When Regis McKenna said marketing is everything, he wasn’t joking. Since the days of the ground breaking article ‘Marketing Myopia’ in the Harvard Business Review (1960) by Theodore Levitt which implored businesses to define themselves by customer need, marketing has been on a topsy turvy ride of increasing and decreasing influence in the business world.

Robert Sawhney, managing director, SRC Associates Ltd (Hong Kong), provides an introduction to marketing issues that Professional Service Frims face.

It was Peter Drucker who back in the 1950s said a business has only two functions: marketing and innovation. How prophetic those words were as research now demonstrates that it is indeed marketing (in the form of a marketing culture) that has the most significant impact on firm performance and profitability. It is also marketing which enables the innovative capability of the firm.

So what is the problem?

The problem is marketing as it is practiced and applied today in professional service firms (PSFs) is not the marketing Peter Drucker, Regis McKenna, or Ted Levitt were talking about. The way in which marketing and business development (BD) have been merged into the same function and meaning within PSFs is inhibiting its potential impact on firm performance. Additionally, the way in which BD people have been relegated to back office wilderness when in fact the most proficient ones should be leading the strategy dialogue of the firm, is a cause for extreme bemusement. The never ending stream of tactical level initiatives firms under go in the guise of enhancing client value is not only laughable, it is destructive. Some examples:

• New brochures
• New web sites
• Sales training
• Events and seminars
• Promotions such as ads, direct mail etc
• Flavour of the month publications and newsletters
• Premiums and other collaterals…

The list could be endless but you get the idea. What they should be doing is looking at the competitiveness of the firm and understanding how, from a strategic perspective, the firm can enhance client value.

Please click on the 'Download Document' button to read Robert Sawhney's white paper on Marketing within Professional Service Firms.

Article Date: 18th March 2010