12 Disciplines of Leadership Excellence: How Leaders Achieve Sustainable High Performance

CHAPTER SIXTHE DISCIPLINE OF COMPETITIVENESS

“You must conquer and rule or lose and serve, triumph or suffer, be the hammer or the anvil.”

—Goethe

The primary reason for the success or failure of a business, according to Dun and Bradstreet, is the success or failure of the marketing effort. Forty-eight percent of all business failures can be attributed to a slowing down or ineffectiveness in the area of marketing and sales. In our dynamic, competitive economy, marketing is the core function of every successful enterprise.

Strategic marketing is the art and science of determining what your customers and future customers really want, need, can use, and afford—and then of helping them to get it by creating and structuring your products and services ...