Buzzell, Robert (Dow) 1933-2004

views updated

BUZZELL, Robert (Dow) 1933-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born April 18, 1933, in Lincoln, NE; died of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) November 6, 2004, in Arlington, VA. Educator, economist, and author. Buzzell was an influential expert on marketing best known for designing the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies (PIMS) research program at Harvard University. Completing his undergraduate work at George Washington University in 1953, he earned his master's degree at the University of Illinois the next year, and his Ph.D. in business from Ohio State University in 1957. His first teaching job was at Ohio State, and in 1961 he joined the Harvard University School of Business faculty. He remained at Harvard until 1993, serving as executive director of the Marketing Science Institute from 1968 to 1972 and as chair of the marketing faculty from 1972 until 1977, eventually becoming Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Business Administration. After leaving Harvard, he was a professor of marketing at George Mason University until 1998, and he also lectured at Georgetown University from 1998 until 2000. Always a forward-thinking, practical economist, Buzzell emphasized the importance of measurable business results and the necessity of research and development in large companies that wish to remain competitive, ideas that were a focus of the PIMS and explained in his book The PIMS Principles: Linking Strategy to Performance (1987), written with Bradley T. Gale. He also strongly believed in the necessity of businesses taking advantage of new technology. Among his other works are Marketing: A Contemporary Analysis (1972), the edited Marketing in an Electronic Age (1985), and the cowritten The Marketing Challenge of Europe 1992 (1991).