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JOSM
25,2
228
Received 8 January 2013
Revised 20 April 2013
Accepted 5 February 2014
Journal of Service Management
Vol. 25 No. 2, 2014
pp. 228-240
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1757-5818
DOI 10.1108/JOSM-01-2014-0031
Reinventing marketing
strategy by recasting
supplier/customer roles
Evert Gummesson
School of Business, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, and
Hannu Kuusela and Elina Närvänen
School of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose that the recasting of supplier and customer roles
reconfigures the role of marketing.
Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual paper that suggests the need to rethink the role of
marketing in the strategic decision making of companies. The study accesses recent theories of
marketing, service and value and provides illustrative case examples.
Findings – Consumers are progressively more active and the traditional supplier role of controlling
consumers is less viable. The case examples show the variety of ways in which companies may adopt a
new role in relation to customers and the market. The paper argues that adapting to this role change
needs to take place at the highest level in the company and is the way to reinvent marketing strategy.
This also necessitates marketing employing unconventional methodologies and relevant theory to
address the complexity and ambiguity of current markets.
Research limitations/implications – The paper is a conceptual paper restricted to supplier and
customer roles, albeit set in a broader context of stakeholders.
Practical implications – The marketing-oriented supplier of the future can design service systems
and exert a certain control at the same time adapting to and supporting consumer initiatives through
interaction in networks of stakeholder relationships.
Originality/value – Stressing the new roles of consumers and suppliers; reinventing the role of
marketing, breaking with conventional marketing research methodology.
Keywords Complexity, Pragmatism, Balanced centricity, Consumer/supplier roles,
Theory generation
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to propose that the recasting of supplier and customer
roles reconfigures the role of marketing. By role recasting, we mean that suppliers and
customers are assigned, or voluntarily adopt new sets of responsibilities, behaviours,
obligations, beliefs and norms to follow, creating value for themselves and each other
in the process. We show that making marketing a core business strategy also requires
the generation of more relevant marketing theory. If marketing is to be more relevant,
it needs to be defined more broadly than as something that the marketing department
does. We propose that defining marketing as the activities that generate revenue for
the firm is more accurate. Yet, even this definition does not recognize the real world
complexity and context where marketing actually operates. Marketing is intertwined
with other internal functions and external stakeholders, including customers, each of
which influences the outcome. Marketing is thus not a single and separated function
but an integral and essential part of the broader company activity, processes and
practice. In this paper, we specifically consider the supplier/customer roles, while
recognizing that marketing should be focused on all stakeholders. A broader focus or Reinventing
balanced centricity (Gummesson, 2008) is needed in order to create benefits for all who marketing
contribute to making the company successful.
To achieve our purpose, we ask the following research question: strategy
RQ1. How does the perception of the roles of suppliers and customers affect
marketing and its strategic role within the company? 229
Our theoretical discussion starts by reflecting the role of marketing in the strategic
decision making of companies. Then, we discuss the new paradigm of thinking that
focuses on role recasting for customers and suppliers, at the same time enabling a more
accurate and a more relevant role for marketing on the CEO’s agenda. This also means
that marketing strategy is reinvented. We follow this theoretical discussion with a
section containing four illustrative case examples from different industries. The case
examples concretize our argument and show the diversity of ways in which companies
are recasting the roles of supplier and customers, illustrating the evolved role of
marketing. Finally, we draw conclusions about role recasting in terms of increasing the
relevance of marketing within companies at the highest level of strategic decision
making.

Towards recasting the role of marketing in strategic decision making

The role of marketing as a discipline and its role within companies has long been
debated (e.g. Ardley, 2011; Brennan, 2004; McCole, 2004; Saren, 2007; Tapp and
Hughes, 2004). Scholars have also voiced concern that while marketing is the only
revenue generating function of a firm, its role has not been central to decision making
at the highest level (Boyd et al., 2010). For instance, by no means all companies employ
a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Even if there is a CMO, it is not proof of a more
important role for marketing because the CMO role and responsibilities can be defined
too narrowly (Nath and Mahajan, 2008), as when, for instance, the CMO may be
responsible only for functions related to managing the marketing mix or for how to
manage marketing assets. Perceiving marketing as merely a separate function within
the company is also reflected in discussions about its accountability. The lexicon and
terminology used, however, emphasizes measurability and simplification and
concentrates on small fragments. The terminology holds us captive and continues to
diminish marketing’s role on the CEO’s agenda. One reason for this is that senior
executives’ mental models are affected by the terminology and it influences their view
of what they consider marketing to be (Strandvik et al., 2014). For the marketing
function to have a voice at boardroom level, it should be able to show in a holistic and
credible manner how it can contribute to the company’s business logic or create
competitive advantage. The board should not be worried about how big the marketing
department is but whether marketing offers relevant input into the company’s strategic
processes and practices. This may require the marketing function to adopt completely
new terminology.
Too often, complexity is dealt with by reducing it to measurable constructs in
the quest for simplicity (Logman, 2011). Measuring what has already taken place in the
past is considered more valuable than dealing with the complexity, uncertainty and
dynamics of the present and future. A related issue is the lack of long-term perspective
when quarterly metrics are prioritized in decision making. On the other hand, it has
also been argued that there is a gap between the marketing management literature and
JOSM the practitioner community, because general textbook theory fails to provide adequate
25,2 insights for managers (Ardley, 2011; McCole, 2004). Thus, marketing management
theory has neglected things like people’s emotions and intuition, offering a simplified
and over neat depiction of what marketing is actually about. For example, strategic
decision making at the executive level should not be about splitting things ever smaller
segments and each function arguing for its own advantage without a holistic
230 understanding of the business. The departmentalized view where marketing’s impact
is evaluated on the basis of how many meetings are held or how many people are
employed is old fashioned and irrelevant. The boardroom should be the scene of
collective interaction and the pursuit of what is in the company’s best interest.
Marketing’s role should be to convince everyone about what is meaningful for the
customer and for other stakeholders in the market.
This tendency for marketing to lack managerial reach might be a consequence of
a too narrow definition of marketing strategy and management in marketing theory.
The metrics used to measure marketing in mainstream marketing theory consider
areas such as advertising and its impact, price promotions, distribution channel
efficiency, as well as assets such as brand equity, customer satisfaction, customer
metrics (lifetime value and equity), marketing and firm value and product quality
(Hanssens et al., 2009; Sheth and Sisodia, 2005; Srinivasan and Hanssens, 2009; Verhoef
and Leeflang, 2009; Workman et al., 1998). These metrics do not take into account real
world complexity, dynamism and context. The literature has assumed that the reality
exists out there and can be defined and neatly measured as well as reliably predicted.
Measurability has become the marketers’ credo. Thus, marketing processes and
activities are seen to lead to certain outcomes that in turn lead to financial results for
the company. However, science requires constructive reflection and dialogue and
acceptance of the unpredictability of a complex reality and a desire to understand
markets on a profound level. Marketing is not only about buying and selling, but about
managing within complex networks and interaction, the ability to see beyond extant
customer needs through profound understanding of markets while integrating
resources in ways that create value for all parties. It is therefore not satisfactory that
mainstream research methods in marketing shun complexity and focus on simple and
unidirectional causal relationships between a few variables. We get numerous
fragments of knowledge, often based on poor data quality and unrealistic assumptions,
but we lack a coherent picture of higher level theory that is still firmly rooted in
substantive detail. Research methodology in marketing and social sciences in general
favours a concocted rigour over real world relevance.

Introducing the new paradigm

Recently, a new paradigm in theories of marketing and service has started to form. It is
based on integration, interdependency and network and systems thinking. It focuses
on all stakeholders and as a consequence on complexity and higher level theory
generation. The new logic attempts to provide a systemic, holistic view, without
neglecting the detail. This is an important tradition within the Nordic School (Grönroos
and Ravald, 2011; Gummesson, 2012; Gummesson and Grönroos, 2012).
The move from a fragmented view of marketing to recognition of marketing
complexity and diversity happens with the change from a single party focus (supplier)
and a two-party focus (supplier/customer) to multi-party networks and balanced
centricity that take all market actors into account. The concept of many-to-many
marketing puts the emphasis on networks. Suppliers form networks but consumers too
are members of networks of families, friends and other suppliers (Gummesson, 2008). Reinventing
The most common roles that people adopt simultaneously are as citizens, consumers, marketing
employees and indirect shareholders through savings and pension funds. We want to
be satisfied in all our roles, not necessarily to a maximum but to a reasonable degree. strategy
The new paradigm recognizes a change in supplier and customer roles to be a
focal issue. Customers have more power and their active role as co-creators of value
and resource integrators is gradually being recognized in theory (Prahalad and 231
Ramaswamy, 2004; Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Co-creation as a concept embraces
the individual actions of suppliers, customers and other stakeholders and also the
interactive relationships between them. Goods and services are replaced by value
propositions in which customers assume an active role as co-creators. In this way the
supplier does things with customers and not to customers.
Ignoring customers’ more active role in the market is becoming increasingly
difficult. Consumers are in possession of information technology that offers new ways
of interacting customer-to-customer (C2C), as well as with suppliers. Purchasing and
consumption form a growing part of their social lives. “Word of mouth” (WOM) has
long existed as a concept but not been taken seriously in marketing theory although it
has always been significant in practice. Consumers go online to find others who share
similar interests, building their social identities and developing communities at the
same time (Närvänen et al., 2013b). Due to the impact of social media, understanding
and benefitting from online WOM is now considered strategically important.
The social aspect has also been acknowledged as an important part of online customer
service experiences (Klaus, 2013). In fact, many marketing phenomena today are not
even invented in company boardrooms or marketing departments. For instance,
Facebook was invented by an American student. When mobile phones were introduced
to the market, the phone companies could never have predicted how customers would
start to use them. Thus, many marketing phenomena today originate from the market;
from actors other than suppliers. From the suppliers’ perspective, this means that
marketing is more about adapting to the market and finding a relevant role therein
than attempting to control and manage markets.
In putting business first, the business-to-consumer (B2C) acronym indicates that the
supplier plays the lead role. To emphasize the changing consumer role, it would be
preferable to balance power and initiative and talk about B2C/consumer-to-business
(C2B) (Gummesson, 2008). Although different in some respects, B2B is an antecedent of
B2C/C2B, making the two categories interdependent. There is now a recommendation
to refer to actor-to-actor (A2A) relationships, as a neutral and general concept. That is
not to suggest that all business relationships are the same; it means that each A2A
relationship should be handled on its own specific terms. The B2B, B2C and C2C
divides lose their status of overriding categories and become just three among several
properties. The new perspective thereby subverts the traditional role distinction
between customer and supplier, causing them to overlap. Thus, role recasting takes
place where customers and suppliers adopt new sets of responsibilities, behaviours,
obligations, beliefs and norms to follow, creating value for themselves and each other
in the process.
Within the new paradigm, the role of marketing becomes recast and redefined. First,
as markets are dynamic and complex, marketing should not be viewed as static either.
Marketing should be viewed as a continuous process rather than just depicting
momentary activities and features. Marketing has to be viewed from a broader point of
view, concentrating on what marketing does and not what it is. While the old paradigm
JOSM views marketing as a tactical matter, the new one views it as a dynamic process within
25,2 a company’s core activities, processes and practices. Marketing’s role is to manage and
cooperate in complex networks of interaction where many parties interact and create
value. This way, it can become the soul of corporate strategy, reinvent itself and be
elevated to the top of the CEO’s agenda.

232 Illustrative case examples from various industries

In the following section, we introduce four cases to illustrate and discuss the various
ways in which supplier and customer roles are recast in today’s markets. Our aim is to
employ illustrative case examples to show how the role recasting of suppliers and
customers is taking place in each respective company and also to show how this
recasting in turn influences the strategic role of marketing within the company. We do
not focus on theory testing or justification but on discovery (Yadav, 2010). Illustrative
case studies have been used before to address and capture the central characteristics of
a research phenomenon (Rubalcaba et al., 2012; Nordin and Kowalkowski, 2010). Of the
four case study examples, we chose three (S-Group, Tallink AS and Reino & Aino) that
we have previously conducted extensive empirical research on. Although this paper is
not an empirical study, we do make use of our profound knowledge of these companies’
strategies. The fourth case (IKEA) provides a different viewpoint from a globally
renowned company.

IKEA
The Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is the epitome of a successful business. It has
continued to expand globally for 60 years, recording high profits and no setbacks.
Its business mission is based on the co-creation of value (Edvardsson et al., 2006). The
idea came from the observation that furniture was too expensive for the ordinary
consumer. A quick look at the cost shows that less than half accrues from designing
and manufacturing the furniture and the rest from assembly, making the furniture
available in stores and getting it installed in the buyer’s home. If the supplier packs the
parts comprising the furniture and moves the pack to a huge outlet and lets customers
pick it from the shelves, transport it home, unpack and assemble it themselves, the
majority of the cost is removed. “Then we can share the savings”, said the founder
Ingvar Kamprad who in 2012 – at the age of 86 – remains its leader. Customers liked
the idea and still do.
IKEA took the supermarket idea of selling daily consumables and adapted it to
durable goods. There, the resources of the supplier and the customer are integrated and
both acquire value. By paying attention to details such as the transferability of the
packaging by car and also ensuring assembly instructions are simple, IKEA has gone
beyond meeting customer needs to understanding what really matters to customers.
In terms of role recasting, IKEA has relinquished the traditional activities of
assembling and transporting furniture. It has recast customers in a more active role.
Thus, customers use their own resources, especially time and ability to assemble the
furniture, to save money. For IKEA, it is not the furniture but the value proposition of
better value-in-use that is innovative. While consumers adopt a new more active role in
the assembly and delivery of furniture, IKEA is able to incorporate other things into its
role as a supplier. Besides affordable furniture, IKEA offers a day out with the family,
good value food and a playground for the children among other things. IKEA is an
instance of a well-developed and tightly controlled system that provides a stage for
consumers for action and interaction. It is implemented together with efficient service
systems, long supply chains and adherence to the strategy of continuous improvement. Reinventing
For IKEA, marketing is central to the company’s strategy and that is evident in marketing
everything the company does. It entails for instance emphasizing the customer’s
perception of value creation; offering solutions to customers’ problems and a platform strategy
for co-creation of value-in-use. It is also reflected in the corporate culture and values
(Edvardsson et al., 2006).
233
S-Group
S-Group is a Finnish network of companies in the retail and service sectors that
operates in Finland, Russia, the Baltic States and Sweden. It is a cooperative that is
owned by more than 1.9 million customer cooperative members and has more than
1,600 outlets in Finland. Its retail sales amounted to 12 billion euros in 2011.
The company has also been listed among the best global retail chains for several years,
achieving 85th place in the Deloitte rankings for 2010 (Deloitte, 2012). S-Group’s
retailing areas include groceries, service stations and fuels, tourism and hospitality,
automobiles and accessories and agricultural trade.
S-Group made a strategic turn at the beginning of the twenty-first century,
committing itself to always account for the customer’s perspective first in its strategic
decision making (Neilimo and Kuusela, 2010). The group aims to go beyond
management jargon to reconfigure the role of the customer at the strategic and
practical levels (Saarijärvi et al., 2014). This was strategically implemented through
the “Your Own Store” vision that was based on the idea of considering customers not
as a target of marketing actions, but as partners. The organization recast its customers
as customer-owners, who have the unique opportunity to participate in democratic
decision making at a high level of the company while accruing monetary and other
benefits from their ownership. Besides acting as shareholders, customers also actively
influence the company and develop the company’s service system in cooperation with
the management. S-Group has also realized that in order to keep up with the changes in
its customers’ lives, it has to offer a wide variety of benefits applicable to various life
stages and contexts. S-Group has invested heavily in logistics and information
architecture to ensure that its extensive service network is always able to provide the
right products and services at the right time for the customers. The service network
also includes partner companies that are not owned by S-Group but offer customer-
owners benefits from their purchases in a broad range of sectors including travel and
entertainment, restaurants, electricity, mobile phone services and health and insurance
services. The market position of the organization is thus defined through customer
value. S-Group has utilized not only hard data from the information infrastructure
in its strategic decision making, but also soft data in the form of an understanding of
customers’ everyday lives.
Thus, in terms of role recasting, customers are partners and the company is a
provider of mutual benefits. Customer orientation is something that has been
embedded into the culture of the whole business, where marketing plays a key role.
S-Group’s success has also entailed cooperating within a complex network of actors
including the regional cooperative companies, and the members of its long supply and
value chains including partner companies, regional authorities such as municipalities
and regional governments, the media and so forth. S-Group also promotes balanced
centricity, by paying attention to corporate social responsibility; the local cooperatives
are very much involved in supporting local youth and sports activities and employing
disabled people, for instance. Operating within this complex network with the
JOSM customer as a focal partner has demanded marketing be perceived by the company’s
25,2 executives more broadly than just as a department that implements marketing
activities. It has been a holistic part of all processes.

AS Tallink Group
AS Tallink Group is the leading European ferry operator offering mini-cruises,
234 passenger and cargo ferry services and also hotel accommodation in the Baltic Sea
region. The company has a fleet of 18 vessels, and transported 9.3 million passengers
in 2012. In addition, the company has hotels in the region. Its revenue in 2012 was
943.9 million euros, of which 56.3 million euros was profit. The company is part of the
growing and intensely competitive experience industry that offers services through
which customers can enjoy hedonic, emotional and social experiences in various
settings (Klaus, 2013).
Tallink’s service system has to be dynamic to account for the pace of the industry
that requires constant renewal. The passengers on mini-cruises are mostly returning
customers, so it is even more essential for the company to be able to offer them
something new every time. The requirement to ensure its customers have unique
experiences provides a challenge for this supplier. The customers define what is
meaningful and important for them in their service experience. Realizing that they
cannot build their marketing strategy without close contact with the customers, Tallink
has demonstrated an ongoing interest in learning more about them. As an example,
they have implemented a campaign to recruit customers willing to become service
developers for them. The campaign became a success, recruiting some 60,000 customers
to participate in co-creative activities to propose new ideas, products and services and
ways to create a memorable experience for customers. By engaging a large crowd of
customers, the company could go further than their loyal customer database could ever
have permitted them to do in terms of market sensing and understanding what
customers value. One result of this extensive customer engagement was realizing that
the influence of C2C interaction on service experience is crucial. Who the customer
travels with and what kind of other people they see and interact with on board the
boat are important. Thus, customers should be viewed within their social context rather
than as separate individuals. It is a good example of complexity and many-to-many
thinking in practice. The company has since developed theme cruises for customers with
matching interests in cooperation with appropriate lifestyle media, such as a theme
cruise for single people in cooperation with an internet dating service company.
The results of the customer developers campaign were actually incorporated by
the company at the highest strategic level to improve its services, which meant that it
was not just a marketing communications stunt but a genuine attempt at engaging
customers in the company’s operations. The role of marketing within the company is
also reflected in the fact that the CMO is also the vice CEO of the company. Thus,
the customers’ voice really is heard at the level of executive decision making in the
company, making marketing a strategic issue rather than a functional one.

Reino & Aino

Reino & Aino is a Finnish slipper brand with a century old manufacturing history.
The brand was formerly perceived as a “grandma and grandpa” product that restricted
its market and brought about continuously declining sales figures. In 2004, the brand
was acquired by new owners and relaunched. However, the new owners did not have
the resources to market it heavily. Instead they leveraged the traditions and history of
the brand in Finnish homes. This struck a chord with consumers and the new owners Reinventing
were surprised at how quickly the interest in the brand took off. From sales of marketing
60,000 pairs of slippers in 2004, the sales in 2011 exceeded half a million. It was clear
that customers and their social networks were playing a key role in revitalizing the strategy
brand and redefining the market for the supplier.
In the case of Reino & Aino, there are no stable segments or target markets defined
by the company. Instead, through the brand, the supplier provides an open platform 235
for the users for whom it functions as a symbolic resource in many of their everyday
activities, especially when interacting with one another, creating social value.
Consumers form communities on their own initiative and they range from families for
whom Reino & Aino stands out as a relational symbol that creates a feeling of
belonging between generations and is collectively used within everyday family life, to
local clubs and online collectives where usage experiences and stories are shared with
other consumers (Närvänen et al., 2013a). In the words of Cova (1997) the product
provides “linking value” for citizens. Its relevance is in facilitating social relationships
between citizens with common interests and lifestyles and it places emphasis on the
importance of the social context in value co-creation (Edvardsson et al., 2011). In terms
of role recasting, brand management by the supplier is less central while consumers
provide resources for each other and the supplier such as creative ideas, their social
networks and their time.
The supplier has realized that marketing is not about the product but about building
a platform for consumers’ own initiatives. This has made it possible for them to realize
the opportunities to open up new markets with the help of consumers. With increasing
consumer engagement, the media and other organizations have also joined the
network. Following a many-to-many approach, the supplier has become a preferential
network hub gaining considerable free positive publicity and goodwill in the market.
The role of the supplier then becomes about yielding control, encouraging consumer
enthusiasm by enabling them to do things on their own, supporting the coordination of
resources within the network and acknowledging the value of customers in developing
the Reino & Aino brand. To express their commitment to the new role of enabler, the
supplier does not want to impose too many rules or sanctions. The value proposition of
Reino & Aino is quite open, giving consumers a platform to find different meanings
and value-in-use complying with their personal and collective interests (Fisher and
Smith, 2011). The role of marketing in this company has been to help it adapt to
other actors in its network, encouraging cooperation and resource integration with
them. Even though there has not been a marketing department or a CMO or a large
marketing budget, the company has been entirely oriented towards the market in all
its operations. The case provides an instance of successful marketing, yet it has
surprisingly few aspects in common with textbook marketing theory. In Table I, we
summarize the implications of role recasting from the four case study examples.

Discussion
All four cases showcase marketing systems that work. The cases differ in essential
ways but have their success in common. They add to our understanding of the variety
and diversity of markets and of what recasting supplier and customer roles may mean.
Which then are the key competencies needed in marketing? What should the CMO do?
How must the firm redefine its role and behaviour to be able to succeed in the future?
New competences are needed not only in interacting with customers, but also in
interacting with other stakeholders. It is less possible for a single actor, such as the
 25,2

236
JOSM

Table I.

four cases
recasting from
Implications of role
Case/implications
from role recasting IKEA S-Group AS Tallink Group Reino & Aino

Supplier role Provider of physical resources
(furniture), service facilities and
an efficient concept
Customer role Responsible for physical
distribution and assembly
Implications for Streamline your operations by
marketing strategy considering what the customer
could do, offer a holistic concept
for customers’ lives
Provider of mutual benefits for
all parties involved
Committed customer-owner,
participating in decision
making and service
development
Engage your customers at both
rational and emotional levels,
bring customer value
orientation to the boardroom
Provider of unique and
memorable experiences that
engage customers
Provider of ideas, suggestions
and experiential knowledge
for the company
Harness the best knowledge
from customers to service
development and use this
knowledge strategically
Provider of a platform for
value creation, enabling and
supporting consumers
Integrator of resources,
creating social value while
redefining the brand
Yield control, provide
additional resources,
appreciate variety and
complexity
supplier, to define value unequivocally and then deliver it to selected and passive Reinventing
customers in the market. marketing
Adopting marketing as the core strategy of a company could mean decentralizing
the power from the company to other actors. Marketing then is less about rolling out strategy
planned and extensive campaigns or controlling how the brand appears to customers.
It has more to do with allowing other actors, especially customers, to take the lead
while the company’s resources are used to support and empower them. Accordingly, 237
critical marketing assets are no longer under the control of the supplier alone and nor
can they be exclusively managed by the company. Today’s marketing-orientated
supplier is not one who manages the customer but one who adapts and supports the
market by interacting in a network of relationships. Instead of managing and keeping
control, marketing is innovating, sensing and following; it is not doing things to
customers and others but doing it with them. The supplier becomes a coach whose
behaviour can be characterized as both leading and following.
Marketing helps the company to adopt a new role, and by interacting with the
stakeholders builds competences to successfully maintain that new role. These
competences also require a new kind of resilience and agility of companies, and also an
ability to adapt to changing market forces without controlling them. Many marketing
phenomena are no longer invented by suppliers, as social media has clearly
demonstrated. Information of both hard and soft forms must be constantly generated
to achieve an in-depth understanding of the markets in order to make strategic
decisions that are in tune with customers and other stakeholders’ interests.
Furthermore, marketing metrics must reflect a more holistic and inclusive
perspective. These metrics should be oriented towards the future and be based on
customers perceptions of the value created together in the network rather than static,
simplistic and disconnected metrics focused on the past. Data do not speak for
themselves, but have to be interpreted, which means that developing even more
sophisticated metrics is not recommended. Instead, metrics have to be adjusted to a
pragmatic level, be easy to apply in everyday operations, direct practitioners towards
desired results and not consume too many resources.
In terms of the organizational structure, the new role of the customer must be taken
into account. This might mean that customer insights are continuously taken to the
boardroom or that customers are involved as part of the strategic decision-making
process. While enthusiastic customers are the best available asset in terms of
marketing communications, engaging customers must be viewed more broadly. It is
also a genuine way to improve the suppliers’ operations. Role recasting means a
cultural change in the company, allowing customers to really experience a sense of
ownership and community. Yet, even involving customers is not enough. For a network
to be productive, all stakeholders need to feel that they get value-in exchange or
value-in use. The current focus on shareholder value or customer orientation is too
limited. Balanced centricity should be an integral part of business and marketing.
As long as short-term shareholder value and finance is allowed to remain the priority,
marketing cannot become the core strategy of a firm.

How marketing theory can support the new role of marketing

To conclude our paper, we discuss how more relevant marketing theory should be
generated to support the enhanced role of marketing in strategic decision making.
Our perspective is that there should be a symbiotic relationship between science and
practice – the product of which we call pragmatism – that provides the guidelines for
JOSM application of strategy. The former CEO of S-Group adopted a motto: “Theory is best
25,2 practice”, emphasizing that theories need to be used. This means that marketing
theory can at its best guide practice and become relevant in the boardroom and on
the CEO’s agenda. Theory is not just for theoreticians. Pragmatism has been only
partially successful so far. One reason is that methodology in social sciences including
marketing is preoccupied with fragments and a few variables and a desire to establish
238 unambiguous and unidirectional causal relationships. Mainstream research in
marketing is dominated by collecting and analysing data on consumers. The most
popular methods applied at business schools involve the study of published statistics;
surveys (statistical studies based on formal questionnaires and a sample of
consumers); qualitative personal interviews; and group interviews (focus groups).
None of these is well suited to addressing complexity, and applying other methods is
the exception. However, some companies are conducting advanced research with, for
example, brain research and experiments (Lindstrom, 2008). Alternative approaches
to the issue can be seen in the creative, postmodern and interpretative approaches to
understanding marketing. In order to improve our insights, we recommend case
research combined with network theory and systems theory and also greater use of
participant observation and action research. These more holistic methods would
ensure both the parts and whole are addressed (Gummesson, 2014). In accepting
complexity as the target for research, scientific methodology must also embrace tacit
knowing which comes under many labels: experience, intuition, common sense, sound
judgment, insights, wisdom, etc. This means more realism and less rigour but an
applied science like marketing must be relevant in the first place. To stimulate
innovation, theory generation should be based on inductive conceptualization of
well-grounded empirical data that emerge from real life situations. Deductive research
starts with extant theory and hypotheses and then forces data into preconceived
categories and patterns that risk blocking new thinking.
In focusing on research, it is easy to forget that most of the information about
customers and competitors comes from the experience acquired in the course of the
everyday work of salespeople, marketing strategists, planners and the like. It may not
be systematic in the scientific sense but it is rich, and reveals information that cannot
easily be elicited from statistics, surveys and interviews. Reflective practitioners
build both explicit and tacit knowledge. However, practitioners are prone to rely too
much on past experience and so may miss emerging changes, but if we recognize that
the best way forward may not depend on exclusively on systematic research or on
experience but a combination of both, we may well find that practice (at its best) can
also be the best theory.

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About the authors

Evert Gummesson (PhD) is a Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Management at the
Stockholm University School of Business, Sweden. His research interests are marketing as
relationships, networks and interaction; service systems; and research methodology, especially
complexity theory.
Hannu Kuusela (PhD) is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Tampere School of
Management, Finland. His research interests are service business and management, consumer
behaviour and marketing strategy. He has extensive experience from the board of directors in
several companies in many different business fields.
Elina Närvänen (PhD) is a University Teacher of Marketing at the University of Tampere
School of Management, Finland. Her research interests are collective consumption, networks
and complexity and qualitative research methodology. Elina Närvänen is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: elina.narvanen@uta.fi

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