The Capabilities of accountable marketing practitioners: a finance perspective

This paper explores the marketing accountability concept and identifies the capabilities of marketing practitioners that link marketing activities and strategies to organizational outcomes. Where previous research has focused on marketing practitioners' perceptions of themselves, this study uses nonmarketing professionals to identify the marketing capabilities required to generate marketing accountability. Using in-depth interviews with finance professionals from multi-national corporations, this study found the marketing function needing to enhance their capabilities in five areas: 1) financial awareness; 2) cross-functional collaboration; 3) data analytics; 4) decision influence through market knowledge; and 5) return on investment (ROI) assessment. This paper encourages marketing education curricula to place greater emphasis on marketing accountability concepts to assist in bridging the gap between marketing academia and the practitioner environment.