Professor Malcolm McDonald was recently cited as one of the top marketing gurus in the world, along with Philip Kotler and Michael Porter and, in a 2006 Times HE piece, he was named as one of the top ten consultants in the UK. He is now Emeritus Professor at Cranfield University School of Management where, until recently, he was Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director. Formerly Marketing Director of Canada Dry, he is Chairman of six companies and works with many of the operating boards of the world's biggest multinationals on every continent. He is the author of over 40 books, many of which have been translated into several foreign languages and has published hundreds of articles and papers. Although retiring from his teaching role, Malcolm continues to research and teach at Cranfield and other universities around the world and to promote himself via speaking engagements, visiting lectures, and consultancy. He is determined to keep this, his most revered publication, alive and kicking. He has thought long and hard about a succession plan for the book and has invited Professor Hugh Davies, also of Cranfield University School of Management, to assist him in the current update, with a view to Hugh taking the reigns of the book's development into the future. Hugh Wilson is Professor of Strategic Marketing and Director of the Customer Management Forum at Cranfield School of Management, and an influential author, speaker and consultant in marketing and IT.

Hugh is listed in the Chartered Institute of Marketing's global 'Guru Gallery' of 'the 50 leading marketing thinkers alive today'. He has extensive industrial experience, including thirteen years in the IT industry working for IBM, Logica, Artificial Intelligence Ltd and NCR in marketing, consulting and business development. He now spends much of his time working with companies such as IBM, Lloyds TSB, BT, Taylor Woodrow and Skandia on marketing planning, e-commerce, CRM and multi-channel marketing, as well as teaching on these topics in Cranfield. His books and management reports include the bestselling 'e-marketing' (1999), 'Profiting from eCRM' (2001), and 'Marketing Strategy in the digital age' (2001), all published by FT Prentice Hall. 'The New Marketing' (with Malcolm McDonald), was published in 2002. He was recently honoured by the DTI as one of the "Internet Decade" list of the hundred individuals who have had most influence over the development of e-commerce, according to an NOP poll. He writes regularly for academic and practitioner journals. His latest book 'The Multichannel Challenge' (with Rod Street and Lindsay Bruce) was published in March 2008.