As marketing increasingly becomes a shared orientation and a process involving all organizational functions, a key question arises: what role should the marketing function play, and does it still add value in a firm that already embraces a strong market orientation? The authors argue that while market orientation is indeed critical, the marketing function remains essential in facilitating key connections between the customer and core aspects of the business— namely, the product, service delivery, and financial accountability. Using data collected from managers across six business functions and two time periods, the study reveals that marketing contributes to firm financial performance, customer relationship outcomes, and new product success, beyond what is explained by market orientation alone. The function’s value is tied to its ability to develop expertise in linking customers to products and to financial outcomes. In service firms specifically, its value is also linked to its effectiveness in connecting the customer to the service delivery process.
Over the past decade, both marketing literature and practice have increasingly shifted away from viewing marketing as a discrete function, instead embracing it as a set of core values and organizational processes in which all departments take part. This evolution suggests that marketing is no longer confined to a specific role but rather becomes a shared responsibility across the organization. As Greyser (1997) highlights, this broad participation may dilute the specific duties of the marketing function but enhances its overall influence. In a similar vein, McKenna (1991, p. 68) famously observed, “Marketing is everything and everything is marketing,” while Haeckel (1997, p. ix) argued that marketing should no longer be seen merely as a business function but as the essence of business itself. This conceptual shift is best exemplified by the robust body of empirical work on market orientation, which consistently finds that a strong, organization-wide market orientation correlates positively with improved financial outcomes and new product success (e.g., Day and Nedungadi 1994; Deshpande, Farley, and Webster 1993; Jaworski and Kohli 1993; Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar 1993; Moorman 1995; Narver and Slater 1990). Simultaneously, scholars have made significant progress in defining the key capabilities that distinguish market-oriented firms (Day 1990, 1994; Kohli and Jaworski 1990; Webster 1992, 1997).
As marketing becomes increasingly recognized as a set of processes involving all organizational functions, a key question arises about the unique contribution of the marketing function itself. In a firm that adopts a market-oriented approach, what distinct role, if any, should marketing play? This question was highlighted by the
Marketing Science Institute’s 1996–1998 research priorities, which called for investigations into the future of “Marketing as a function (big M) in relation to marketing as a process and a vision (little m).” Day (1997) identified a central dilemma: whether to develop deep functional expertise through specialization or to integrate functions into cross-functional teams managing interlinked processes. Similarly, Workman, Homburg, and Gruner (1998) explored the idea of “cross-functional dispersion of marketing activities,” predicting a diminished need for a strong, centralized marketing function. In contrast, this article argues that the marketing function remains valuable even within a market-oriented firm. It contends that marketing should coexist with and complement a market orientation and that a strong marketing function enhances the effectiveness of market-oriented practices. To support this claim, the article introduces a framework defining the marketing function’s scope and its role in a cross-functional environment. At the core of this framework is the idea that marketing plays a vital role in linking customers to key internal processes
(Day, 1994). The discussion is supported by a large-scale empirical study examining both the value and scope of the marketing function.
The Marketing Function in a Market-Oriented Firm
Structural Approaches to Marketing Organization
The question of how to structure organizations to maximize performance has long been debated across organizational, strategy, and marketing research. One specific area of focus is how marketing should be structured within firms. Two contrasting models are often examined: the functional marketing organization and the process marketing organization. In the functional model, marketing responsibilities—knowledge and skills—are centralized within a team of specialists. This structure offers advantages such as operational efficiency and the development of distinctive expertise, as noted by
Thompson and Strickland (1983). However, it also presents challenges, including coordination difficulties, interfunctional conflict, narrow functional thinking, and the risk of over-specialization.
Conversely, a process marketing organization distributes marketing tasks across various departments and nonspecialists, integrating marketing functions throughout the organization. This aligns with concepts such as market orientation, defined by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) as the organization-wide generation, dissemination, and responsiveness to market intelligence. Similarly, Narver and Slater (1990) support this distributed approach, and Day (1994) identifies cross-functional processes like market sensing and customer linking as essential to market-driven firms.
This contrast in approaches has led to ongoing tension. While some firms are reducing the scale and resources allocated to centralized marketing departments, they are simultaneously promoting broader organizational market orientation. Greyser (1997) describes this trend as a simultaneous elevation of marketing orientation and downsizing of the formal function. Webster (1989) observes that in many companies, marketing is being embedded into operational units as part of a deliberate move toward disintegration of traditional structures. Wind (1996) similarly notes a decline in marketing as a formal management function, even as its philosophy and organizational presence grow in importance.
Other anecdotal evidence points to a de- emphasis on the formal marketing function as its work is either outsourced (Cook 1993*; Curtis 1997*; Leggett 1996*; Morrall 1995*; Moulton 1997*) or assigned to cross- functional teams (Brady and Davis 1993*; Doyle 1995*) or other organizational units (Sheth and Sisodia 1995*). More formal examinations indicate that the loss of marketing as a function and its integration across functions may be less common than these observations suggest (Piercy 1998*). In this article, we are not interested in whether marketing as a function is actually on the decline. We take no stand on this issue. Instead, we examine the contribution of a distinct marketing function as organizations adopt a process or cross-functional structure to the management of marketing.
Theoretical Issues in Marketing Organization
In addition to the central issues around how marketing is organized, this topic also brings forward enduring theoretical debates about the importance of shared or integrated knowledge and skills within organizations (e.g., Dougherty 1992; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967). Current research emphasizes that integrated approaches are often necessary, as most organizational work spans multiple domains—like product development or supply chain management (e.g., Day 1994). This supports the idea of cross-functional marketing teams or process-based marketing structures. Shared knowledge and integrated skills have been associated with reduced internal conflict (Frankwick et al. 1994; Gupta, Raj, and Wilemon 1986) and better communication across departments (Griffin and Hauser 1992; Moenaert and Souder 1990, 1996). In contrast, stronger functional specialization can hinder information sharing within organizations (Fisher, Maltz, and Jaworski 1997).
However, research also highlights the value of specialized or differentiated expertise. For instance, Hambrick, Cho, and Chen (1996) found that top management teams with greater functional diversity were more likely to achieve higher market share and profits in the airline industry. Similarly, Bantel and Jackson (1989) linked top team heterogeneity to increased innovation in banking. Reed and DeFillippi (1990) argue that differentiated expertise contributes to causal ambiguity, which can serve as a barrier to imitation and thus create competitive advantage (see also Madhavan and Grover 1998). A more nuanced, contingent perspective suggests that the value of specialized skills depends on context. For example, Moorman and Miner (1997) showed that such expertise boosts new product innovation only under conditions of high environmental turbulence. Dougherty (1992) similarly notes that specialized knowledge proves beneficial when effective routines exist for managing complex, interdepartmental interactions.
We believe there is room for a third perspective in the debate between specialized (differentiated) and shared (integrated) knowledge and skills, one that recognizes both as essential to organizational performance. Several conceptual frameworks support this view. Grant’s (1996) model of organizational capability emphasizes knowledge integration, progressing from individual expertise to functional knowledge and ultimately to cross-functional capabilities. Dougherty’s (1990) grounded theory of market knowledge creation identifies stages in which unique departmental knowledge evolves into a cross- departmental understanding of new product opportunities. Similarly, Fiol’s (1994) two- year case study of a Fortune 100 financial services firm found that even with cross- functional consensus, significant variation in interpretation remained across managerial functions.
Building on these insights, we argue that the marketing function plays a critical role within a market-oriented firm. This stance does not undermine the importance of developing a company-wide market orientation, but rather highlights that marketing contributes distinct value beyond what is achieved through cross- functional diffusion alone. Therefore, we propose the following:
H1: The marketing function contributes independently and positively to a firm’s (a) financial performance, (b) customer relationship performance, and (c) new product performance, beyond the effects of a firm-wide market orientation.
The Management of the Marketing Function
Assuming that the marketing function contributes to firm performance beyond what is achieved through an organization-wide market orientation, the key question becomes how to design the marketing function to deliver maximum value. We propose a framework that outlines the scope of marketing’s role, centered on the idea that its primary contribution is to act as a bridge between customers and internal firm processes (Day, 1994). As marketing builds expertise and insight into these connections, its perceived value within the organization is expected to grow. We define this value as the extent to which marketing is seen to contribute to firm success relative to other functions. This relative measurement provides a consistent basis for evaluating marketing’s impact across different firms. Importantly, this definition acknowledges that other functions also contribute to success—it simply focuses on marketing’s role in that context.
The Central Elements and Processes of Business Organizations
In Figure 1, we show a simplified diagram of the central elements of business
organizations. We define the central elements of the firm as the five nodes: customers, product, service delivery, financial accountability, and top management. Customers include both intermediaries and end-users who purchase or utilize a firm’s offerings. “Product” in this context refers broadly to the firm’s goods or services, while “service delivery” encompasses all supporting actions tied to delivering these offerings. Even in service-based businesses, a distinction exists—product denotes the designed service (like an insurance policy), whereas service delivery refers to the actual customer experience before, during, and after the transaction (e.g., sales and claims handling). Financial accountability highlights the connection between firm activities and profitability. “Top management” involves the organization’s overall leadership and decision-making.
Figure 1 introduces nine key connections among these elements, reflecting critical knowledge and competencies embedded in areas such as human resources, technology, behaviors, and organizational assets (Moorman & Miner, 1997). Traditionally, firms focused on developing expertise within individual nodes—operations specializing in product, marketing in customer engagement, and accounting in financial metrics. However, the model in Figure 1 emphasizes the importance of building capabilities across these connections—such as linking customer needs to service delivery (Day, 1994).
According to this framework, marketing should serve as a connector between the customer and (1) the product, (2) service delivery, and (3) financial accountability. While connecting customers to products has long been a core marketing responsibility, its role in connecting customers with service delivery and financial outcomes is more recent—driven by advances in information technology and the rise of the service economy. This model does not claim marketing has sole ownership over these customer-related links; instead, it supports collaboration between marketing and other functional units.
This approach aligns with other theoretical perspectives. For instance, Howard (1983) states that customers provide the foundation for marketing’s strategic planning and inter- functional coordination. Anderson (1982) views marketing as responsible for conveying the customer’s perspective to both leadership and other departments, aiming for long-term satisfaction and support. Similarly, Hauser, Simester, and Wernerfelt (1996) argue that marketing must highlight the importance of external customers in shaping the interactions internal functions have with one another and with external suppliers (see also Cespedes, 1996).
This connection view also is expressed by marketing practitioners. For example, Boston Consulting Group’s Daniel Leemon (1995*) states that “The marketing function, with its unique perspective on customers, products, and competitors, should take the lead in defining marketing opportunities and rallying the whole organization to support them.” Likewise, a study by The Marketing Society points to the same conclusion: “The challenge is for marketing to impose and coordinate quality control over the growing number of customer interfaces” (Curtis 1997*, p. 20). Our view of the marketing function’s perspective on the proposed connections follows this work. Specifically, we do not expect marketing or any other function to be neutral with regard to the two nodes that constitute the connection. Instead, we expect that the marketing function will tend to emphasize a customer vantage point, or what Day (1994) has referred to as an “outside-in” or external perspective. This unique perspective is what provides the marketing.
The Three Customer Connections
The customer-product connection. This connection pertains to linking the customer to the focal offering provided by the firm. In the traditional domain of marketing-the domain of the 4Ps-marketing often is perceived as developing a product that will suit the customer, promoting the product to the customer, pricing the product to be acceptable to the customer, and distributing
the product to the customer. In our framework, marketing’s emphasis in this linkage is on providing knowledge and skills that connect the customer to product design or quality issues. This emphasis underlies many contemporary methodologies for new product development and for managing the customer-product interface.
We recognize that product presentation—via advertising and promotion—and pricing both contribute to the customer-product connection. Advertising plays a role in shaping how customers relate to the product, while pricing influences perceived value. However, we view these elements as secondary in establishing the core link between customer and product (see Lehmann 1997). Traditionally, marketing has emphasized the external side of this connection, while other functions like R&D and operations have taken a more internal approach—R&D focusing on innovation and technology, and operations on cost efficiency. Both perspectives are vital and complementary. As for the customer-service delivery connection, its importance has grown significantly over time. This shift reflects both the expansion of the service sector and the increasing service elements within goods businesses. For instance, in the United States, services accounted for just 30% of employment in 1900 but rose to 80% by the 1990s (Quinn 1992), with similar patterns seen globally (Godbout 1993). This connection centers on how firms deliver services that support their products, often through frontline employees like sales staff or service representatives, and may include channel management roles that ensure smooth product movement between firms. From a marketing standpoint, this connection is externally oriented, focusing on customer satisfaction and process adjustments that improve service delivery (Kordupleski, Rust, and Zahorik 1993). In contrast, internal service operations or quality management teams typically aim to enhance efficiency and reduce costs (Deming 1986), with the assumption that better internal performance will naturally lead to higher customer satisfaction.
Marketing Function Connections Relative to Organizationwide Market Connections
Having established the nature of customer connection knowledge and skills the marketing function should build (H2–H4), we now return to our initial hypothesis: that the marketing function can enhance firm performance beyond the impact of an organizationwide market orientation. Specifically, we propose that strengthening
marketing capabilities in the areas of customer-product connection, customer- service quality, and customer-financial accountability will generate incremental value. Therefore, we hypothesize the following:
H5: The greater the marketing function’s development of knowledge and skills across these three customer connection areas, the greater its contribution to (a) financial performance, (b) customer relationship performance, and (c) new product performance—beyond the contribution of an organizationwide market orientation.
Method
Sample and Procedure
Data collection was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, managers were surveyed about firm performance, the value of the marketing function, relevant control variables, and the marketing team’s knowledge and skills related to three types of customer connections. The second phase occurred after an initial review of the article, prompted by reviewer feedback, and involved sending an additional survey to the original respondents. This follow-up survey included two established market orientation scales (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar, 1993; Narver and Slater, 1990).
For the initial phase, the sample comprised 1,200 managers from six functions—marketing, human resources, R&D, operations, accounting, and finance—drawn from U.S. business organizations. Approximately 200 managers were randomly selected from membership lists of four professional associations: the American Marketing Association (marketing managers), the Institute of Management Accountants (accounting and finance managers), the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (R&D and production managers), and the Society for Human Resource Management (HR managers). Each manager received a mailed questionnaire along with a cover letter outlining the study’s objectives. To encourage participation, a dollar was enclosed with the letter, and respondents were offered an advance copy of the study results.
Following the initial mailing, nonrespondents were sent a second copy of the questionnaire. Two weeks after this remailing, those who still had not responded were contacted by phone and encouraged to complete and return the survey. Tests for nonresponse bias (Armstrong and Overton, 1977) showed no systematic differences on key study variables between those who responded before and after the second mailing. From the original sample of 1,200 managers, 106 were ineligible due to leaving their organizations or because their organizations lacked a marketing function, leaving 1,094 eligible participants. Of these, 330 responded, yielding an overall response rate of 30.4%. Response rates were fairly consistent across functions: marketing (32.3%), human resources (27.7%), operations (31.1%), R&D (27.1%), accounting (34.2%), and finance (28.5%).
Approximately nine months after the initial survey, a follow-up questionnaire was sent to the Stage 1 respondents. By this time, 30 respondents had become ineligible due to leaving their organizations, organizational closure, or death, reducing the eligible follow-up sample to 300. Of these, 128 responded to the follow-up survey, a 42.6% response rate. Response was again reasonably balanced across the six functions: marketing (44.8%), human resources (36.1%), operations (44.8%), R&D (47.9%), accounting (52.4%), and finance (41.6%). Analysis comparing respondents across the two stages showed no significant differences in firm industry orientation, firm size, marketing function size, or the number of marketers serving as principals for their firms.
Measurement
Following the initial mailing, nonrespondents were sent a second copy of the questionnaire. Two weeks after this remailing, those who still had not responded were contacted by telephone and encouraged to complete and return the questionnaire. Tests of nonresponse (Armstrong and Overton, 1977) showed no systematic differences between early respondents and those who replied after the second mailing on key study variables. Of the original sample of 1200 managers, 106 were excluded because they had left their organizations or because their organizations no longer had a marketing function, leaving 1094 eligible participants. Among these, 330 returned the questionnaire, resulting in an overall response rate of 30.4%. Response rates were fairly consistent across the functions studied: marketing (32.3%), human resources (27.7%), operations (31.1%), R&D (27.1%), accounting (34.2%), and finance (28.5%). Additional descriptive statistics are detailed in Table 1.
Approximately nine months after the initial survey, the 330 respondents were sent a follow-up questionnaire. By this time, 30 respondents were no longer eligible due to leaving their organizations, company closures, or death, reducing the eligible sample to 300. Of these, 128 responded, yielding a follow-up response rate of 42.6%, with similar participation across functions: marketing (44.8%), human resources (36.1%), operations (44.8%), R&D (47.9%), accounting (52.4%), and finance (41.6%). Analysis comparing respondents across the two stages revealed no significant differences regarding firm industry orientation, firm size, marketing function size, or the number of marketers serving as principals for their firms.
Results
How the Marketing Function Contributes to Performance Beyond a Market Orientation
A hierarchical regression was conducted to test Hypothesis 1 (H1), with variables entered in three steps predicting firm performance: first control variables, then organization- wide market orientation, and finally the value of the marketing function. The change in R² and the F-statistic at step three indicate the added importance of the marketing function beyond market orientation (Cohen and Cohen, 1983).
Three control variables were included. The first was the product life cycle stage of the majority of the firm’s products/services, measured on a continuous seven-point scale from 1 (“introduction stage, no dominant product/service; high differentiation”) to 7 (“maturity stage, product/service viewed as commodity; high price competition”). Managers assessed their firm’s position, with an average of 5.54 (SD = 1.51), indicating a varied distribution across the life cycle.
Second, a categorical variable captured whether the firm operates in consumer or industrial markets, based on industry type: consumer industries (retailing, services, durable and nondurable consumer products) coded as 1, and nonconsumer industries (wholesale distribution, industrial/commercial, governmental products) coded as 0. In the sample, 72% of firms were in consumer markets. Third, firm size, measured continuously by the number of employees in the strategic business unit (SBU), was included, with a sample average of 4,542 employees.
The three dependent variables measured perceived performance in financial outcomes, customer relationships, and new product development, while two distinct measures of market orientation (Kohli, Jaworski, etc.) were also considered.
How Customer Connection Knowledge and Skills Drive the Value of the Marketing Function
The value of the marketing function adds to perceived firm performance beyond what an organization-wide market orientation explains. This raises the question: What specific knowledge and skills make the marketing function valuable? We proposed that three distinct capabilities—managing connections between customers and products, service delivery, and financial accountability—enhance marketing’s contribution to the firm. To examine this, a hierarchical regression model was estimated using three variables representing marketing’s effectiveness in managing these key customer connections as predictors. Additionally, since the link between customers and frontline operations is expected to be more critical for organizations with direct customer interaction (i.e., service providers), an interaction term was included between marketing’s management of the customer-service quality connection and the firm’s service provider orientation. The service provider variable was measured on a seven-point semantic differential scale from goods producer (1) to service provider (7). Both this variable and marketing’s ability to manage the customer-operation connection were mean-centered before creating their interaction term to reduce multicollinearity in the model. Our hypotheses predicted positive and significant main effects for the customer- product and customer-financial accountability connections, along with a significant interaction effect involving the customer-service delivery connection.
The overall model is significant, with an adjusted R² of .242 and F(5,319) = 21.35, p <.000, supporting the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, marketing’s customer-product connection knowledge andskills positively and significantly relate to marketing’s value within the firm (b = .281, t= 4.844, p < .000), confirming H2. Similarly, marketing’s customer-financial accountability connection knowledge and skills also show a positive and significant relationship with marketing’s value (b = .193, t = 3.172, p < .001), supporting H3. While the main effect of marketing’s customer-service delivery connection knowledge and skills is not a significant predictor, its interaction with the nature of the firm is marginally significant and positive (b = .044, t = 1.869, p < .06), indicating that this knowledge impacts marketing’s value when the firm primarily provides services rather than goods. This offers conditional support for H4.
How the Marketing Function’s Customer Connections Contribute Beyond the Contribution of a Market Orientation
In this section, we further explore how specific marketing function knowledge and skills impact firm performance by testing the proposition that as the marketing function enhances its expertise in managing the three customer connections, it contributes more to firm performance beyond the effect of an organizationwide market orientation. This builds on H1, which addressed the broader idea that a valued marketing function adds value beyond a general market orientation. To test this, we applied the same hierarchical regression approach used for H1, entering three control variables in the first step, organizationwide market orientation in the second, and a combined variable representing the marketing function’s knowledge and skills across the three customer connections in the third step. We then examined the changes in R² and the associated F-statistic to evaluate H5. Consistent with H1, the marketing function’s customer connection knowledge and skills explained a significant additional portion of variance in perceived firm performance across all six models, supporting H5 (see Table 5). Moreover, comparison of Tables 3 and 5 indicates that these customer connection capabilities of the marketing function have a stronger contribution to firm performance than the more general value of the marketing function alone.
Organizing a Strong Marketing Function into a Market-Oriented Firm
Organizational structures that integrate strong functional expertise within a process- oriented framework, such as market orientation, vary depending on environmental and organizational contingencies (Workman, Homburg, and Gruner 1998). One such approach is known as a “hybrid organization” (Day 1997) or “matrix management” (Davis and Lawrence 1977*). Unlike traditional matrix management, which typically applies a temporary overlay of project teams on a functional base, the structure proposed here embeds customer relationships permanently within the functional design. This is achieved by creating subgroups within each function that correspond to the specific customer connections they manage. For instance, the marketing function might be divided into three subgroups focused on product, service delivery, and financial accountability, while operations might have product and service delivery subgroups. Managers in these subgroups would participate in horizontal, cross-functional teams and activities. If marketing is organized around customer connections, it would likely include a customer-product subgroup, which resembles conventional marketing groups responsible for product and brand management, pricing, promotion, and product design decisions. Another subgroup, customer-service delivery, would parallel typical customer satisfaction or retention teams, focusing on measuring, monitoring, and improving service quality and loyalty programs. Finally, a customer-financial accountability subgroup would manage customer profitability data and analyze how product and service initiatives impact financial performance, engaging in activities such as data mining to identify profitable customer strategies, similar to database management groups in financial services firms.
Implications for Teaching
Our findings indicate that the current focus on the customer-product relationship is somewhat warranted, as it accounts for the greatest proportion of variance in our model predicting the value of marketing functions within organizations. However, it remains unclear whether this explanatory strength stems from the intrinsic value of this connection or from the advanced methodologies developed to support it. We believe the latter is more likely. Additionally, the customer-financial accountability linkage plays a significant role in our model. Yet, a review of marketing management textbooks shows this connection is neither well understood nor systematically integrated into curricula. For instance, many texts address financial assessment briefly in a single chapter (e.g., Lehmann and Winer 1994*) but do not comprehensively teach how marketing should handle financial accountability. Other approaches treat financial considerations merely as constraints on marketing decisions (Rossiter and Percy 1987*, p. 75). To enable marketing managers to effectively link customer relations with financial accountability, curricula must be expanded to include profitability in customer acquisition and retention (e.g., Kaplan and Norton 1996*). While especially important in service settings, the growing service-oriented nature of developed economies suggests that the customer-service delivery connection deserves greater emphasis in core marketing courses. Currently, service delivery, quality, and customer satisfaction topics tend to be confined largely to a single service marketing course. Our results imply that managing the customer-frontline interface warrants more comprehensive attention.
Research Agenda
The research agenda stemming from this study can be both descriptive—aimed at understanding how marketing functions within organizations—and normative— focused on developing models and systems to support marketing’s broader role. Currently, marketing scholarship tends to separate consumer research from marketing organization or strategy research, with different scholars, theories, and values guiding each. We urge scholars to rethink the intersection of consumer behavior and
marketing strategy or organization as a crucial area for future research. Accordingly, marketing academics should, as our framework recommends for practitioners, link key firm content areas (such as product and service delivery) directly with customers. This linkage should move beyond tactical analyses of how marketing strategies affect customers or vice versa, encouraging instead strategic-level approaches that integrate theories at both the customer and firm levels (e.g., Howard 1983).
Conclusions
Based on a comprehensive study involving managers from diverse business sectors and six distinct functional roles, several key conclusions have emerged regarding the role and scope of marketing within organizations. Firstly, marketing should be understood primarily as the function that manages the relationships connecting an organization with its customers. These critical connections extend beyond the traditional customer- product interaction to include customer engagement with service delivery and customer-financial accountability. This broader perspective highlights marketing’s pivotal role in fostering and maintaining these multifaceted relationships. Secondly, the degree to which marketing actively manages these connections significantly influences several vital performance outcomes. Notably, it impacts the organization’s financial results, enhances the strength and quality of customer relationships, and improves new product performance. These effects occur above and beyond the influence of a general organizational marketing orientation, emphasizing that the functional activities of marketing have a distinct and measurable contribution to success. In other words, marketing’s direct engagement with customers across product, service, and financial dimensions generates added value that contributes meaningfully to overall organizational performance.
Thirdly, there is considerable opportunity for marketing to enhance its impact by broadening its traditional focus. Historically, marketing has concentrated primarily on the customer-product connection. However, expanding this focus to incorporate a stronger emphasis on service delivery and financial accountability connections can lead to improved outcomes. Such an expansion recognizes that customer experiences are shaped not only by the product itself but also by the quality of service and transparency or management of financial interactions, such as billing or pricing clarity. Therefore, marketing should evolve into a more holistic function that integrates these dimensions into its strategies and operations.
Moreover, this broadened scope has important implications for marketing education and professional development. Curricula and training programs should be revised to equip marketers with the skills and knowledge required to manage these expanded roles effectively. This includes fostering capabilities in service management and financial accountability alongside traditional product marketing skills. By doing so, marketing professionals will be better prepared to drive organizational success in increasingly complex and customer-centric business environments. In summary, the study underscores marketing’s vital role as the steward of multiple customer connections, its measurable influence on organizational performance, and the necessity for marketing to embrace a more comprehensive role that goes beyond product management to include service and financial dimensions. Correspondingly, marketing education must evolve to prepare practitioners for this expanded function, thereby enhancing marketing’s overall contribution to organizational success.
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