I'm curious about who takes ownership for business strategy and the related business growth in most companies, particularly SMEs. Experience tells me that it's not normally the marketing department - they seem to be pigeon holed into concentrating on promotional and communications issues. This is important, but often poorly focused as a consequence of unclear strategic direction.

Core business strategy issues about products, markets, positioning, competition and so on, have long been a core element of the professional qualifications awarded by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and it is good to see Strategic Marketing appearing as a stand alone discipline in a number of respected MBA courses.

But what puzzles me is this. How does a business nominate its strategist in the absence of exposure to this training and insight? Is there another professional body that accredits in these areas or are we, as I suspect, burdoning business owners with these challenges and expecting them to get by using their experience?