1.2 Marketing Creates and Delivers Value

Role of Marketing

Marketing plays a critical role in a firm’s survival and growth. Specifically, marketing creates and delivers value to the firm’s chosen customers. Certainly, if there is no value, customers leave. Without customers, companies fail. Meeting customers’ functional and emotional needs creates value. The importance of marketing’s role within the firm was underscored by Jack Welch, former CEO of GE:

“Marketing isn’t somebody’s responsibility; marketing is everybody’s responsibility.”

The Strategic Triangle

The Strategic Triangle, developed by Kenichi Ohmae, provides insight into value creation. The customer is the central point of the model. The company and the competition seek to sell products and services to the customer by creating value for the customer. The value equation is benefits minus costs. Of course, both the company and the competition incur costs when creating value.

Figure 1-1: Strategic Triangle

Overall, it is better to focus on creating and delivering exceptional value to customers, rather than benchmarking and copying successful competitors. Creating and delivering exceptional value enables a firm to attract and keep customers. Attracting and keeping the right customers drives profitability for the firm.

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