Marketing practitioners are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their contribution to firm performance. It has been widely argued that an inability to account for marketing's contribution has undermined its standing within the firm. To respond to this pressure, marketers are investing in the development of performance measurement abilities, but to date, there have been no empirical studies of whether the ability to measure marketing performance has any actual effect on either firm performance or marketing's stature. In this study of senior marketing managers in hightechnology firms, the authors examine the effect of ability to measure marketing performance on firm performance, using both primary data collected from senior marketers and secondary data on firm profitability and stock returns. They also explore the effect of ability to measure marketing on marketing's stature within the firm, which is operationalized as chief executive officer satisfaction with marketing. The empirical results indicate that the ability to measure marketing performance has a significant impact on firm performance, profitability, stock returns, and marketing's stature within the firm.

PurposeWhile service quality, trust and commitment are frequently cited as critical to achieving important firm outcomes, the role of service differentiation in this framework is largely unknown. Yet, differentiation is important because a firm's distinctiveness is linked to client‐perceived value, competitive advantage, and a target market focus. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of service differentiation in business‐to‐business relationships.Design/methodology/approachHypotheses were tested using a sample of business clients from a large European financial services firm. The senior primary contact in each client firm was contacted by phone/e‐mail to arrange for completion of the survey. Using the survey instrument, respondents provided information on their relationship with the provider organization.FindingsResults indicated that service quality had an impact on trust, differentiation and relationship outcomes. Trust was found to drive service differentiation. Differentiation, in turn, drove commitment which ultimately had an impact on both satisfaction and word‐of‐mouth. Importantly, it was found that service differentiation is a full mediator of the impact that service quality and trust have on client commitment towards the firm.Originality/valueThe findings clearly show the importance of service differentiation in achieving high levels of relationship commitment and ultimately satisfaction and positive word‐of‐mouth. As the role of differentiation in business‐to‐business relationships has received limited research focus, this paper offers managers new insights into relationship development. Importantly, differentiation is a managerially controlled variable that firms can use to influence relationship outcomes.

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