However, marketing professionals are failing to communicate with finance departments and they need to gain more impact outside the marketing function to raise customer and market issues to the CEO agenda.
The research was undertaken by the PA Consulting Group along with the Marketing Forum and Cranfield School of Management.
It showed that marketers become more valuable to the organisations they work for if they take a long-term focus on profitability, rather than concentrating on short-term growth.
The research, based on a survey of 156 senior UK marketers, showed that marketing talent is what is described as "patchy" and that systems and information often fall wide of the mark.
The full report is available from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, which has endorsed the findings.
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