Robert Shaw is a business author and consultant on the field of marketing, particularly Marketing performance measurement and management

Marketing performance measurement and management

Marketing performance measurement and management is a term used by marketing professionals to describe the analysis and improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing. This is accomplished by focus on the alignment of marketing activities, strategies, and metrics with business goals...

 and Database marketing

Database marketing

Database marketing is a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes...

.

Life and career

Shaw received his masters degree and PhD at Cambridge University, both in mathematical physics, and he also holds an MSc in Operations Research

Operations research

Operations research is an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology by organizations...

. He worked for Andersen Consulting leading consulting projects and developing new concepts on marketing data and metrics and then in 1989 founded VBMF, his own consulting firm. He has been consulted by many large companies - including BP

BP

BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...

, IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, Manchester United, Nestle

Nestlé

Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...

 and Unilever

Unilever

Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....

 and has a Brand Leadership Award from the World Brands Congress; CEO Magazine has named him “leading new-generation business guru”; the Management Consultants Association and the Chartered Institute of Marketing have both awarded him book of the year author. He is currently Honorary Professor of Marketing Metrics at Cass Business School.

Key Ideas

Two key ideas run through most of Shaw's writing.

1. Marketing automation: the idea that the marketing function should embrace IT to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. Shaw has tracked the uses and abuses of IT in marketing for over 20 years and defined best practice in this field.

• 1988 - Database Marketing
• 1988 - Survey of Marketing Software Packages
• 1991 - Computer Aided Marketing and Selling
• 1994 - How to Transform Marketing Through IT
• 2009 - Rethinking the Chain - Make marketing leaner, faster and better

2. Marketing performance measurement and management. Shaw identified the need for marketing to become more measurable and accountable and his researches continue to define best practice in this field.

• 1997 - Marketing Accountability
• 1998 - Improving Marketing Effectiveness
• 1999 - Measuring and valuing customer relationships
• 2002 - Getting better value from marketing investments
• 2002 - How to Control Marketing - ICAEW Guide
• 2005 - Marketing Payback - Is Your Marketing Profitable
• 2008 - Return on Ideas: Better Results from Finance and Marketing Working Together

See also

• Customer relationship management
  Customer relationship management
  Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
  
  
• Marketing effectiveness
  Marketing effectiveness
  Marketing effectiveness is the quality of how marketers go to market with the goal of optimizing their spending to achieve good results for both the short-term and long-term...
  
  
• Marketing ROI