SWP 7/91 MARKETING INVESTMENT ANALYSIS: THE CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR FINANCIALLY EVALUATING AND EFFECTIVELY CONTROLLING MARKETING INVESTMENT DECISIONS

Marketing Investment Analysis: the critical success factors for financially evaluating and effectively controlling marketing investment decisions by Keith Ward Sri Srikanthan and Richard Neal Most large and very many smaller companies are now very sophisticated in how they financially evaluate major investment decisions involving tangible fmed assets. This has been validated by numerous research studies (see for example Rayburn [1981]). However there has been much less detailed research into the way in which major marketing investment decisions are taken in such companies (Barwise, Marsh and Wensley [1989] looked at the role of finance in strategic decision making). This is despite the fact that, increasingly, the expenditure on marketing assets often considerably outweighs the comparable outlays on more tangible assets. The Marketing Accounting Research Centre (MARC) at Cranfield School of Management has, since its inception in 1983, been working with companies in this area and has also conducted surveys on related areas of accounting for marketing activities. So far the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that companies are far less rigorous in their financial evaluations of long term marketing investment than they are for similar levels of expenditure involving other projects. Indeed in many companies there is no attempt to distinguish between short term and long ter