Accounting, marketing and performance management

Many service functions in companies, such as human resources, logistics and finance now compete against private providers who welcome the shift to outsourcing. To maintain relevance and viability, these internal functions need to be able to demonstrate their quality and level of contribution and indicators of a return on budget allocated. A conceptual model (Frost and Kumar, 2000) identifies three pertinent 'gaps' and their utility is explored. Gap I was operationalised using a survey of accountants and marketers and pointed to significant gaps existing in the understanding and use of some analytical measures designed by accountants for marketers.