What Accountants Can Do
This course introduces accountants to key discussions around marketing accountability, a critical yet often overlooked area in financial and managerial reporting. You'll explore the challenges accounting faces in capturing the true value created by marketing activities and why traditional approaches—like treating all marketing as an expense—can be misleading. The course encourages a fresh perspective on how accountants and marketers can work together more effectively.
Through thought-provoking examples and practical insights, you'll learn how to address essential questions such as: How can we value customers? and How can we better align financial practices with marketing performance? By the end of the course, you'll be better equipped to collaborate with marketing teams, promote accountability, and support data-driven decision-making that reflects marketing's strategic contribution.
Associate Professor at Ivey Business School
I am an associate professor of marketing at the Ivey Business School, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. I am the Chair of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) Advisors. My training involves a PhD at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, an MBA at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia and ancient history studies in England at Liverpool and Nottingham universities. I am a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants — and have worked in a variety of roles. My most significant work experience came from managing the finances of the Labour Party in the UK. At Ivey I teach Competition and Competitor Analysis (game theory, marketing strategy and decision making) and Measurable Marketing, (marketing and finance and how numbers should drive marketing strategy). My PhD Decision Making seminar focuses on decision theory, behavioural/experimental economics and evolutionary theory. The book I coauthored with Paul Farris, Phil Pfeifer and David Reibstein his Marketing Metrics: The Managers Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (3rd edition) Please visit my Marketing Thought website at neilbendle.com
