Marketers' ability to influence organizational performance is optimized when all areas of the organization are focused on
creating appropriate value propositions for selected customers. Marketing plays a key role in generating and disseminating information central to customer value creation and
facilitating a shared interpretation across the functional areas
of the organization. The DSI framework presented in this
paper emphasizes the strategic importance of utilizing a
shared understanding of customer value to guide organizational resource investment towards value creating initiatives
The need to adopt a cross-functional perspective in marketing was underscored by Srivastava et al. (1999), however, a
shortage of such research in marketing journals continues.
The DSI framework represents a pathway for marketing
researchers to explore the connections between crossfunctional integration and knowledge management that are
necessary for the implementation and execution of this
strategic approach to customer value creation.