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
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,
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.