, and so the responsibility is left open for finance. That’s why 60% of acquisitions fail.

Marketing’s extraordinary potential for generating growth continues to go unrecognised by the wider world and, it seems, even by marketers themselves. Too many are allowing themselves to be boxed into communication silos, or chasing the latest trend in social networking. Too few are widening their skills or evangelising their capabilities and influence within the organisation. Companies need many more marketing-trained CEOs and many more marketers on main boards as well as non-executive directors. Focusing on the 12 levers of growth will help make this happen.   

Hugh Davidson chairs the H&S Davidson Trust. [email protected]

Hugh Davidson advises marketers to spend less time on communication and more of their time on the levers of growth.