in Figure 4.3 are of special interest because they are common to so
many organizations. These include:
1 financial and investor influence markets
2 environmental influence markets
3 competitor influence markets
4 political and regulatory influence markets.
Financial and investor influence markets
Gaining the support and loyalty of a wide range of financial
markets is an issue that has to be addressed by many organizations.
Financial and investor influence markets are especially crucial for
organizations who are listed on a stock market or who plan to
achieve a listing. However, they are also important to other organi-
zations such as ‘mutuals’ (organizations owned by subscribers,
depositors or customers, which include non-listed insurance com-
panies and building societies).
For example, a credit rating agency recently decided to credit rate
certain mutuals, including non-listed insurance companies. One
mutual chose not to go through the formal credit rating process. The
rating agency subsequently gave them a provisional rating which
was arguably much lower than was justified. This impacted nega-
tively on the organization in a number of ways, not the least of
which was to make the cost of their capital higher. Relationships
between this mutual and a number of its influence markets were
adversely affected by this.
Another further illustration will serve to illustrate the importance
of managing financial influence markets. In a large British manu-
facturer the chairman and deputy chairman of the company devel-
oped a coordinated marketing programme aimed at all the
important members of the financial influence market. It created an
integrated marketing programme directed at improving its market
perception and share price. The chairman and deputy chairman
spent a high proportion of their time making presentations to key
groups, including stockbrokers, bankers, investment associations
and financial journalists. They marketed their vision for the strategy
and future of the company, which included plans for a series of
ambitious acquisitions. The company’s acquisition plans were very
well thought through and details of them, in broad terms, were
made available to these groups as part of the presentations. After
the period of a year of such activity, the financial community
The referral and influence market domains 239