In many companies, the marketing function is best placed to orchestrate customer engagement for the entire organization. To do so, the function must be pervasive - able to influence touch points it doesn't directly control. Over the past year, a wide range of companies have tried to address customer engagement in more integrated ways, but many executives have said they simply don't know where to begin. The spectrum of organizational choices is broader than ever, and companies are struggling to determine the appropriate role of marketing for their business. What's more, senior executives often view any internal effort by the marketing function as a "land grab." Given the absence of solid return-on-investment data, they may express skepticism about marketing's place in the new environment.
