Marketing management and profitability: a study with business games

Abstract

The marketing management in organizations is crucial for affecting the generation of revenue. However, managers have little understood the impact of management on profitability, because the difficulty of measuring the effects on the results. This study compared marketing management in companies that worked with operational focus to those working with strategic focus. Data produced in a business game with nine competing firms were examined in a descriptive study focusing the impact on profits and on the Internal Rate of Return. The analysis of the decisions revealed that four companies were operational oriented and five companies were strategic oriented. The results showed that the strategic marketing management absorbed larger investments, generating greater value to shareholders and maintaining the expectation of business continuity. Business games as a research environment have much to contribute to empirical studies in the Marketing field.