Q: Why does someone join the Marketing Leadership Council?

A: Membership in the Marketing Leadership Council saves executives time and money by helping them to avoid reinventing the wheel in addressing problems they share with their peers across industries and around the world. Through our shared-cost membership structure, we are able to produce actionable research at the quality standard of the leading consultancies, but at a fraction of the cost.

Q: Does membership require a substantial time investment?

A: No. In fact, members judge us on our ability to conserve their time - to focus them on the correct set of strategic issues, to compress the time required to review the best current practices, and to weed out bad ideas quickly.

Q: How do you decide which topics to cover?

A: This process is entirely member driven. On an ongoing basis, we poll the members to identify their most vexing challenges, and we select for detailed examination the most urgent and widely shared problems. Sudden market and economic events are also addressed by the membership.

Q: With whom do you work at member institutions?

A: Our member relationships generally provide the most value when they are housed with the head of the IT function, who is able to direct our strategic research agenda to enterprise-level concerns and focus our resources on the organizations most critical priorities. With this overall direction, we are then able to interact on a day-to-day basis with direct reports and other functional staff throughout the member organization.

Q: Why do the best practice companies share their practices with you?

A: Three reasons in particular stand out. First, the most progressive companies recognize that a network has value to the extent that individual companies participate in it and that no company (themselves included) is best at everything. Second, members have discovered the "two-way value" present in interviews with our researchers and the value of findings from research under way. Finally, we are meticulous about member confidences. Members should feel comfortable that any information shared with our research teams is completely confidential unless and until they authorize its release.

Q: Are members required to share information with you?

A: No. Members choose whether or not to participate in individual research projects, as schedule and preference permit. However, more than 90% of our members participate in our telephone and on-site interviews, generally reporting that they learn as much as they contribute through their interactions with our research staff.

Q: With whom do I interact at the Marketing Leadership Council?

A: Each member relationship is coordinated by a dedicated team consisting of relationship management and research staff. This team reaches out at the beginning of each membership year to create a service plan responsive to individual member needs and then uses this plan as a blueprint to guide action across the year. This team is "on call" to respond to any requests or needs that arise.

Q: Who is allowed to attend a member meeting?

A: We convene two types of meetings: Annual Executive Retreats, in which we preview research and manage discussion among our most senior member contacts, and Executive Briefings, sequenced and designed to accommodate large numbers of interested staff members. Attendance at the former is limited to the seniormost sales executive, but all of our forums are designed to offer a "members-only" environment, free from consultants, vendors, and the media.

Q: How can you provide unmetered service for a fixed annual contribution?

A: We have attempted to structure the membership experience so that virtually all services are available in unlimited quantity to members as many copies of studies as are desired to communicate our findings, as many attendees at our Executive Briefings as members find useful, and unlimited access to our online resources. Some services such as the annual on-site visit or short-answer research require limitation or queuing for reasons of cost and logistics, but it is our overall intent that members feel free to call on us without fear of additional charge.

Q: Do members ever invoke your service guarantee?

A: Quite seldom it is truly an exceptional event. Even so, all requests are honored. We believe the guarantee, however seldom invoked, is consistent with our service ambition, and we are eager to learn of and have the opportunity to correct any dissatisfaction that might arise in a members experience with us.

Q: Do you work with any consulting firms?

A: We have no commercial relationship with any consulting firms nor do we engage particular consultants in our work. That said, we do discuss ideas with consultant experts who are well versed in the topics we are addressing for the membership and routinely cite consultants in our studies if they have contributed to the thought therein.

Q: How is the Corporate Executive Board organized?

A: The Corporate Executive Board is organized as a series of stand-alone research programs, each with its own membership network, content archive, and dedicated research and service staff. Member executives subscribe to individual research programs, as they desire, and designate staff within their organizations to benefit.