Marketing joins the gym

Before health clubs, the Atkins diet and personal trainers, what did we do to keep fit? When we were younger perhaps we played team sports, or bought an exercise video and climbed into a brightly coloured Lycra leotard, happy to make complete fools of ourselves in the privacy of our own homes. But then came a revolution. It was no longer good enough to occasionally swing your arms and kick your legs to the sound of 80’s disco music, urged on by a Hollywood diva, you needed ‘A Programme’ with goals and targets, measuring success every inch of the way. As a result, three million of us joined gyms and health clubs, and started personal training programmes. The nation got the fact that healthy living supported with regular reviews of lifestyle and diet was a good thing.

What has this got to do with marketing? For years, marketing has avoided the corporate health kick – i.e missed out on business process re-engineering (BPR) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), both of which brought about operational efficiency improvements on medium to large sized businesses. For example the outcome from ERP has been fitter businesses, less waste and improved time-to-market capability.

Whenever marketing has been engaged in discussions about adopting ERP, there was often the push-back that trying to systemise what is essentially a creative and dynamic function, it’s almost impossible, unless it’s limited to the analysis and reporting of customer and campaign data. Consequently marketing often seemed to be the only part of the business that didn’t have a complete set of measurable goals and targets and even less in the way of return on investment or efficiency measures. Things have changed, but very slowly. Today’s commercial pressures are causing a change.  Marketing has to be more accountable, it has to shape up and demonstrate it - along with the rest of the business - can deliver business benefit. The cost accountants want to know who does what, why and how well. Marketing is under the microscope.

The reason’s why marketing is coming under such scrutiny are simple. As with any other part of the business, it has to demonstrate it is adding value to the whole proposition, otherwise why bother?  A global consulting firm recently researched some of its global clients and found those with $1bn brands could save between $35m and $70m in annual benefits simply by addressing marketing efficiency and effectiveness areas. (See Fig 1) And interestingly the areas it discovered to show the maximum opportunity for gain were in simply better deployment of resources; described as increased productivity and capacity.

 Fig 1: Marketing Transformation Drivers. Source: Accenture paper 2003

As with any fitness programmes, it’s no good just jumping on the treadmill and running at full tilt. You need to know how fit you are first. That’s why all fitness programmes start with an assessment. For marketing that means assessing current capabilities to get a baseline from which to build the improvement programme.

There are several ways this baseline assessment can be done:

• It could be created by simply interviewing staff and asking them what they do, how they do it and who they work with. This approach might not deliver a very consist or well formed view, but it would be quick.
• One could adopt a simple business analysis model looking at people, process and technology for example. This is more structured, but may miss some of the finer detailed aspects of marketing operations work, such as the way performance is linked to other parts of the business and the connection to an overall marketing strategy.
• Another way is to adopt a more holistic framework specifically designed for marketing operations – topic headings with subordinate questions to provide a more structured view of how you are performing.

An example of a framework approach to assessments is as follows

Strategy – the way marketing goals and objectives are set, how they relate to business goals and how these points are communicated amongst the team and other stakeholders

Process – the processes that exist in marketing operations and the way these are adopted and managed to deliver programmes and campaigns

Organisation – the roles pay people have in marketing operations, how their jobs are described and the way their skills and competences are developed

Technology - the way in which technology has been adopted to enable marketing operations to work more efficiently and effectively

Measures – the metrics used to determine success of campaigns, programmes and activities.

Adopting this framework approach provides the most robust way of determining current capability. It also has the advantage of being replicable and allows comparisons to be made, both internally – where an organisation has several marketing operations units, or externally, benchmarking with other organisations. Finally, it also delivers a roadmap for change which allows marketing to first ‘tone up’ by streamlining processes and then become ‘super-fit’ by adopting technology where it can have the most impact.

Operational business improvements often result in application of software solutions, typically ERP or supply chain systems. In some recent research conducted amongst 60 large companies with pan-European operations, it was discovered that there are still large gaps in technology adoption, with less than 20% of firms having applied technology in key areas of marketing operations such as digital asset management, partner relationship management and business development funds control. Indeed, less than half those surveyed had applied any technology to their operational area.

Source: Freedman International marketing operations self-assessment tool June 2004

The challenge for marketing professionals is finding the right solutions and implementing them in the right order to ensure ROI can be met and the systems are seen as a help rather than a hinderence.

For those with experience in CRM the critical issues are well known and are equally relevant to marketing operations.

• User engagement: the most important success factor. If they don’t see the value or purpose of the systems being proposed they will never be open to reaping the benefit.
• User specification: making sure users have a role in specifying the solution, so that it is seen as something they have helped to shape
• Clear ROI: based on achievable short or medium term objectives
• Communicating success: celebrate success and make sure people get the recognition they deserve for making the changes necessary to work with the new systems
• Integration: don’t allow systems to become ‘islands of data’

The generic term marketing resource management (MRM) has been used to describe this area. Although, like most buzzwords, it has the potential to mislead and blur the picture, as happened with CRM, and BPR, MRM may prove to be a useful way of engaging all stakeholders in discussion over ways marketing can improve its efficiency and effectiveness. The fitness regime starts today!

About the Author

Paul Scott is a business strategist, specialising in sales, marketing and customer services. He spent 10 years in b2b marketing roles with software and business services firms before becoming a consultant. Paul advises Freedman International’s clients on ways to optimise their marketing operations across Europe.