Brand managers: Essential or extinct?

Like many white collar jobs that ‘float’ in the middle of organisational structures, the role of brand managers is now being challenged in the process of downturn cost optimisation.

In many new-to-marketing industries (like technology, telecom, financial services), functions once considered as marketing are now being managed by specialists, e.g. product development, supply chain, channel management, service quality, corporate reputation.

Further, key brand strategies are far too important to be left only to brand managers. This leaves brand managers in most cases with the roles of coordination, analytics and supervising advertising agencies. ROI?