Marketing as a field of business is connected to many other aspects of business and requires interdisciplinary knowledge. Marketing mainly relates to accounting through managerial accounting, which is important for decision making and performance evaluation. Thus, the knowledge of accounting is valuable for majority of processes in the marketing field. This essay will explore vital connections between marketing and accounting and discuss why students should learn about accounting when planning a career in marketing.
The first undeniable connection between accounting and marketing lies in the financial terms of marketing. Marketing activities are predominantly used to achieve profit maximization, which is the drive behind the marketing strategy (Cvitanović, 2018). Moreover, according to Matsuoka (2020), accounting and revenue accounting, in particular, contribute to the plan and control of marketing through the marketing budget. Some of the accounting techniques are even used in marketing to manage customer data.
In an article by Cvitanović (2018), the author states that marketing professionals share misconceptions of financial terms and important accounting aspects in both conceptual and pragmatic ways. However, according to Stewart, to ensure effective communication between different branches and fields of business, the marketing specialists should be able to ‘speak the same financial language’ (as cited in Cvitanović, 2018, p. 84). In some companies, the issue is solved by organizing educational workshops for marketing employees on financial analysis and accounting topics.
In conclusion, the students that plan on making a career in marketing should learn about accounting to gain the skills and knowledge required for the financial aspect of operations in marketing. The fact that some of the same techniques used in accounting could be used in marketing highlights the importance of expanding the students’ scope through interdisciplinary knowledge. Moreover, to ensure an effective connection between the employees, the marketing staff should understand the basic financial terms and concepts.
References
Cvitanović, P. (2018). Managing accounting and financial aspects of marketing. Journal of Accounting and Management, 8(2), 83-94.
Matsuoka, K. (2020). Exploring the interface between management accounting and marketing: a literature review of customer accounting. Journal of Management Control, 31, 157-208. doi:10.1007/s00187-020-00299-9