This document discusses the growing role of marketers in leadership positions, including on company boards. It notes that while marketers are increasingly gaining board seats, the pace of change is still slow. Marketers are demonstrating their value through data-driven strategies and customer-centric approaches to growth. As the role of marketing expands, more marketers are developing the broad business skills needed for executive leadership. The document examines trends in board representation for marketers in various countries and regions.
Gone are the days when marketing chiefs focused solely on the classic 4Ps: Product, Price, Promotions and Place - they now must take an integrated approach to drive company goals.
The power of Enablement - Bridging the Sales Gap -Brainshark Forbes Insights ...Nicolas Lihou
Top-performing companies focus on sales enablement and productivity. They have defined sales enablement roles, strong alignment between sales and marketing, and focus on high-quality content to improve sales conversations. These companies excel at providing a consistent sales message. Investing in improving efficiency and effectiveness through technology helps address multiple factors that impact productivity.
The document discusses the skills and capabilities needed to build a modern marketing organization, including customer insights, digital marketing, social media, integrated engagement planning, content development, evaluative analytics, and predictive analytics. It provides examples of how leading companies are developing these skills within their marketing teams and shifting certain functions, like digital marketing, from centralized groups to being embedded within broader marketing. The goal is to transform marketing organizations to effectively use data, technology, and content across all touchpoints.
Measured Marketing Lab November 2015 lecture at Boston University - College of Communications on the future of marketing and the rise of Marketing Operations as a role..
Forrrester Report: Marketing Maturity in the Age of the CustomerJakub Malobecki
Technology gives customers new decision-making and
purchasing power. Potential buyers can access information
about products, services, pricing, and brand reputation from
anywhere, anytime. This makes customer understanding a
strategic imperative, and only those companies that obsess
over knowing their customers intimately will thrive in this
new digitally powered age
The document discusses why some digital players have been more successful than others over the past decade. It argues that the top digital players' secret to success is their superior sales and marketing operations. They have built better advertising sales teams through techniques like ambitious target setting, a focus on client needs in pitches, and hiring from outside the advertising industry. Other digital and legacy publishers can learn from these strategies to improve their own advertising sales performance.
Exclusive research conducted with CEOs to understand how satified, or not, they are with the performance of their marketing function.
Fieldwork courtesy of CEO Magazine (USA, 2014).
Gone are the days when marketing chiefs focused solely on the classic 4Ps: Product, Price, Promotions and Place - they now must take an integrated approach to drive company goals.
The power of Enablement - Bridging the Sales Gap -Brainshark Forbes Insights ...Nicolas Lihou
Top-performing companies focus on sales enablement and productivity. They have defined sales enablement roles, strong alignment between sales and marketing, and focus on high-quality content to improve sales conversations. These companies excel at providing a consistent sales message. Investing in improving efficiency and effectiveness through technology helps address multiple factors that impact productivity.
The document discusses the skills and capabilities needed to build a modern marketing organization, including customer insights, digital marketing, social media, integrated engagement planning, content development, evaluative analytics, and predictive analytics. It provides examples of how leading companies are developing these skills within their marketing teams and shifting certain functions, like digital marketing, from centralized groups to being embedded within broader marketing. The goal is to transform marketing organizations to effectively use data, technology, and content across all touchpoints.
Measured Marketing Lab November 2015 lecture at Boston University - College of Communications on the future of marketing and the rise of Marketing Operations as a role..
Forrrester Report: Marketing Maturity in the Age of the CustomerJakub Malobecki
Technology gives customers new decision-making and
purchasing power. Potential buyers can access information
about products, services, pricing, and brand reputation from
anywhere, anytime. This makes customer understanding a
strategic imperative, and only those companies that obsess
over knowing their customers intimately will thrive in this
new digitally powered age
The document discusses why some digital players have been more successful than others over the past decade. It argues that the top digital players' secret to success is their superior sales and marketing operations. They have built better advertising sales teams through techniques like ambitious target setting, a focus on client needs in pitches, and hiring from outside the advertising industry. Other digital and legacy publishers can learn from these strategies to improve their own advertising sales performance.
Exclusive research conducted with CEOs to understand how satified, or not, they are with the performance of their marketing function.
Fieldwork courtesy of CEO Magazine (USA, 2014).
This document discusses optimizing marketing and sales lead management through the use of marketing automation. It identifies common failures in the lead management process, including a lack of lead definition, data issues, poor lead qualification and scoring, ineffective sales handoff, and limited lead nurturing. Marketing automation can help address these failures by streamlining data collection, facilitating data sharing between marketing and sales, enabling lead nurturing, and supporting performance tracking. The document provides an overview of how marketing automation can help align sales and marketing processes to improve lead management.
Chapter 8 - SECRETS TO BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS BUSINESS THROUGH LEADERSHIP MAR...VINCE FERRARO
This document discusses secrets to building a world-class business through leadership marketing. It outlines six key roles of successful marketing leaders and organizations: 1) being a strategic visionary for the business, 2) growing revenues and market share while managing profitability, 3) identifying and creating new business opportunities, 4) bringing the voice of customers to senior leadership, 5) creating the right marketing structures, and 6) balancing strategic planning and tactical execution over time. The document emphasizes that marketing must be both strategic and able to execute, and that the most effective marketing leaders blend roles to drive business growth.
This document discusses how marketing automation can help address challenges facing modern marketers, such as unstructured data, siloed teams, high costs, and long sales cycles. It provides examples of how marketing automation solutions from Eloqua have helped companies in healthcare, insurance, financial services, and manufacturing industries by centralizing data, automating tasks, integrating systems, and providing metrics to measure effectiveness. Overall, the document argues that marketing automation can help empower marketers and drive revenue growth.
Die C-Level Linienfunktion CMO (Cief Marketing Officer) wir immer wichtiger. Hier ist ein White Paper zu den Anforderungen denen sich CMOs aktuell stellen müssen.
Vielen Dank für das White Paper an Sheryl Pattekwith, David M. Cooperstein und Alexandra Hayes von Heidrick & Struggles.
CREATIVE WITH INVESTMENT? Addressing the need for creative transformation in ...Dog
Taking the idea of creative transformation - the evolving relationship between creativity, digital, marketing and business – Dog produced a whitepaper that seeks to uncover challenges faced by those involved in driving innovative marketing strategies and searches for actionable recommendations for today’s marketers working within the financial services industry.
Our findings are based on an independent survey of 200 marketing and communications professionals and insight gathered during an industry roundtable with Heads of Marketing at leading global financial services organisations.
This document discusses five steps that CMOs and CFOs can take to build collaboration and demonstrate the value of marketing investments:
1) Create an "open book" mindset by making marketing spending and activities transparent.
2) Focus on key performance metrics that are aligned with business goals and shareholder value.
3) Balance measuring short-term sales impacts and long-term brand building.
4) Consider opportunities to reduce marketing costs in addition to justifying spending.
5) Seek opportunities for CMOs and CFOs to collaborate in planning and budgeting processes.
Taking these steps can help CMOs show marketing returns quantitatively and unlock 10-20% of the marketing budget to rein
This document summarizes research from Aberdeen Group on how best-in-class sales organizations use social relationships to build a better sales pipeline. The summary is:
1) Best-in-class firms use social media like LinkedIn more effectively than average firms to originate deals and influence buying decisions, with over half of their deals influenced by social relationships.
2) These top firms focus on creating meaningful sales conversations tailored to customers' needs rather than just adding deals to meet quotas. They also better share knowledge among reps.
3) Utilizing social relationships allows reps to have more personalized interactions with prospects and learn more about their needs, leading to higher quality deals and pipelines for best-in-class companies.
Sales casualty analysis: why sales numbers do not happen and what to do to ge...Browne & Mohan
Despite significant investment in resource and infrastructure, many companies suffer from long sales cycles, lack of funnel, targets missed by miles and very low closure rate. Reasons for poor sales numbers are common across industries. In this white paper, Browne & Mohan consultants detail the inhibitors of sales growth and how to address the same.
The definitive-guide-to-lead-generationGoWebBola.com
Here are the key points from the chapter:
- A lead is a qualified prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior.
- To define a lead, sales and marketing need to agree on demographic and firmographic criteria like title, company size, industry, as well as BANT criteria like budget, authority, need, and timeline.
- Leads should be categorized as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) or Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) depending on their stage in the buying process.
- Sales and marketing should agree on when leads move from MQLs to SQLs and the process for notifying sales of new leads.
- Service level agreements can be implemented to ensure sales
Free small business marketing basics handout. Extract from the How To Market My Small business Course: https://www.injust5.com/downloads/market-small-business-course/ Explanatory video for this resource at: https://www.injust5.com/2016/06/25/marketing-basics-small-business-free-handout/
Sales operations centre (SOC) is the heart of sales operations. Many companies do not realize the benefits of sales transformation because they under invest in SOC or do not plan & roll it out like a project. The result inconsistent sales reviews, inefficient controls and unrealized outcomes. In this white paper, Browne & Mohan consultants share the best practice approach to build a strong sales operations centre
This document provides an executive summary of a study on customer attainment from event engagement. Some key findings include:
- Marketers see live engagements at events as core to business growth, but justifying budgets is challenging.
- Marketers want added value like insights, measurements, and deeper engagements from event investments.
- Both marketers and event organizers must provide more analytics and insights to better target, engage, and measure event investments.
- The goal is to leverage data-driven marketing while retaining experiential engagements that drive customer relationships.
1) The document provides strategies for companies to adopt to cope with lean times, including consolidating business units, rebuilding offerings, discovering outsourcing benefits, investing in customer experience, reorganizing sales and support functions, focusing teams, and partnering.
2) It recommends evaluating each business unit for its contributions and consolidating underperforming areas. Companies should also rebuild offerings to capitalize on existing customer needs through new products or services.
3) Outsourcing non-core functions can provide significant savings through reduced costs and improved services.
Conducted in September 2009, this online survey of 39 senior b-to-b marketing leaders (mostly CMOs and VPs of Marketing) examines how they are managing the turbulent economic climate and what changes to budgets, strategies and programs they have made this year and are planning to make in 2010.
This document provides an overview of lead nurturing strategies for B2B marketers. It defines lead nurturing as building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their readiness to purchase, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready. Most new leads are not yet sales-ready, so lead nurturing aims to maintain contact and provide relevant information to prospects throughout their buying journey. Done effectively, lead nurturing can increase sales opportunities and conversions compared to not nurturing leads. The guide offers basic and advanced nurturing tactics and worksheets to help marketers implement successful nurturing programs.
This report summarizes the findings of a survey of 435 business leaders and marketers on their lead generation strategies. It finds that companies with a "Superior Strategy" focus on improving lead quality over quantity and are more likely to segment leads. Those with an "Inferior Strategy" have more challenges converting leads to customers. Across companies, generating high-quality leads and optimizing lead conversions are the most difficult goals. Email is the most effective tactic while content marketing is difficult to execute. Companies vary in their strategies based on their sales cycle length and types of products or services sold. The report provides a framework for developing a Superior Strategy through a SWOT analysis of a company's lead generation program.
Trading companies add value by bringing suppliers and buyers together. To build a successful and growing trading company, there is much to be learnt by bench marking with successful ones, and working on some drivers that will enable the company to unleash growth. This paper discusses some of the drivers for improvement.
Marketing's role has shifted from solely owning a company's brand to sharing ownership with other departments like HR. As the lines between marketing and HR responsibilities blur due to digital transformation, marketing must adapt by leveraging its strategic skills to facilitate collaboration across functions and ensure all voices are heard. While brand ownership is shared, marketing retains influence through its understanding of stakeholders and ability to demonstrate commercial impact, positioning it to drive organizational change for growth.
The document discusses how event consolidation and strategic meetings management can help companies better manage their marketing budgets and measure returns on events. It notes that marketing budgets often devote around 23% to events but these are not always well-managed. Event consolidation, aided by strategic technology, can help achieve key objectives of risk management, improved processes and cost savings. Choosing technology alone is not enough - consolidation requires aligning events with business goals and measuring outcomes like return on investment and objectives. This can help meeting professionals demonstrate the strategic value of events and justify a seat at the executive table.
This document discusses the difference between strategists and managers. It provides background on Helmuth von Moltke, a Prussian general staff known for his strategic abilities. The objective is to understand what makes a strategist and how managers can develop strategic skills. A strategist is defined as having a long-term plan to achieve goals, while a manager controls resources and staff. The document includes a questionnaire to evaluate if managers display strategic traits like having an entrepreneurial vision and competitive advantages. It concludes the questionnaire can help identify average managers versus good strategists for promotions.
The document discusses the importance of having a strategic view as a business leader. It states that leaders need to extricate themselves from the day-to-day operations to view their business from a "balcony perspective" in order to see the larger picture and craft an effective strategy. The document outlines that strategy defines the domain, approach, goals, and fundamental journey of a company. It also notes that leadership and strategy are inseparable, with strategy requiring continuous leadership rather than intermittent efforts.
This document discusses optimizing marketing and sales lead management through the use of marketing automation. It identifies common failures in the lead management process, including a lack of lead definition, data issues, poor lead qualification and scoring, ineffective sales handoff, and limited lead nurturing. Marketing automation can help address these failures by streamlining data collection, facilitating data sharing between marketing and sales, enabling lead nurturing, and supporting performance tracking. The document provides an overview of how marketing automation can help align sales and marketing processes to improve lead management.
Chapter 8 - SECRETS TO BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS BUSINESS THROUGH LEADERSHIP MAR...VINCE FERRARO
This document discusses secrets to building a world-class business through leadership marketing. It outlines six key roles of successful marketing leaders and organizations: 1) being a strategic visionary for the business, 2) growing revenues and market share while managing profitability, 3) identifying and creating new business opportunities, 4) bringing the voice of customers to senior leadership, 5) creating the right marketing structures, and 6) balancing strategic planning and tactical execution over time. The document emphasizes that marketing must be both strategic and able to execute, and that the most effective marketing leaders blend roles to drive business growth.
This document discusses how marketing automation can help address challenges facing modern marketers, such as unstructured data, siloed teams, high costs, and long sales cycles. It provides examples of how marketing automation solutions from Eloqua have helped companies in healthcare, insurance, financial services, and manufacturing industries by centralizing data, automating tasks, integrating systems, and providing metrics to measure effectiveness. Overall, the document argues that marketing automation can help empower marketers and drive revenue growth.
Die C-Level Linienfunktion CMO (Cief Marketing Officer) wir immer wichtiger. Hier ist ein White Paper zu den Anforderungen denen sich CMOs aktuell stellen müssen.
Vielen Dank für das White Paper an Sheryl Pattekwith, David M. Cooperstein und Alexandra Hayes von Heidrick & Struggles.
CREATIVE WITH INVESTMENT? Addressing the need for creative transformation in ...Dog
Taking the idea of creative transformation - the evolving relationship between creativity, digital, marketing and business – Dog produced a whitepaper that seeks to uncover challenges faced by those involved in driving innovative marketing strategies and searches for actionable recommendations for today’s marketers working within the financial services industry.
Our findings are based on an independent survey of 200 marketing and communications professionals and insight gathered during an industry roundtable with Heads of Marketing at leading global financial services organisations.
This document discusses five steps that CMOs and CFOs can take to build collaboration and demonstrate the value of marketing investments:
1) Create an "open book" mindset by making marketing spending and activities transparent.
2) Focus on key performance metrics that are aligned with business goals and shareholder value.
3) Balance measuring short-term sales impacts and long-term brand building.
4) Consider opportunities to reduce marketing costs in addition to justifying spending.
5) Seek opportunities for CMOs and CFOs to collaborate in planning and budgeting processes.
Taking these steps can help CMOs show marketing returns quantitatively and unlock 10-20% of the marketing budget to rein
This document summarizes research from Aberdeen Group on how best-in-class sales organizations use social relationships to build a better sales pipeline. The summary is:
1) Best-in-class firms use social media like LinkedIn more effectively than average firms to originate deals and influence buying decisions, with over half of their deals influenced by social relationships.
2) These top firms focus on creating meaningful sales conversations tailored to customers' needs rather than just adding deals to meet quotas. They also better share knowledge among reps.
3) Utilizing social relationships allows reps to have more personalized interactions with prospects and learn more about their needs, leading to higher quality deals and pipelines for best-in-class companies.
Sales casualty analysis: why sales numbers do not happen and what to do to ge...Browne & Mohan
Despite significant investment in resource and infrastructure, many companies suffer from long sales cycles, lack of funnel, targets missed by miles and very low closure rate. Reasons for poor sales numbers are common across industries. In this white paper, Browne & Mohan consultants detail the inhibitors of sales growth and how to address the same.
The definitive-guide-to-lead-generationGoWebBola.com
Here are the key points from the chapter:
- A lead is a qualified prospect that is starting to exhibit buying behavior.
- To define a lead, sales and marketing need to agree on demographic and firmographic criteria like title, company size, industry, as well as BANT criteria like budget, authority, need, and timeline.
- Leads should be categorized as Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) or Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) depending on their stage in the buying process.
- Sales and marketing should agree on when leads move from MQLs to SQLs and the process for notifying sales of new leads.
- Service level agreements can be implemented to ensure sales
Free small business marketing basics handout. Extract from the How To Market My Small business Course: https://www.injust5.com/downloads/market-small-business-course/ Explanatory video for this resource at: https://www.injust5.com/2016/06/25/marketing-basics-small-business-free-handout/
Sales operations centre (SOC) is the heart of sales operations. Many companies do not realize the benefits of sales transformation because they under invest in SOC or do not plan & roll it out like a project. The result inconsistent sales reviews, inefficient controls and unrealized outcomes. In this white paper, Browne & Mohan consultants share the best practice approach to build a strong sales operations centre
This document provides an executive summary of a study on customer attainment from event engagement. Some key findings include:
- Marketers see live engagements at events as core to business growth, but justifying budgets is challenging.
- Marketers want added value like insights, measurements, and deeper engagements from event investments.
- Both marketers and event organizers must provide more analytics and insights to better target, engage, and measure event investments.
- The goal is to leverage data-driven marketing while retaining experiential engagements that drive customer relationships.
1) The document provides strategies for companies to adopt to cope with lean times, including consolidating business units, rebuilding offerings, discovering outsourcing benefits, investing in customer experience, reorganizing sales and support functions, focusing teams, and partnering.
2) It recommends evaluating each business unit for its contributions and consolidating underperforming areas. Companies should also rebuild offerings to capitalize on existing customer needs through new products or services.
3) Outsourcing non-core functions can provide significant savings through reduced costs and improved services.
Conducted in September 2009, this online survey of 39 senior b-to-b marketing leaders (mostly CMOs and VPs of Marketing) examines how they are managing the turbulent economic climate and what changes to budgets, strategies and programs they have made this year and are planning to make in 2010.
This document provides an overview of lead nurturing strategies for B2B marketers. It defines lead nurturing as building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their readiness to purchase, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready. Most new leads are not yet sales-ready, so lead nurturing aims to maintain contact and provide relevant information to prospects throughout their buying journey. Done effectively, lead nurturing can increase sales opportunities and conversions compared to not nurturing leads. The guide offers basic and advanced nurturing tactics and worksheets to help marketers implement successful nurturing programs.
This report summarizes the findings of a survey of 435 business leaders and marketers on their lead generation strategies. It finds that companies with a "Superior Strategy" focus on improving lead quality over quantity and are more likely to segment leads. Those with an "Inferior Strategy" have more challenges converting leads to customers. Across companies, generating high-quality leads and optimizing lead conversions are the most difficult goals. Email is the most effective tactic while content marketing is difficult to execute. Companies vary in their strategies based on their sales cycle length and types of products or services sold. The report provides a framework for developing a Superior Strategy through a SWOT analysis of a company's lead generation program.
Trading companies add value by bringing suppliers and buyers together. To build a successful and growing trading company, there is much to be learnt by bench marking with successful ones, and working on some drivers that will enable the company to unleash growth. This paper discusses some of the drivers for improvement.
Marketing's role has shifted from solely owning a company's brand to sharing ownership with other departments like HR. As the lines between marketing and HR responsibilities blur due to digital transformation, marketing must adapt by leveraging its strategic skills to facilitate collaboration across functions and ensure all voices are heard. While brand ownership is shared, marketing retains influence through its understanding of stakeholders and ability to demonstrate commercial impact, positioning it to drive organizational change for growth.
The document discusses how event consolidation and strategic meetings management can help companies better manage their marketing budgets and measure returns on events. It notes that marketing budgets often devote around 23% to events but these are not always well-managed. Event consolidation, aided by strategic technology, can help achieve key objectives of risk management, improved processes and cost savings. Choosing technology alone is not enough - consolidation requires aligning events with business goals and measuring outcomes like return on investment and objectives. This can help meeting professionals demonstrate the strategic value of events and justify a seat at the executive table.
This document discusses the difference between strategists and managers. It provides background on Helmuth von Moltke, a Prussian general staff known for his strategic abilities. The objective is to understand what makes a strategist and how managers can develop strategic skills. A strategist is defined as having a long-term plan to achieve goals, while a manager controls resources and staff. The document includes a questionnaire to evaluate if managers display strategic traits like having an entrepreneurial vision and competitive advantages. It concludes the questionnaire can help identify average managers versus good strategists for promotions.
The document discusses the importance of having a strategic view as a business leader. It states that leaders need to extricate themselves from the day-to-day operations to view their business from a "balcony perspective" in order to see the larger picture and craft an effective strategy. The document outlines that strategy defines the domain, approach, goals, and fundamental journey of a company. It also notes that leadership and strategy are inseparable, with strategy requiring continuous leadership rather than intermittent efforts.
Advocacy: From the Backroom to the BoardroomInfluitive
1) The document discusses advocacy and how it has moved from the backroom to the boardroom. It notes that advocacy programs should not just be about sales, support, or case studies.
2) Engaged customers through advocacy programs are more loyal, trusting of the company, buy more, and share their success with others. The document provides examples of advocacy program engagement activities.
3) It introduces the concept of measuring Customer Lifetime Revenue (CLTR) to quantify the impact of advocacy programs, using an example where advocacy program members generated 4x more revenue over the lifetime of their relationship.
Don't get Ubered. What Every Strategist Needs to Know About Digital CompetitionApigee | Google Cloud
This document summarizes a presentation about digital platforms. It discusses how platforms create value through network effects and multi-sided markets. It presents results from a global platform survey that found most unicorns or billion dollar startups are platforms, and that Asia and North America lead Europe in platform unicorns. It proposes establishing a European Observatory of the Platform Economy to support platform growth in Europe through data collection, knowledge sharing, and executive training on platform strategies.
This document summarizes a presentation on leading and engaging a diverse workforce. It discusses trends in employee engagement across geographies, highlighting the need to move beyond satisfaction to holistic engagement. It also stresses adapting structures and leadership to be more collaborative and align employees to common goals. The presentation covers generational differences in the workplace and how an age-diverse workforce provides benefits but also challenges. New communication styles and the use of technology to encourage knowledge sharing and engagement are proposed.
Accenture Finds that Vast Majority of Companies are Embracing the Journey to the Cloud but Alignment to Business Strategy Lags
Accenture’s “Cloud in the Boardroom” study found that although there’s a significant uptick in cloud adoption at the enterprise level, companies are missing the full benefit of their cloud adoptions by not factoring their IT implementations into their overall business strategy.
Accenture conducted an online survey, fielded between January and February of 2016, of 1,879 C-level executives of companies across 15 industries in 13 countries. Some key findings include:
- More than 95 percent of respondents have a five-year cloud strategy already in place, however only 38 percent have aligned these plans with overarching business goals.
- Four of five executives reported that less than half of their business functions are currently operated in public cloud, but noted increasing intent on moving more of their operations to the cloud in the coming years.
- 89 percent of respondents agree that implementing cloud strategies is a competitive advantage which allows their companies to leverage innovation through agility.
- While half of respondents cite security as their biggest concern with the public model, more than 80 percent believe public cloud security is more robust and transparent than what they’re able to provide in-house.
“Our research confirms that enterprise clients are overwhelmingly recognizing the value of a Cloud First agenda—leveraging the cloud to bring applications, infrastructure and business processes together and be delivered as-a-Service—as a driver of digital innovation, and they are upfront about the guidance they need in order to move even faster on their journey to the cloud,” said Jack Sepple, senior managing director, Accenture Cloud and Accenture Operations group technology officer. “By taking steps to align their cloud and business strategies and to involve IT more directly in cloud decision-making, companies will be better positioned on their journey to the cloud as the as-a-Service economy matures.”
Speaking to People: The Strategist’s Secret WeaponOpen Strategy
'My secret weapon for developing and selling a strategic narrative' by Loz Horner at Lucky Generals. 1/3 of the second 'School of Planning' event on Strategic Narrative.
The document provides the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling along with discussion questions about the poem. The poem describes qualities one needs to develop to become a man, such as keeping a level head when others lose theirs, trusting oneself when doubted, not being tired or hurt by waiting or hatred, and facing triumph and disaster the same. It says if you can do these things and force your heart to serve you even after it's gone, then "yours is the Earth and everything that's in it."
10 Things I Learned in 10 Years as a Content StrategistRachel Lovinger
In the decade since I officially became a Content Strategist, I’ve learned many important principles of working with content. Some of them have influenced the kind of work I do, and some of them have helped me better understand how the field is developing and what directions it needs to grow in for this practice to become more effective with digital content.
In this presentation I’ll summarise my top ten learnings and describe how these principles have been critical to the work I’ve done these past 10 years. I’ll also discuss how people can dig deeper into the principles that they find most useful and relevant to their work.
My Leadership Story: Personal Insights and ReflectionsMark Brown
This document appears to be a presentation by Professor Mark Brown, the Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning, about his insights and reflections on leadership. It includes information about his career experiences leading various online learning initiatives at universities in New Zealand and Australia. It also lists some of his insights on leadership, such as being yourself, believing in yourself, asking if you are doing the right thing, thinking and acting like a goose, and raising the aspirations of others. The presentation encourages having the courage to lead and includes a quote about how a prudent question is half of wisdom.
This document summarizes an educational presentation about growth mindset. It discusses how believing that your abilities can be developed (growth mindset) leads to better outcomes than believing they are fixed. Studies show students with a growth mindset get better grades over time. The presentation suggests teaching a growth mindset to improve achievement for all students. It concludes by recommending recognizing science supports the growth mindset, learning how to develop abilities, and replacing fixed mindset thoughts with growth mindset perspectives.
Black Box Thinking - The Surprising Truth About SuccessMatthew Syed
In his new book Black Box Thinking, award winning journalist and best-selling author Matthew Syed shares the surprising truth about success (and why some people never learn from their mistakes).
Covering topics including marginal gains, closed loops, blame culture, the logic of failure and creating a growth culture, Matthew uses gripping case studies, exclusive interviews and really practical takeaways to explain how you can turn failure into success.
Whether developing a new product, honing a core skill or just trying to get a critical decision right, Black Box Thinkers aren't afraid to face up to mistakes. In fact, Black Box Thinkers see failure as the very best way to learn. Rather than denying their mistakes, blaming others or attempting to spin their way out of trouble, these institutions and individuals interrogate errors as part of their future strategy for success.
This is a visual preview of Black Box Thinking. You can pick up a copy of the book at www.mathewsyed.com/blackboxthinking
This presentation defines what successes can be for the individual and what is essential for individuals to possess in order to be successful in what they desire.
How to Build A Social Media Following Like Guy KawasakiHubSpot
Guy Kawasaki, one of the most influential people in marketing today and curator of one of the biggest followings of any marketer/entrepreneur in the world, will show you how he manages his social media accounts.
In this on-demand presentation, Guy Kawasaki and social media architect, Peg Fitzpatrick will demonstrate what they do on social media every day. Guy has amassed over 10 million followers on social media and Peg has close to 1 million. Together, they will show you tips and tricks they used to gain such a large following.
The document outlines seven elements of a success mindset: 1) Desire, with motivation coming from a burning desire to achieve a purpose. 2) Commitment and integrity in keeping commitments. 3) Responsibility in accepting responsibilities, taking risks, and determining one's own destiny. 4) Hard work, as excellence requires preparation and sacrifice. 5) Positive believing through preparation and confidence. 6) The power of persistence in finishing what one starts through commitment and determination of purpose. 7) Pride of performance in taking pride in one's best work with humility.
17 Ways Successful People Approach LifeBrian Downard
Do you want to know what makes successful people they way they are? Want to know what their secret is?
While success means something different to everyone, there are a few common things you can learn from other successful people that apply to anything you want to do in life.
In the fifth annual Millennial Survey, Deloitte uncovers what tomorrow’s leaders think of business today. With two-thirds of Millennials expressing a desire to leave their organization by 2020, businesses must adjust how they nurture loyalty among these young leaders. http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html
Most corporate boards are completely in the dark about their.docxmoirarandell
Most corporate boards are completely in the dark about their
companies' marketing strategies. A simple series of management
reports can give them the light they need.
M ISGUIDED MARKETING STRATEGIES have de-stroyed more shareholder value - and probably
more careers-than shoddy accounting or shady fiscal
practices have. In almost every industry - telecom-
munications, airlines, consumer products, finance - it
is easy to point to poor marketing as a major cause
of low growth and declining margins.
If marketing were simply the sum of advertising
and promotion, as some marketers seem to believe,
this would he a douhtful claim. But marketing is a lot
more, as the famous "four Ps" (product, price, place,
and promotion) suggest. Classical marketing encom-
passes all the activities organizations engage in to hear
and respond to their customers-from market research
into the Boardroom
by Gail J. McGovern, David Court, John A. Quelch,
and Blair Crawford
70 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
ll - I M . I I ( I c c i i l I'
) Ji-rd tiof (liiii
71
B r i n g i n g C u s t o m e r s i n t o t h e B o a r d r o o m
to product development to customer management to
sales. Marketing discovers what customers want, drives
the creation of products that meet customers'needs, and
ideally generates profitable relationships. Indeed, a com-
pany that excludes marketing from its product develop-
ment may build faster, lighter widgets, but it could miss
what customers really want - widgets that have longer
battery life.
When marketingactivitiesare tightly aligned with cor-
porate strategy, they drive growth. But in too many com-
panies, marketing is poorly linked with strategy. Market-
ing may seem to be performing well according to
standard metrics, like the number of repeat purchases
customers make, but i f t h e company's strategy is to, say,
build market share, simply boosting
repeat purchases isn't enough. In
many organizations, marketing ex-
ists far from the executive suite and
boardroom. Marketing managers
are rarely held accountable for ROI
and rarely expected to explain, ex-
actly, bow what they do supports
corporate strategy. This isn't a case
of dereliction; most companies are
struggling to make their marketing work.
Rather, it's a case of myopia. No one in the organization
sees the relationship between marketing and strategy
well enough to diagnose the problem and begin to fix It.
The failure of marketing strategy is a crisis that requires
attention at the highest levels of the organization-from
the corporate board itself. Here we provide a simple set of
tools that can bring companies' marketing performance
into focus, help directors gauge how well marketing sup-
ports corporate strategy, and allow boards to direct re-
pairs tbat can revive their companies' growth.
Mismanaged Marketing
To understand how marketing fails, it's helpful to look
first at a success. After tbe events of September n . South-
west Airlines swiftly agreed to grant refunds to ali cu ...
Getting Buy-In From The Board - A Director's GuideNicola Ray
This document provides guidance for marketers on how to gain influence at the board level. It discusses how marketers are often not seen as strategic partners and challenges they face in being valued for more than just promotions. It suggests marketers empower themselves by focusing on metrics that demonstrate impact on revenue and profits. It emphasizes speaking the financial language of the business, tying marketing plans to growth goals, and collaborating across functions. The key is for marketers to consistently show how their work contributes to business outcomes in order to be heard at the boardroom table.
The document discusses how to build high-performance marketing teams. It finds that most organizations now have integrated marketing teams that combine both digital and traditional functions. Skills are ranked by importance, with core marketing skills like strategy, customer insight, and analytics seen as most important. The skills matrix shows which skills typically sit within marketing versus being outsourced. It concludes that marketing is becoming more specialized, requiring teams to develop expertise in new digital areas while still maintaining integration across channels. Outsourcing certain skills and collaborating with other departments like IT are also discussed as ways to build an effective modern marketing team.
This document provides summaries from marketing executives in different regions on the goals, challenges, and strategies for marketing in 2013. It discusses how customer behavior is changing and requiring more customized and data-driven approaches. Executives say marketing must focus on building trust, accountability, and lasting customer relationships to drive business growth. They also must adapt quickly to new technologies and market trends to better engage customers.
Strategy First : How Marketers Can Avoid Common Technology Pitfalls & Drive R...Alyesha Patel-Parker
A research study performed by Strategy First found several key findings about how marketers select and use technology:
1. The most important factors in selecting technology providers are the functionality of the platform and its compatibility with other systems, though training is also important.
2. Marketers want to better utilize data assets and improve marketing execution to drive ROI, which is why they often change technology providers.
3. A lack of skills in using popular marketing technologies creates risks, and vendors need to provide better post-sales support.
4. The best marketing leaders clearly articulate goals and technology needs to achieve strategies and drive results.
capgemini research on cmo responsibilities with changing times in 2021Social Samosa
The latest Capgemini research highlights the need for CMOs to transform their skills with the evolving times and reimagine the customer journey with real-time engagement for a data-driven marketing environment.
ARTWORK Markus Linnenbrink HOWTOSURVIVE, 2012, epoxy resin .docxrossskuddershamus
The document discusses how leading companies are improving collaboration between marketing and other functions through revamping key decision-making processes. It focuses on three areas: planning and strategy decisions, execution decisions, and operations/infrastructure decisions. Companies use simple tools like defining decision roles, criteria, and processes to streamline decisions made at organizational "seams". This approach clarifies responsibilities and has helped companies like Target and Nordstrom make better aligned, faster decisions to increase marketing effectiveness.
Marketers have an opportunity to better promote and develop the in-demand marketing skills that companies are looking for. While SEO/SEM is the top desired skill, marketers overemphasize social media skills in their profiles. The report analyzed recruiter search data and marketer profiles on LinkedIn from 2013-2015 to identify alignment between desired skills and skills possessed. Key findings include that marketers underpromote skills like SEO/SEM and overpromote social media skills. The top marketing titles are also evolving to roles like CMO, Digital Marketing Manager, and Brand Ambassador.
Marketers have an opportunity to better promote and develop the in-demand marketing skills that companies are looking for. While SEO/SEM is the top desired skill, marketers overemphasize social media skills in their profiles. The report analyzed marketing skills data from 2013-2015 and found that desired skills like SEO/SEM and digital marketing remain highly sought after, though specific industries prioritize different skills. The top skills listed by marketers themselves lag behind the skills in high demand by recruiters.
The 10 Secrets of Sales Excellence - A global study from Mercuri InternationalMercuri International
Excellence vs your peers globally, not just because Mercuri said so!
The survey asks 926 respondents across 20 countries and 12 industry categories, with over 80 percent comprising CEOs and Sales Managers.
The top 3 are where we can help you most, now, today!
1. Each member of your sales team has a systematic account management planning process for each of their Customers
Top performing companies score high in allocating sales resources for each of their Customers such that an account management plan specific to the requirement of every individual
Customer is in place.
2. Your sales strategy is documented in writing
According to studies, only 14% of all people in a company know its strategy.
Top performers seem to overcome this risk by documenting their strategy, for consistency of communication.
3. For each step of the sales process / workflow you have defined training modules, checklists / instruments
A process is only as good as its implementation. Top performing companies don’t stop with defining sales processes and workflows.
They get better at supporting their people in living those processes by developing training modules, checklists and instruments for each step of the process.
Mercuri are experts in Sales.
Call Mat on +44 7572 343 341 and lets start our conversation.
The document provides guidance on developing an effective marketing strategy in three phases:
1) Market research to understand customer needs and how the company can best meet those needs.
2) Aligning the organization behind the marketing vision through changes to products, services, and operations.
3) Launching and executing marketing programs while continuously measuring results.
It emphasizes the importance of the CMO understanding business fundamentals and driving alignment across departments to spur growth. An effective CMO leads market research, translates strategy into an action plan, and ensures marketing is measured and contributes to profitability.
This document discusses career options and paths for marketing professionals with an MBA specializing in marketing. It outlines several key marketing job functions including product and brand management, sales management, advertising management, market research, and retail management. For each function, it describes the core responsibilities and provides examples of potential career progression, starting in entry-level positions and advancing to management roles. The document emphasizes that marketing is a versatile field that offers opportunities in a wide range of industries and organizations.
A study on marketing strategies in mba infosoft pvt. ltdPrateek Gahlot
This document discusses marketing strategies and provides an overview of MBA-Infosoft Pvt. Ltd. It begins with an introduction to enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions and how they allow for efficient business processes. It then discusses the importance of multi-channel marketing plans for technology companies. The document also provides details on MBA-Infosoft, a Microsoft Certified Partner that provides IT consulting and solutions. It describes their offerings and goals to be a turnkey solutions provider through advisory services, application development, ERP implementations, and hosting solutions.
The document summarizes key findings from a marketing trends report surveying over 600 senior marketing executives. It finds that while half expect decreased budgets, most see stable or increased research and innovation spending. Customer satisfaction and retention remain top concepts, along with ROI, loyalty, and data mining. Credit availability, housing, and alternative energy grew in importance due to economic conditions. Executives are tired of hearing about Web 2.0 and social media buzzwords.
- Provide you with skills to aid your team in making business decisions
- Marketing Strategy 101
- Determine the role your CMO should play
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your CMO
Digital marketing strategy overview for dealersRalph Paglia
Orchestrate digital marketing strategies around customers by evaluating current digital efforts, agreeing on digital ambitions, and inspiring a digital culture. Key recommendations include taking stock of current digital interactions, agreeing on 1-4 digital strategies, and selecting 3-5 critical initiatives to achieve ambitions. The dealer principal must actively participate in connecting digital messages with consumers across departments.
This document discusses the role of a marketing technologist and provides a framework for the skills and competencies needed to succeed in this role. It introduces the MARTECH acronym framework, which stands for Marketing, Agile, Resourcefulness, Technical, Entrepreneurial, Culture, and Hero. Each letter provides a key competency area, such as having marketing skills, an agile approach, resourcefulness, technical expertise, an entrepreneurial mindset, understanding of culture, and acting as a hero to others. The document provides examples and advice for developing skills in each area to become an effective marketing technologist.
Sales is an area where many companies find the outcomes belie investments and outcomes. Many companies attempt sales transformation in a piece-meal fashion. In this paper, we discuss the framework for sales transformation and five fundamental levers of sales transformation.
Digital Marketing & Revenue Generation: A Framework for Accountable MarketingComplexant
In today’s digital marketing landscape there are no more excuses. Gone are the days where we would buy ads and hope for the best. Today, we have access to data that marketers could have only wished for a few years ago.
As a result, CEOs now want marketers to become 100% ROI-focused. Unfortunately less than 1 in 3 companies are able to properly calculate marketing ROI.
In this guide we look at the Accountable Marketing Methodology that we developed at Complexant to provide you with a structured approach to work from and build upon. Any marketing department can use this methodology to go from a traditional or lead-gen focused marketing organisation to an accountable, revenue-focused marketing organisation.
We will look at:
- How the Media Landscape has changed and how that affects the role of marketing.
- The CAM Methodology for Accountable Marketing.
- The Four Revenue Pillars and 5 Revenue Milestones.
- Why (new) Digital Marketing tactics aren't the answer.
While each and every organisation is unique and the scope of this guide only scratches the surface of the overall revenue marketing discussion - we hope you will find it valuable as a reference point to build upon when your formulating your own plans.
For more stuff like this visit our blog at http://www.complexant.com
This two-day forum provides an opportunity for marketing professionals to learn about new trends and insights in strategic marketing. Over the course of presentations and workshops, attendees will gain practical knowledge on topics such as product innovation strategies, aligning marketing with business strategy, leveraging social media, measuring marketing ROI, and designing strategic marketing plans. The forum is aimed at senior marketing executives and is designed to provide perspectives and best practices for shaping effective marketing strategies.
Mark is attending a football match and is excited to see Bastian Schweinsteiger's debut. With Oracle Digital, Mark can navigate the stadium easily using a digital overlay that provides information. He can also check on routes, access ticketing services, view player profiles and stats, and stay connected to home services from the stadium. Oracle Digital allows businesses to exchange value by pooling customer data to provide personalized offers and experiences.
This document outlines how retailers can use customer data and analytics to improve the shopping experience from start to finish. Key applications discussed include using past purchase history and preferences to provide personalized product recommendations and targeted offers, enabling frictionless shopping through features like item tracking and delivery customization, and optimizing supply chain operations through demand forecasting and visibility of inventory levels. The overall aim is to deepen customer engagement, increase basket size, and ensure products are available when and where customers want them.
This document describes 6 events from Jenny's experience with her bank's virtual assistant app over many years.
1) When Jenny lost her purse containing her cards, the app allowed her to quickly cancel them and get emergency cash. Her new cards arrived on time.
2) The app detected fraudulent transactions on Jenny's account and alerted her. After verifying, her balance was reimbursed and new cards dispatched.
3) The app recognized a pay increase for Jenny and recommended overpaying her mortgage, showing potential savings. It motivated her to pay off her mortgage early.
The impact of Digital on Future Business ModelsNeil Sholay
The document discusses how digital technologies will impact future business models. It makes three key points:
1) Companies should focus on business outcomes rather than specific technologies when developing digital strategies. New strategies should blend diverse technologies, information, processes and people.
2) Scenario planning can help companies explore different "future state" scenarios and avoid assumptions that the future will be similar to the past. It limits "groupthink" and allows challenges to conventional wisdom.
3) New digital business models are emerging from unexpected partnerships between brands. Data will also underpin success in digital environments.
This document outlines how retailers can use customer data and analytics to improve the shopping experience from start to finish. It discusses using data to provide personalized recommendations and promotions to customers in-store and online, streamline supply chains to quickly meet customer demands, and optimize delivery to offer convenience and transparency. The goal is to increase customer loyalty, engagement, and spending through a seamless, tailored experience.
The document provides an executive summary of challenges CMOs face in leveraging new technologies and marketing platforms to deliver seamless customer experiences. It discusses:
- Survey results finding that only 13% of CMOs feel they provide consistent customer experiences across channels, with 66% having more to do and 21% unsure where to start.
- Five solutions offered to help CMOs address these challenges: 1) Be the customer champion, 2) Collaborate closely with the CIO, 3) Co-design an optimal customer-driven technology roadmap, 4) Rethink marketing organizations and processes, and 5) Establish continuous improvement systems.
- The importance of understanding the customer experience at each touch point and
Oracle Digital Financial Services use caseNeil Sholay
This document describes 6 events in Jenny's relationship with her bank over many years:
1. When Jenny loses her cards, her bank's app quickly cancels them and issues replacements, keeping her protected from fraud.
2. The app alerts Jenny to suspicious transactions and reimburses fraudulent charges, showing how it safeguards her from fraud.
3. The app offers financial advice when Jenny's salary increases, helping her better manage her money and pay off her mortgage early.
4. It allows Jenny to compare her finances to others, rewarding her savings habits with special perks.
5. The app easily updates Jenny's name after marriage to continue providing tailored services
Mark is looking forward to seeing Manchester United play and wants to have the best experience possible on a hot day at the football stadium. With Oracle Digital, Mark can use his phone to easily navigate the stadium, find his seat, see player profiles, stay connected to friends, order food and drinks, and monitor his health and home systems from his seat. The stadium operator can also use real-time sensor data to efficiently manage operations like crowd control and respond to issues like equipment malfunctions.
The document discusses the changing role of IT in the digital age. It notes that digital technology is accelerating change and companies must be agile to adapt. Innovation is also key, as companies that fail to innovate risk missing growth opportunities. The document advocates for a "bi-modal" approach for IT, with one mode focused on traditional, stable systems and another focused on agile development to support rapid prototyping and new digital initiatives.
Neil Sholay's presentation November 2015Neil Sholay
The document discusses how digital technologies are disrupting traditional business models. It notes that the largest taxi company owns no taxis, the largest media owner creates no content, the most valuable retailer has no inventory, and the largest accommodation provider owns no real estate. It argues that disruption happens gradually over time, not as a single event. Incumbents often respond slowly to disruption due to existing investments and beliefs. Successful responses identify a disruptor's strengths and advantages, conditions affecting future advantages, and chart a strategic response. The extendable core, which allows disruptors to maintain advantages while improving, is key. New platforms fundamentally rethink traditional assumptions about value creation and consumption.
AI 101: An Introduction to the Basics and Impact of Artificial IntelligenceIndexBug
Imagine a world where machines not only perform tasks but also learn, adapt, and make decisions. This is the promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology that's not just enhancing our lives but revolutionizing entire industries.
HCL Notes and Domino License Cost Reduction in the World of DLAUpanagenda
Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-and-domino-license-cost-reduction-in-the-world-of-dlau/
The introduction of DLAU and the CCB & CCX licensing model caused quite a stir in the HCL community. As a Notes and Domino customer, you may have faced challenges with unexpected user counts and license costs. You probably have questions on how this new licensing approach works and how to benefit from it. Most importantly, you likely have budget constraints and want to save money where possible. Don’t worry, we can help with all of this!
We’ll show you how to fix common misconfigurations that cause higher-than-expected user counts, and how to identify accounts which you can deactivate to save money. There are also frequent patterns that can cause unnecessary cost, like using a person document instead of a mail-in for shared mailboxes. We’ll provide examples and solutions for those as well. And naturally we’ll explain the new licensing model.
Join HCL Ambassador Marc Thomas in this webinar with a special guest appearance from Franz Walder. It will give you the tools and know-how to stay on top of what is going on with Domino licensing. You will be able lower your cost through an optimized configuration and keep it low going forward.
These topics will be covered
- Reducing license cost by finding and fixing misconfigurations and superfluous accounts
- How do CCB and CCX licenses really work?
- Understanding the DLAU tool and how to best utilize it
- Tips for common problem areas, like team mailboxes, functional/test users, etc
- Practical examples and best practices to implement right away
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
Unlock the Future of Search with MongoDB Atlas_ Vector Search Unleashed.pdfMalak Abu Hammad
Discover how MongoDB Atlas and vector search technology can revolutionize your application's search capabilities. This comprehensive presentation covers:
* What is Vector Search?
* Importance and benefits of vector search
* Practical use cases across various industries
* Step-by-step implementation guide
* Live demos with code snippets
* Enhancing LLM capabilities with vector search
* Best practices and optimization strategies
Perfect for developers, AI enthusiasts, and tech leaders. Learn how to leverage MongoDB Atlas to deliver highly relevant, context-aware search results, transforming your data retrieval process. Stay ahead in tech innovation and maximize the potential of your applications.
#MongoDB #VectorSearch #AI #SemanticSearch #TechInnovation #DataScience #LLM #MachineLearning #SearchTechnology
Project Management Semester Long Project - Acuityjpupo2018
Acuity is an innovative learning app designed to transform the way you engage with knowledge. Powered by AI technology, Acuity takes complex topics and distills them into concise, interactive summaries that are easy to read & understand. Whether you're exploring the depths of quantum mechanics or seeking insight into historical events, Acuity provides the key information you need without the burden of lengthy texts.
TrustArc Webinar - 2024 Global Privacy SurveyTrustArc
How does your privacy program stack up against your peers? What challenges are privacy teams tackling and prioritizing in 2024?
In the fifth annual Global Privacy Benchmarks Survey, we asked over 1,800 global privacy professionals and business executives to share their perspectives on the current state of privacy inside and outside of their organizations. This year’s report focused on emerging areas of importance for privacy and compliance professionals, including considerations and implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, building brand trust, and different approaches for achieving higher privacy competence scores.
See how organizational priorities and strategic approaches to data security and privacy are evolving around the globe.
This webinar will review:
- The top 10 privacy insights from the fifth annual Global Privacy Benchmarks Survey
- The top challenges for privacy leaders, practitioners, and organizations in 2024
- Key themes to consider in developing and maintaining your privacy program
Threats to mobile devices are more prevalent and increasing in scope and complexity. Users of mobile devices desire to take full advantage of the features
available on those devices, but many of the features provide convenience and capability but sacrifice security. This best practices guide outlines steps the users can take to better protect personal devices and information.
Fueling AI with Great Data with Airbyte WebinarZilliz
This talk will focus on how to collect data from a variety of sources, leveraging this data for RAG and other GenAI use cases, and finally charting your course to productionalization.
Generating privacy-protected synthetic data using Secludy and MilvusZilliz
During this demo, the founders of Secludy will demonstrate how their system utilizes Milvus to store and manipulate embeddings for generating privacy-protected synthetic data. Their approach not only maintains the confidentiality of the original data but also enhances the utility and scalability of LLMs under privacy constraints. Attendees, including machine learning engineers, data scientists, and data managers, will witness first-hand how Secludy's integration with Milvus empowers organizations to harness the power of LLMs securely and efficiently.
Cosa hanno in comune un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ?Speck&Tech
ABSTRACT: A prima vista, un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ potrebbero avere in comune il fatto di essere entrambi blocchi di costruzione, o dipendenze di progetti creativi e software. La realtà è che un mattoncino Lego e il caso della backdoor XZ hanno molto di più di tutto ciò in comune.
Partecipate alla presentazione per immergervi in una storia di interoperabilità, standard e formati aperti, per poi discutere del ruolo importante che i contributori hanno in una comunità open source sostenibile.
BIO: Sostenitrice del software libero e dei formati standard e aperti. È stata un membro attivo dei progetti Fedora e openSUSE e ha co-fondato l'Associazione LibreItalia dove è stata coinvolta in diversi eventi, migrazioni e formazione relativi a LibreOffice. In precedenza ha lavorato a migrazioni e corsi di formazione su LibreOffice per diverse amministrazioni pubbliche e privati. Da gennaio 2020 lavora in SUSE come Software Release Engineer per Uyuni e SUSE Manager e quando non segue la sua passione per i computer e per Geeko coltiva la sua curiosità per l'astronomia (da cui deriva il suo nickname deneb_alpha).
Programming Foundation Models with DSPy - Meetup SlidesZilliz
Prompting language models is hard, while programming language models is easy. In this talk, I will discuss the state-of-the-art framework DSPy for programming foundation models with its powerful optimizers and runtime constraint system.
Webinar: Designing a schema for a Data WarehouseFederico Razzoli
Are you new to data warehouses (DWH)? Do you need to check whether your data warehouse follows the best practices for a good design? In both cases, this webinar is for you.
A data warehouse is a central relational database that contains all measurements about a business or an organisation. This data comes from a variety of heterogeneous data sources, which includes databases of any type that back the applications used by the company, data files exported by some applications, or APIs provided by internal or external services.
But designing a data warehouse correctly is a hard task, which requires gathering information about the business processes that need to be analysed in the first place. These processes must be translated into so-called star schemas, which means, denormalised databases where each table represents a dimension or facts.
We will discuss these topics:
- How to gather information about a business;
- Understanding dictionaries and how to identify business entities;
- Dimensions and facts;
- Setting a table granularity;
- Types of facts;
- Types of dimensions;
- Snowflakes and how to avoid them;
- Expanding existing dimensions and facts.
2. 2
The aim of this Econsultancy research, produced in
partnership with Oracle Marketing Cloud, is to explore the
role of the marketer on the board. At a time where business
is more data-driven than ever, how can the marketer help
their fellow business leaders put the customer at the centre
of the business to deliver sustainable, long-term growth that
satisfies every stakeholder?
The methodology involved two main phases:
Phase 1: Desk research to identify relevant issues and
opportunities for marketing at board level; examining the
current leadership landscape and how it is evolving.
Phase 2: A series of in-depth interviews with a number
of senior marketers, the majority of whom are currently
members of leadership or executive boards.
We would like to thank the following for their contributions to
this report:
• Pete Markey, CMO, The Post Office (UK)
• Philip Almond, CMO, BBC Audiences (UK)
• Alex Aiken, CMO, UK Government
• Sholto Douglas-Home, CMO, Hays (UK)
• Barnaby Dawe, Global Chief Marketing Officer,
Just Eat (Global)
• Randall Rozin, Global Director, Brand Management and
Marketing Communications, Dow Corning (US)
• Evan Greene, CMO, The Grammys (US)
• Bjorn Sprengers, CMO, PropertyGuru (APAC)
• Julie C Lyle, Chairman of the Board; CMO in transition
The Global Retail Marketing Association (US)
ABOUT THIS RESEARCH
Published by Econsultancy in association withMarketers in the Boardroom
CONTENTS
Foreword by Oracle Marketing Cloud 3
1. Introduction: The marketing leadership landscape 4
2. Why do we need marketers on the board? 6
3. How to gain a seat on the board 9
4. Board and marketer in harmony 15
5. The future for marketing on the board 18
6. Actionable insights: steps to be taken today 20
About Econsultancy 22
About Oracle Marketing Cloud 22
3. 3Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
Credibility in the boardroom is measured in hard numbers.
For marketers, earning a spot alongside the CEO and CFO
comes down to being able to demonstrate how they add
value to the business in terms that decision-makers can
easily understand.
We’ve seen a growing number of CMOs join the executive
ranks of leading companies in recent years as businesses
understand that marketers are harnessing the power of
customer data and digital technologies and driving the
customer experience with the brand.
The value of marketing in driving revenue is undeniable, and
as such it’s time marketers solidify their role next to other
executive decision-makers to drive business strategies. It is
with that in mind that Econsultancy has dedicated this latest
report to determining where progress stands so far, what
continues to hold marketers back, and how marketing leaders
can better highlight their contribution to the business to
accelerate their rise to the boardroom.
The first step for CMOs is to gain credibility for the positive
impact that marketing activities have on sales, financial
performance and the customer experience. To do this
CMOs need to ensure they can speak the right language. As
mentioned, concrete figures are the currency of boardroom
decision-making and CMOs must be able to clearly discuss
what they do in terms of its financial and strategic impact to
play an active role in key decision-making.
The rise of digital technologies has also impacted the ability
for marketers rise to prominence in the wider business. As
the custodians of data, analytics and customer touchpoints,
marketers are in an ideal position to establish themselves
as growth levers and strengthen their position on the board
– so long as they can make clear the link between the
engagement with customers, the insights they uncover and
their implications for the wider business.
This will require them to think beyond marketing and build
stronger relationships with their other Line of Business
leaders. They must also stay abreast of their industry’s
competitive landscape, not just in terms of other companies’
marketing campaigns and strategies but also with regards to
what their business is doing strategically.
The role of today’s CMO is all-encompassing. It requires
them to be part artist – leading their teams to develop
inspiring campaigns; part scientist – analysing and uncovering
value from the huge volumes of valuable data they collect;
and part politician – building relationships and becoming great
communicators. As Econsultancy’s research also shows, this
last role remains one of the hardest for marketers to inhabit
as they adjust to making decisions based on their market
value rather than exclusively on their impact on a particular
campaign.
Andrea Ward
Vice President of Marketing
Oracle Marketing Cloud
FOREWORD BY ORACLE
MARKETING CLOUD:
IT’S TIME WE STOP GETTING
LOST IN TRANSLATION
4. 4Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
1. INTRODUCTION: THE MARKETING
LEADERSHIP LANDSCAPE
The tide is most definitely on the turn. Gone are the days
when the primary qualification for a board-level appointment
was a lifelong dedication to accountancy and chasing
the shareholder. Today’s boards want to be described
as visionary, cutting edge, agile and forward-thinking. To
manage long-term growth in a rapidly changing environment,
they are seeking professionals from all walks of life.
At the vanguard of the most progressive boards is the
marketer. It is no exaggeration to say that the companies
garnering the most attention, most column inches and
inevitably, the most customers are led wholly or in part by
executives with some kind of marketing background. And
this in itself is a broad definition. Marketing is no longer what
was once rather uncharitably referred to as ‘the colouring in
department’. It is a data-driven, digitally expert, strategy-led
discipline with more than one eye on the bottom line, shifting
it away from cost-centre perceptions and into growth-centre
reality.
“Chief marketing officers are being challenged to fortify their
positions, expand authority and assert ownership of critical
leadership roles in their organisations,” stated Donovan
Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. “A true
CMO must be the CEO-in-waiting, groomed in all aspects of
the business and the value-setter for the organisation. Many
aspire, but few make it to the corner office. But as the CMO
rises to the realities and requirements of the new mandate of
the CMO, this will change.”1
That said, for many the pace of change is simply not fast
enough. For every claim of customer centricity by a company,
there is not necessarily a marketer at the heart driving the
strategy.
Andy Duncan, speaking at ThinkBox 2015 in September
2015 addressed the issue that the number of marketers on
the board is growing – slowly: “Of the Fortune 1,000 US
companies, only 34 marketing directors sit on the executive
board. On the FTSE 100, this number is only slightly better.”2
Indeed, according to a survey by Spencer Stuart, in 2011 only
14% of FTSE 100 CEOs had a marketing background but
this had grown to 21% in 2015. Conversely, in 2011, 53% of
CEOs had a finance background but this dropped to 32% by
January 20153
.
1 http://www.cmocouncil.org/apac/press-detail.php?id=4993
2 http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/09/30/why-marketers-are-failing-to-get-a-place-in-the-boardroom/
3 http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1330862/marketers-boardroom-door-open-step-inside
5. 5Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
Of Marketing Week’s Vision 100, 34 were members of their
company’s executive or leadership boards although not all of
these were in marketing positions with those such as Andy
Duncan of Camelot, Jill McDonald of Halfords and Martin
Glenn of The Football Association all occupying CEO roles.
Marketers are also beginning to occupy non-executive
positions outside their ‘day job’. Drinks manufacturer
Diageo brought Facebook’s EMEA vice president Nicola
Mendelsohn, former executive director of independent
agency group, Karmarama, onto the board as a non-executive
director and will also join the company’s audit, nomination
and remuneration committees. She already occupies
Facebook’s most senior role outside the US and this
appointment is a signal that companies are particularly keen
to harness the power of data and digital at a high level.
Bringing marketers to the board is largely a global
phenomenon with both European and North American
companies seeing marketers making inroads at the top level.
However the rest of world picture is a little more fragmented.
In Australia, a brief survey of the top 10 companies as ranked
by Business Insider4
, marketing experience is making it
to both board of directors and executive leadership levels,
however, very rarely is this in the form of a single marketing
director or CMO. Typically it involves someone with a
management consulting background who has overseen
marketing strategy.
In China in 20115
David Roman was heralded as bringing
the wind of change to technology company, Lenovo, as
a marketer taking over the reins from finance and sales
executives. But in the vast majority of cases, the latter is
still the norm on both boards of directors and the executive
leadership board.
Australian marketers have been identified as pulling away
from other nations in the region in terms of marketing skill
and development. With digital and data at the centre of
establishing the marketer’s path to board status, Australia is
noted as placing far greater emphasis on this than regions
such as Singapore and India (The Australian, Sept 20146
) with
52% of organisations placing their chief marketing executives
in charge of digital marketing strategy compared to the
regional average of 39%. China and Korea are highlighted as
using data only as a reporting rather than strategic tool.
However, digital-first companies are leading the way in the
West for accommodating the marketer at board level.
It follows that the APAC region, with a high digital adoption
overall and a strongly mobile- and social-first approach to the
customer, it may not be long before we see the region catch
up and perhaps even overtake the US and Europe with a
marketing-centric board make-up.
4 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/here-are-australias-top-100-companies-and-how-they-performed-in-2014-2015-3
5 http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1106569/chinese-coming
6 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/australia-a-skills-hub-in-digital-marketing/story-e6frg996-1227069065781
“In South East Asia you are dealing with some dynamics that
many marketers would struggle with if you weren’t able to do
some of the dirty work. One important difference is the talent
gap in leadership and below leadership and the second is the
labour crunch. We are experiencing far higher turnover of staff
in South East Asia than in Western markets. Many times, your
team is going to be understaffed, making it extra challenging to
strengthen Marketing fundamentals”
Bjorn Sprengers, PropertyGuru
“Context is important. There is a reason why there are more
marketers on boards in digital companies than others. Here,
marketing has been positioned more upstream in the conversion
funnel,”
Bjorn Sprengers, PropertyGuru
This paper looks at the compelling reasons to
have marketers at the most senior levels of the
organisation; what marketers need to do to attain
this level and what the implications are for the
company as a whole.
6. 6Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
2. WHY DO WE NEED MARKETERS
ON THE BOARD?
Marketing has come a long way from the Mad Men of
the 50s (or TV, depending on where you take your cultural
references from). Even the most junior brand marketer
today understands that customer experience is driven from
the centre of the organisation and that sales, operations,
marketing and technology all need to work together to be
able to drive consideration, acquisition and retention. But
what does marketing bring to the table at the very highest,
strategic level of the organisation?
Simply put, it is because marketing is the customer’s
representative in the company and the company can do
nothing if it does not put the customer first. This is nothing to
do with a charming ‘the customer is always right’ scenario.
It means that without understanding the customer, without
unlocking customer behaviour, attitudes and desires, no
element of the organisation can function properly. And the
marketer holds the key.
That inside-out focus comes of being managed at high
levels by finance and technology leads or sector experts.
Their default starting point is to assess what they have and
then how the customer might be persuaded to buy it. This
has long since been debunked as a useful way to build a
sustainable business model over the long term.
“I think of marketing as GPS for the organisation. Taking readings
from the market, triangulating customer needs and translating
that into the insights that focus the sales forces and help a
company focus externally, squarely on the customer and the
market. This is needed at board level to counter a traditionally
inside-out focus.”
Randall Rozin, Global Director,
Brand Management and Digital Marketing, Dow Corning
“What gives marketers huge authority is their ownership of the
customer. From the insight and analytics perspective – what
trends are they buying, the context of marketing’s opportunity
and responsibility to bring thing to the table that other parts of
the business can’t access.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
“The core function of marketing has not changed. It’s to
represent the customer in the organisation. There is no-one else
in the organisation uniquely positioned to do that.”
Bjorn Sprengers, PropertyGuru
7. 7Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Companies are beginning to recognise that the customer
is at the heart of the organisation and the marketer their
champion. This has resulted lately in a rash of interesting
C-suite titles including Chief Customer Officer and Chief
Value Officer among others. Does this mean that the
marketer’s brief moment in the sun is about to be subverted
and they will be returned to the advertising department as
the new customer champion takes over?
These new titles may simply be the manifestation of
the company signaling that it is restructuring to cement
a customer-centric culture. It does, however, point to
an interesting challenge facing businesses, namely the
recognition that if marketing is now so much more than Mad
Men then – what exactly IS it?
So the creation of Customer and Value roles could well be
down to the fact that the landscape is moving so fast that
there is no comfortable term for what is essentially Marketing
Plus. What is the plus? It’s marketing plus technology;
marketing plus sales; marketing plus operations; marketing
plus retail; marketing plus finance – plus any discipline you
care to think of.
What is certain is that, if the customer is at the centre of the
organisation, marketing is the interface between it and every
other function and so its place on the board isn’t arguably
required, it is essential.
7 http://www.marketingweek.com/2014/05/07/co-op-board-needs-more-marketing-expertise/
“When I was looking for a new role what I heard over and over
again from the chairman of the board or senior partners was:
‘We need a chief customer officer. Someone who understands
the digital side as well as the traditional marketing side – a chief
omnichannel officer.’ It’s someone who understands big data and
know how to leverage it for the growth of the organisation. It’s
not a CTO, but it’s about understanding the ecommerce world
and the intersection of those forces.”
Julie C Lyle, Chairman of the Board;
CMO in transition Global Retail Marketing Association
“I’m still digesting the chief customer officer, or chief brand
officer roles. Is this the rebrand of marketing? It’s more of a step
in the journey. It’s great if marketing is aligned with being the
customer champion – I feel that any board should be thinking
‘customer first’.”
Sholto Douglas Home, CMO, Hays
“Having the customer advocate is imperative at that level.
When titles such as chief customer officer were emerging the
conversations with CEOs would be: “What is the difference
between a CCO and a CMO? I need someone who can bridge
the divide between tech and marketing so that rather than going
from a single interaction with the customer we go to having a
relationship at every touchpoint.”
Julie C Lyle, Global Retail Marketing Association
“Given what’s happening in the data and technology sphere, the
way it has become central to the operation of the business and
the customer’s interface with it, these things need to be pulled
together and they need a clear voice on the board,”
Philip Almond, Director, Marketing and Audiences, BBC
“There is no one function that owns the customer and you need
a style of leadership that is less about ownership and more about
collaboration.”
Philip Almond, Director, Marketing and Audiences, BBC
“Why is this the marketers’ purview? It’s because the role is
inherently the point of access between the organisation and
external forces. Marketers should be more externally focused
than everyone else with the exception of the CIO/CTO dealing
with cyber threat.”
Julie C Lyle
8. 8Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT
Companies have begun to realise that by putting customers
at the centre of a multichannel environment, it has had a rapid
de-siloing effect on the organisation. Some businesses are
less responsive to this change than others – it’s frequently
clear to the customer which ones they are as personalised
direct mail pours through the letterbox but emails to
customer services go unanswered. But the pressure is on all
organisations and it is forcing cultural change.
This means that the marketer’s skill with the customer and
their role as interface between them and the company is only
one reason to get them on the board pronto. The marketer’s
ability to communicate and liaise internally is also going to
prove vital in a new, integrated corporate environment.
It is instructive that, following an organisational crisis, the
need for marketing to be incorporated at the board level is
quickly identified. A review of banking, funerals and grocery
brand, The Cooperative Group, was conducted following
scandals including the arrest of its chairman on drugs charges
and the practical collapse of the banking arm. The review’s
head, Lord Myner, former UK financial services secretary,
stated that the current board’s expertise particularly in
marketing came “nowhere near the required level”7
.
The disconnect within the company between its stated
values and the behaviour of its senior management was
stark and a cultural refit was clearly one of the things Lord
Myner identified. Any organisation that recognises the power
of marketing to steward a company’s integrity towards its
customers is unlikely to have found itself in The Cooperative
Group’s position.
The group had in fact removed its head marketer from the
board a few months prior to the review in March 2014. In
September 2015, in an echo of Diageo’s move to digitally-
focused executives, the company appointed former UK
Government digital chief, Mike Bracken8
, to its group
executive board while the company’s group board saw Stevie
Spring, former brand marketer and CEO of Clear Channel,
appointed as an Independent non-executive director .
Moving from the fringes to the very centre of the organisation
is a personal as well as cultural challenge. If marketing has
moved beyond the Mad Men, that is still where the vast
majority of its practitioners start out. Marketing is increasingly
accepted as a strategic pivot around which the brand can
revolve. How can marketers “upskill” to meet the challenge?
8 http://www.cio.co.uk/news/cio-career/mike-bracken-appointed-co-operative-chief-digital-officer-3622018/
9 http://www.co-operative.coop/corporate/aboutus/board/stevie-spring/
“Boards are looking for maximum departmental integration
and collaboration among executive leadership so that there are
process improvements. The larger the organisation, the greater
the need for collaboration.”
Randall Rozin, Dow Corning
9. 9Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
3. HOW TO GAIN A SEAT
ON THE BOARD
If the marketer’s ambition is to find a place on the board,
first of all it’s instructive to determine what kind of board
is being discussed. The uppermost tier is of course the
Board of Directors. Populated by a number of non-executive
directors, this elite group oversees strategy, direction and
governance. Executives are typically made up of experienced
management consultants, financiers, lawyers, not-for-profit
professionals and business leaders. Increasingly we are
seeing executives with marketing experience but this is not
often from marketers at the CMO level. Instead, this tends to
be people in management positions who have had oversight
of marketing, sales or brand in some wider capacity as
Managing Director or CEO.
It is more common to find C-Suite marketers on the
Leadership Executive or Management Team but here again,
the group is dominated by financiers, lawyers, consultants,
technologists and CEOs past and present. This is where
marketing is making the greatest inroads however as it is the
Executive team’s remit to oversee operations and ensure the
smooth running of the business, design and execute strategy
and command buy-in from the CEO and directors.
To gain access to either of these echelons requires a sea
change in the marketer’s skill set, however. For some, this
is easier to achieve than others. From research conducted
for this report, it is becoming clear that marketers who have
grown through the ranks in digital organisations or been
part of the launch teams of successful and rapidly growing
startups are finding the path to leadership easier than those
in more traditional organisations.
It is unsurprising, for example, to find that the director and
leadership boards of financial institutions in Australia are
predominantly populated by financiers and lawyers, while
Silicon Valley stalwarts Twitter, Uber and Facebook feature
a large number of technology and data-led individuals with a
strong focus on brand-building.
However, one of the highest profile board level marketing
executives is Unilever’s Keith Weed. He, along with his
counterpart Roisin Donnelly at PG UK, has been largely
responsible for creating a strong brand focus in the
FMCG sector and allowed many products to transcend
commoditisation. The presence of these two executives
both on their own companies’ boards as well as a wide range
of industry associations and even government committees
demonstrates how important the marketing voice has
become.
For these two executives and the others who have risen
to marketing halls of fame, they have been able to perform
the alchemy that has seen them drive the creative focus of
their organisations while still being able to respond to the
demands of their executive boards. The skill set to be able to
do this is not one that is acquired lightly. In this chapter, we
examine the main skills a board level marketer must deploy
and how to acquire them.
10. 10Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
COMMUNICATION
The single most important skill identified by all
the executives interviewed for this report was
the ability to communicate in a vernacular that
the board can understand. In the vast majority
of cases this means leaving a great deal of
what could be termed marketing speak at the door.
To resonate with the board, it’s not just about adapting
language to be less familiar, less colloquial. Using the
language of finance and IT literally isn’t lip-service. Marketers
have to be able to distinguish between metrics that are
perhaps not financially rigorous but still allow them to make
decisions at team level and those that can be applied directly
to the bottom line.
Translate that boardroom discussion to the debating chamber
and the scrutiny increases still further: “For marketing to
succeed with skeptical politicians, it requires measurement
and data which proves impact, not talk about assertion, reach
and volumes,” warns UK Government CMO Alex Aiken.
It can be easy to trip up. Marketers may now be metrics
and measurement focused but not all measurements are
created equal. The UK Coalition Government released a
campaign around the apprenticeship scheme that focused
on measuring reach and the number of ads seen: “That got a
real degree of challenge because the measurement was not
sufficiently about outcomes,” admitted Government CMO,
Alex Aiken. “This is partly why we brought in an evaluation
council to peer review and that’s the point they consistently
make, that with social and digital media there are a vast
number of ways you can cut the numbers. Marketing has to
be objectives-focused if it’s going to succeed at board level.”
That said, there is no need to become a slave to PowerPoint:
“When I took the CMO job at RSA I fell into thinking that I
had to conform and deliver presentations in the same way
as everyone else. You don’t realise that they’re getting all the
same presentations and yours is no different. When I did a
piece of work on brand positioning I changed the materials
and brought them in on boards, then took the executive off
site. A board member turned to me and said it was the best
meeting they’d ever been in,” Pete Markey, Post Office.
Using the marketer’s skills to subvert the norm is a way of
getting the point across boldly and with impact but it has to
be exquisitely judged. Even if a marketer has a reputation
for flamboyance, being something of a renegade and was
hired specifically for those qualities, it doesn’t necessarily
mean they have permission to burst into the boardroom, all
bells and whistles on the first day. To deviate from the norm,
there still needs to be a base level of trust and that trust
needs to be established by playing by the rules, at least at the
beginning.
Much is also made of the marketer’s need to translate
marketing for the board but traffic in the opposite direction is
just as vital: “Marketing must lead the organisations’ efforts
in brand alignment at every customer touchpoint to ensure
marketing promises match customer experiences. To achieve
this, marketing helps lead the translation of brand strategy to
employee behaviours –well beyond the marketing department
– to deliver superior customer experiences,” Randall Rozin,
Dow Corning.
The marketer at board level is a split personality. To show
credibility and strategic leadership, they need to fit into the
mould of their peers at the table. But as advocates of the
customer and custodians of creativity in the organisation,
they also need to distill the dry facts and figures, the long-
term goals into excitement and enthusiasm through the
teams they lead - teams that aren’t just made up of marketers
any more - that drives brand performance and delights
customers.
“The CMO should be the champion for the customer and having
excellent communications skills that are adapted for a board-
level audience is a must. If you’re speaking to the CFO, speak in
financial terms. For the CIO it must be about IT and technology.
You can’t leverage marketing speak in the boardroom and be
successful.”
Randall Rozin, Dow Corning
“You can’t just turn up and be wacky. You’ve got to do it in the
right way. Marketing demands you market what you’re doing
in the business. The right answer has got to be not giving them
more of the same. As marketers, we would never do that in the
real world.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
“I’ve absolutely had to learn the language of the board but also
recraft the language of marketing for my board papers. How I
would communicate a marketing initiative in the board is very
different to how I would frame it in a team meeting. It’s beyond
critical that marketers recalibrate they use in an operational or
board context. But it takes time to get it right, so best immerse
yourself in the business to make sure you strike the right note.”
Sholto Douglas Home, Hays
11. 11Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
THE SCIENCE BIT
As we have already alluded to, it’s not enough
to simply speak like a board member. Those
figures and measurements being trotted out
really do need to add up. There is no point in
coming up with woolly indicators that somehow
made sense at the time of the team meeting. Telling the CFO
that the social media strategy broke the company’s previous
‘Tweets favourited’ record won’t cut it. For many marketers,
the need to get to grips with a degree of statistical analysis,
modelling and a deep dive into the technological processes
that deliver customer information is vital.
Borders no longer really exist in terms of ecommerce so
while the marketer may nominally be purely US, Europe,
APAC or LatAm based, the fact is an understanding of global
markets is also required.
Just Eat’s Dawe occupies just such a global role and reveals:
“Operating in 15 markets there are two key challenges.
The first is that they are at different stages of the business
lifecycle, from startup to very mature and the second is that
the local, cultural nuances affect consumer behaviour.”
The relative technological advancements of each territory are
also an issue. As was noted in the introduction, the US and
Europe are well advanced in using data and digital to drive the
growth of the organisation. As a result board level marketers
need to be more than au fait with the implications these twin
masters have for the business.
Australia, it was noted, is following a similar path but other
regions including China, India, Singapore and even the
relatively technologically advanced South Korea, are not
using data to support marketing and customer experience
strategies at anything like the same level. Assertions around
being a data or digital savvy marketer to operate at board
level therefore have very different implications dependent on
the relative maturity of the market.
To succeed at this level, regardless of the levels of
market maturity, in terms of technological and information
capabilities, it is always advisable for the marketer to adopt
a gold standard of understanding. If their market is not
yet mature, trends are moving so fast it will be a matter
of moments before the market catches up and overtakes
capabilities. To be fair, no marketer, however highly placed,
has reached the gold standard simply because the market
keeps moving.
“There’s no place for marketing on a board if they are only
bringing communications and marketing tactics capabilities.
Whether it’s in terms of brand ownership, customer centricity
or digital ecommerce management, those are the key areas
that are fundamental to a business. Where the marketer can be
the custodian or source of deep data analytics, intelligence and
actionable insight will add strength to their case for the board.”
Sholto Douglas Home, Hays
“If you get past the marketing jargon there were so many
situations where the marketer just didn’t have the technological
skills to understand the digital touchpoints, explore the purchase
cycle, leverage the big data and use algorithms to define
behaviours.”
Julie C Lyle
12. 12Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
THE VITAL DATA ELEMENT
To give an indication of just how many hats
the modern board-level marketer must wear,
here is Just Eat’s Global CMO, Barnaby Dawe
describing the scope of his role:
“I’m responsible for growth and revenue. From the growth
side there are all sorts of different elements: Our business
is driven by brand, the more traditional side of what people
consider marketing. Then I focus on acquisition, which
is performance-driven marketing. From there, we go to
attribution and understanding what channels are driving
customers into our world, followed by understanding
retention strategies. There are also trade side relationships
and making sure the B2B side of the business is steadfast.”
While Dawe’s role may vary from that of other marketers,
he is faced with the common challenge of keeping up with,
understanding and managing the data transformation. The
digital environment has been a clear boon to marketers
wishing to make the leap towards the board. Its inherent
measurability and the fact that marketing leads the majority
of the sales strategy in this space puts the marketer at the
centre of the conversion conversation.
The marketer has the key to PL both bottom and top line.
In essence, in digital and particularly etailing, there’s less
emphasis on the traditional role of Sales. As an online retailer
you know what the margins and acquisitions are and these
are what the marketer is responsible for. That’s why the
marketer is so important in the digital space. Overall business
– not just ecommerce – is moving more and more towards
a data heavy environment which is going to become more
scientific and will need experts who can help this transition.
Marketers who have cut their teeth in digital may already
possess these skills but those who don’t need to seek to
build teams of data scientists and marketing automation
experts who can deliver on this need. The marketer has
become quite a difficult profile to fill. Being both conceptually
strong, data inclined, commercial and focused on ROI.
TEAM BUILDING
Marketers reading through the growing
shopping list of skills in this report might be
starting to worry that the demands on their
intellect is rapidly becoming an unsupportable
burden. While it is true that the marketer at board level is very
much more the generalist and is expected to a degree to be
a Jack or Jill of all trades, there is no expectation that they are
expected to be the font of all knowledge in every area.
Marketers no longer have the luxury of claiming “I’m simply
not a numbers person” but they are still hired for their creative
and strategic side. Providing there is enough understanding
to comprehend how the detailed components will drive the
strategy forward, delegation isn’t just desired, it’s vital.”
If marketers are having to develop their data muscles to a
degree then perhaps an even more important one to exercise
is their people-building skills. If their place on the board is
going to be built on a ‘people pyramid’, it’s up to the marketer
to make sure the foundations of that pyramid are solid.
“Data and technology are steep learning curves and that’s why
I have a technology person alongside me. We are probably the
first generation of marketers where there are people who are a lot
younger who know a lot more. That requires a different style of
leadership where it’s all about enabling. Sometimes, you do have
to ask dumb questions and be unembarrassed about doing so.
But you still bring the strategic leadership.”
Philip Almond, BBC
“In any senior position you need to have experts beneath you.
By the nature of your role you’re going to be a generalist. You
need to have oversight over all those levers and it moves so
quickly that every day there is a new tool and a need for new
understanding of customer behaviour. You need to know the
right questions to ask and understand the answers as they
come.”
Barnaby Dawe, Just Eat
“Underneath all of that and underpinned by data is the business
intelligence that drives all the understanding of consumer
behaviour, purchasing patterns and brand affinity. This is why the
brand marketing role is fundamental to the leadership team.”
Barnaby Dawe, Just Eat
“What changes with digital is that the conversion funnel
becomes a lot more transparent and the marketer moves
much more towards the sales role. They are responsible for
acquiring the customer and their conversion. In the ecommerce
environment that is a closed loop, ROI is linked to a lead and the
monetisation of that lead.”
Bjorn Sprengers, PropertyGuru
13. 13Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
Lyle recommends taking a three-pronged approach to being
the custodian of knowledge across the organisation:
• Be aware enough of the tools and capabilities that are out
there to collect and harness real-time insights.
• Know enough to hire and retain a competent team.
• Understand how to build bridges across the organisation
with the CIO and CTO.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF
EXPERIENCE
Gaining experience at board level
isn’t about plunging headlong into an
advanced accountancy course. The
argument is that senior marketers should have more than a
working knowledge of business finance regardless. However
it is about gaining as much experience and as broad a range
of experience as possible. Halfords’ CEO Jill McDonald took
a technical demotion working for another brand earlier in
her career by accepting an international role because she
understood this would have a positive impact in her later
career10
.
There isn’t one path or defined set of experiences and
characteristics that make up the archetypal board marketer.
PropertyGuru’s Sprengers started out in strategy consulting
which he would suggest is a good starting point. “You’re
trained in the fundamentals of business in analytics and
communications, understanding how the dots in the
organisation are connected.”
Sprengers agrees about the curiosity angle. Today, marketers
need to frequently step outside the creative division and
understand how the business functions operationally. It has
a direct impact on the brand promise. He appreciates that
the culture of the organisation has to be in place to allow the
marketer to do this as reaching beyond their remit can be
seen as much of a risk as an opportunity: “The marketer’s
tools have changed, data and the possibilities it creates have
become more complicated. You can’t be educated for it and
only trained to a certain extent.”
Moving about between functions including a traditional
marketing role and leading startups has been vital, particularly
in the South East Asian market where, he states: “If you
operate in large companies for all of your career you may be
very inclined to lose touch with the operational complexities
of the job.” This is important in the APAC region in particular
where skills gaps, high staff turnover and a wide disparity
between advanced, multinationals in the region and those
who are still approaching data at a very basic level (see
Introduction).
Lyle explains where her influences come from and how
she can grow the sum of her knowledge by looking outside
traditional marketing channels. She allocates four days every
year to go and explore something. She has gone to live in a
remote village in Bangladesh to understand micro financing.
She visits Silicon Valley twice a year to do a beauty parade of
venture capitalists’ investments and she visits universities to
audit classes and participate in lectures.
“I try to weave learning into my day. We have a lot of interface
with companies such as Facebook and Google. There’s a
codependency there. They are providing us with a massive
channel through which to engage customers but equally I like
to talk to start ups on the technology side who help me deliver a
better understanding of customers. These people seek me out.”
Barnaby Dawe, Just Eat
“You can’t just go to the same conference that everyone else is
going to and think you’re going to have a competitive advantage.
It’s about creating an agenda for your own constant learning.”
Julie C Lyle, Global Retail Marketing Association
“The key is to be curious about the business that you’re in. There
is a danger for anyone in a junior level not to be curious about
the organisation around you and to focus on marketing as the
centre of the universe. If you reach out across the organisation,
naturally you build a network you can tap into.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
“You can’t micromanage everything. It’s about the internal team
dynamic and under that umbrella comes delegation, right-sizing
people and identifying their strengths and weaknesses.”
Evan Greene, CMO, The Recording Academy (GRAMMYs)
10 http://www.marketingweek.com/2015/10/22/halfords-jill-mcdonald-on-moving-from-cmo-to-ceo/
14. 14Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
A SAFE FINANCIAL PAIR OF
HANDS
To an extent it is alright to delegate
the management of data and insight
in the company to the technical
experts who can build the algorithms
and distill results but when those insights begin to impact
the bottom line, it is down to the marketer to be able to
translate those impacts into financial information for the
business. An understanding of how all the elements under
their guardianship, from campaigns to call centre resourcing,
translates into the financial health of the business is ultimately
the only way to keep credibility on the board.
Marketing has always struggled to a degree with justifying
its value. Before an era of measurability it is true to say that
it was hard to see it as anything other than the cost-centre,
where tens of millions of dollars would be spent on a TV
campaign and the link to a sudden spike in sales could be
assumed, but not proven.
With a wealth of metrics, experts and financial ability at
today’s marketer’s fingertips this need no longer be the case
and yet an echo of the marketer going cap in hand to finance
remains. If marketers are to be taken seriously and that
cost centre switched to a perceived investment, as Markey
suggests above, they have to embolden themselves and talk
financial turkey. Their place at the table is earned in pounds,
dollars and reminibi and they can prove it.
“You have to bring finance with you. Get endorsement from
within the business if you are developing a tool. It’s very
powerful to have finance say: We support this.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
“The role of marketing in its Mad Men definition has been very
much focused on brand awareness and in all fairness, that
positions marketing as a cost centre. That’s not the best position
to be in if you aspire to be higher up in the organisation.”
Bjorn Sprengers, PropertyGuru
“Where marketing is best is where it’s clearly positioning itself
as a growth lever. If it can show how it’s playing a role in moving
from being a cost to an investment, then it automatically earns a
place at the table.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
15. 15Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
4. BOARD AND MARKETER
IN HARMONY
Interestingly, a board can have an intense understanding of
creativity, yet still be unsure about the most effective ways to
move forward, as in Greene’s experience with the GRAMMY
brand: “Boards can sometimes be traditional and cautious.
However, when you are the brand steward, that often puts
you in the position of driving change, and pushing to do
things that haven’t been done before, to stand behind taking
strategic and calculated risks to evolve and scale the brand in
new ways.”
For marketers, being the agent of change can be a
difficult mantle to adopt. Making bold moves in front of a
contemplative board is almost the antithesis of what they are
trying to achieve when much of the advice has been to prove
that it is not a cost centre but rather a safe pair of hands
when it comes to profits.
On coming to the board with a typical marketer’s CV: “It can
be hard because in our sector in particular, longevity is deeply
valued – newcomers without sector experience have an extra
challenge to establish credibility.” Sholto Douglas Home,
Hays
THERE IS ROOM FOR CREATIVITY - EXPRESSED
CORRECTLY
UK Government has seen this disconnect come through via
external agencies. When they went to view a presentation
from an agency about a communications project, the team
was shocked at being presented with what amounted to a
consumer brand awareness campaign: “Marketers can come
in thinking that marketing is an end in itself but they have to
focus heavily on business objectives. The marketing agency
showed us really nice consumer campaigns but our job is to
help recruit soldiers or make tough interventions on obesity.
I was quite surprised that senior marketers wanted to sell us
consumer campaigns,” Aiken reveals.
“You get to a point where you realise that what got you to being
good at marketing isn’t going to make you successful from
here on in. It’s more about what can my function do for the
organisation as a whole. How am I going to lead this group of
people?”
Philip Almond, BBC
“If there’s ever any disconnect between marketing and the board,
it’s around priorities. It’s never about what colour the logo should
be. It’s about what the commercial value of it is.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
16. 16Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
WHY THE BOARD MUST ADAPT
It was instructive in the construction of this report that
much of the desk research was conducted by going through
the biographies of major boards of directors and executive
leadership teams in top tier companies in major markets
worldwide.
With very few exceptions, the majority of board members
were late-middle aged or even retirement age men with
classical routes to board level through management
consulting, finance and law. The glass ceiling was
showing some cracks and women were increasingly being
represented. But on the whole, if you were to think of a
stereotypical board member, you would not be far wrong.
This is of course changing in the digitally native sector where
the Jack Dorseys (Twitter), Mark Zuckerbergs (Facebook),
Martha Lane Fox/Brent Hobermans (Lastminute.com) and
Jeff Bezos (Amazon) are building teams in their image.
Although here too, there is a degree of additional statesmen
and women being added to the league of non-executives.
After all, there’s no need to throw the baby out with the
bathwater. But it’s time so-called traditional enterprises again
took its lead from the digital space at board level:
The consensus between the experienced, board-level
interviewees for this report was that more could be done at
board level to prepare incoming marketers for this culture
change. Perhaps this is because the role they come from
requires such a great deal of recalibration to fit at board level,
perhaps because the discipline at this level is still relatively in
its infancy and there is still a sense of cultural exception to it.
By taking some of the steps outlined in this paper, the
marketer should feel confident they are more prepared
than ever to tackle board level responsibilities but it is vital
to recognise that if marketing has been given a seat at the
board, it is because the board values its contribution there. It
is up to marketers to prove them right – or wrong. More than
anything, marketers need to adopt this state of mind.
Greene advises having the courage of your convictions and
believes that with the right preparation, marketers at board
level have permission to take bigger and bolder steps: “I’ve
always believed there is a quiet confidence that comes from
doing the right things for the right reason. Change can be
slow and sometimes methodical and sometimes not in a
straight line. But it will happen if you have the right vision and
patience.”
It’s just important to be able to foster that patience across
the rest of the board using the techniques outlined in this
paper if that long term vision is to be realised. And it won’t be
without its bumps in the road:
“We tend to think that everyone is talking about the Millennials
and the way they are changing the customer base. That change is
also happening in the talent base. They expect different access to
information, flexibility in the work environment and a voice at the
table. You won’t keep them if you’re not up for that.”
Julie C Lyle
“I took a lot of lumps in our boardroom for quite a while from
people who weren’t terribly well versed in brand dynamics. Now
I’ve gotten to a point where I do have the credibility to make
decisions and say things. Stick to your guns. Be the expert you
were hired to be.”
Evan Greene, The Recording Academy
“Generally, boards could do more to prepare new entrants.
There is too much of an assumption that people can always
swim. This is a contract between the marketer and the board and
their expectations. The best thing to do is to ask: What are your
expectations of me?”
Pete Markey, Post Office
“Being on the board is a fundamental change for a marketer.
You have to be part artist, part scientist and part politician.
The bit that’s currently less tuned is the politician part. Going
from the functional board to the main board, the expectations
are different. You need to raise your game and thoughtfulness
because you are with people who are shaping the business and
they want your information. It takes you from being a functional
expert to a leader. You bring the customer to the boardroom but
you fail if you just talk about marketing.”
Pete Markey, Post Office
17. THE RESISTANT BOARD – A CAUTIONARY TALE
All of the executives named in this report have stated
unequivocally that they have found the boards they have
joined to be nothing but supportive and welcoming of the
expertise and perspectives they bring.
This is not always the case. One senior executive, speaking
on condition of anonymity, revealed their current, day-to-day
experience of being asked to join a leadership board where
their contributions were far from welcome.
“I can only describe the atmosphere in the boardroom as
toxic and frankly, I can’t wait to do my time and move on,”
this executive states. “It was clear from the start when
I was brought in by the owners of the business (after a
management change resulting from MA activity) that I was
upsetting things a lot. My way of doing things was very much
not the way it had always been done.”
An expert in data and digital, this executive is ideally placed to
help the organisation to understand new trends and respond
to them. Using metrics that clearly demonstrate the validity of
certain strategies, they are following an accepted and highly
valued path to what should result in boardroom acceptance.
However: “When I ask them to look at the results, the
metrics, the board isn’t interested and in fact seem very
disappointed with the work. The attitude would seem to be
‘we’re really disappointed that you bang on about data when
we have employed you for your expertise.’ Directors are
threatened with data and I feel I regularly show them up for
making bad decisions based purely on politics.”
Unsurprisingly, this executive feels that this company is
unlikely to keep up with the market if this attitude prevails and
happily admits that, rather than stewarding the business into
a period of growth, it is simply a “stepping stone to future
roles”.
On speaking to the executive the frustration is clear – at the
missed opportunity for the business and for the personal
roadblocks at every turn.
Published by Econsultancy in association withMarketers in the Boardroom 17
18. 18Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
5. THE FUTURE FOR MARKETING
ON THE BOARD
As more and more marketers transition to the board, is it the
end for creativity at a high level? Executives interviewed for
this report would argue most certainly not. It is in the how
and when it is applied that consideration needs to be taken.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for the modern marketers is
the number of moving parts now under their control. And it is
a challenge for the leaders of the organisation too. Are they
to entrust areas that, by their own admission, marketers are
not yet experts in and possibly could never be?
This signals the move towards a more collegiate approach to
brand and customer management. Boards must trust that,
while a marketer may only have a working knowledge of data
technologies or corporate finance to a certain degree, the
one thing they do intuitively understand is the customer and
it is around this that all other things revolve.
Without care, there is potential for a marketer trying to
establish themselves at board level to find themselves in a
Catch-22 situation.
Boards can be brought round if marketers can demonstrate
the value of their actions in terms that can be understood
and appreciated by those whose functions are nominally
unrelated, such as the CFO and CTO. Of course, we have
already established in this paper that there can be no modern
organisation where these roles are now completely separate
from marketing but it is easier to transcend these barriers in
some corporate cultures than others.
“With marketing on the board, marketers still have a creative
element to their role. We will see more creative strategies, more
partnerships and use of third parties to deliver new business
models. Parity at the product level is happening faster than ever
so marketing leadership at board level will connect corporate
strategy to improving customer experience. Marketers can excel
at board level if they can help create relevant, differentiated and
consistently well executed customer experiences. Marketing
needs to take advantage of its role as a creative force.”
Randall Rozin, Dow Corning The most difficult thing to change is corporate culture. You have
to really understand what buttons to push and levers to pull to
execute your strategy. That requires an evolving infrastructure;
having the right people and mobilizing them.”
Evan Greene, The Recording Academy
19. 19Marketers in the Boardroom Published by Econsultancy in association with
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF CMO TO CEO
The progression of marketers to the board – and on to CEO
level – is always going to be easier in organisations that
already have marketing at the heart of the business. Jill
McDonald is a marketer who has made the leap between
national and international marketing roles that have ultimately
led to not one but two CEO positions.
In conversation with another former marketer now CEO,
The FA’s Martin Glenn at The Marketing Society, she stated
that: “McDonald’s values marketing very highly and therefore
I was a key player on the board with a number of other
colleagues. In other places, like British Airways, commercial
was at the top table but marketing wasn’t, so that would
make it even harder to get there.”
This is not to say that marketers should abandon any
attempts to take marketing to board level in companies
where it has not traditionally led the strategy. However
it does indicate that the marketer needs to adapt to
accommodate the habits of that particular board. The role of
change agent may yet be further down the line.
Marketers need to gain the trust to perform activities that
demonstrate the value of their new roles, but in many cases
need to prove they are able to perform those activities in the
first place. This paper has touched on a variety of tactics that
marketers can use to overcome this hurdle but, as in the case
of the anonymous marketer, it will be just as important to
recognise when the cultural barriers are still too great.
The GRAMMYs’ Greene believes that a lot of board-level
success comes simply from having the courage of your
convictions.
“It’s important to stick to your guns. You can easily fall victim
to group think. If you prepare and have the brand’s best
interests at heart you can be bold, be aggressive, make sure
you’re doing the right thing for the right reason. If you can look
yourself in the mirror and say yes then let the chips fall where
they may.”
“The bottom line is the thought processes. The CMO and CTO
need to be really good friends. It’s very easy to get territorial.
They want to know why the Mad Men are suddenly talking about
technology. You need to organise yourself in the company
horizontally between the functions, within customer groups
and create a plan for the whole organisation to deliver on. But
this needs a strong leadership team that is neither political, nor
territorial.”
Bjorn Sprengers, PropertyGuru
20. 6. ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS:
STEPS TO BE TAKEN TODAY
1. GAIN CREDIBILITY
We are in an era of test and learn and corporate
cultures are adapting to be slightly risk averse
and dip a toe in uncharted waters. Engaging with
this culture is one way of being able to prove a
hunch but the executives interviewed for this
report had mixed responses to using small test cases to
prove credibility at board level.
It was generally felt to be more important to be able to
marry the two areas of experience and data to demonstrate
credibility. Before approaching the board with ideas for
change, they need to be thoroughly worked through. Bringing
the weight of experience to bear on your decisions and being
able to take what, in many cases, may still have an element
of calculated risk gives marketers the courage of their
convictions when putting their case to the board.
Credibility is not about being mealy mouthed. Nor is it built
on false promises. Marketers need to have the confidence
to be bold if they are to instill confidence in their leadership
peers but doing this requires the marriage of experience
and science. Not always, but for the most part, this is a
foundation rather than a skill that is several years in the
making.
2. SPEAK THE LANGUAGE
Certainly there are exceptions where a
convention-busting moment of clarity is
called for but to engage with the board on a
day to day basis, it is important to absorb the
language, the vernacular if the marketer is to get their point
across with credibility and clarity.
There is a sense that because the digital era has increased
the measurability of customer interactions immensely, that
these metrics are therefore instantly acceptable at board
level. This is not the case. In many respects, reporting
marketing metrics directly to the board has the potential to
destroy rather than enhance credibility.
Understanding how to translate marketing outputs into
operational metrics is vital, as is the ability to translate
strategic imperatives delivered at board level back
through the organisation. Marketers are the instinctive
communicators of the organisation. Operating at board level
is the ultimate opportunity to exercise this muscle.
Published by Econsultancy in association withMarketers in the Boardroom 20
21. 3. WORK TOWARDS INTEGRATION
With customers now at the centre of the
business and the marketer their advocate,
this now establishes marketing as the
fulcrum around which all other functions
revolve. It’s a scenario that could give
more impressionable marketers delusions of grandeur
but essentially what it means is that marketers are the
link ensuring that technology, data, operations, sales and
finance all understand what is required to create the optimal
customer experience that will deliver competitive advantage.
Many of the executives interviewed for this report insisted
on the ‘political’ element of the board level marketing role.
The ability to liaise, break down barriers and silos internally is
as important as generating award-winning creative. Without
a seamlessly working multichannel delivering excellent
customer experiences, no brand promise can ever be
fulfilled. Marketers need to make sure that their organisation
is capable of cashing the cheques their communications
departments are writing.
4. PUSH YOUR BOUNDARIES
No marketer who stays comfortably within the
bounds of the marketing department will ever be
able to cut it at board level. To appreciate how
to integrate the different functions, marketers
have to step outside the discipline to understand not only
the challenges faced internally within the business, but the
market forces acting on the business as a whole.
No marketer focused on advertising or public relations could
have foreseen the disruptive influence of apps on consumer
behavior; focus groups will not deliver the insight that helps
marketers understand why consumers are so aware of their
need for data privacy and so willing to relinquish it when it
comes to social media.
By moving outside functional areas and gaining experience
of the world beyond communications, marketers are able
to advise and guide in their other roles as organisational
translator (speak the language), collaborator (integration) and
experienced professional (credibility).
5. MARRY ART AND SCIENCE
There is no escaping the fact that marketers
need to have more than a working knowledge
of data, insight and technology. This doesn’t
mean abandoning the creative drive that
probably brought many marketers to the function in the
first place. However being able to use these tools to drive
competitive advantage is now no longer solely the purview of
the chief information or technology officers.
Certainly, their input and expertise is invaluable and bringing
them on board to help deliver an efficient and effective
technological solution in an environment that is increasingly
dominated by marketing automation is essential. However
the marketer cannot afford to delegate the acquisition and
management of these capabilities entirely. The marketing
environment is changing so rapidly, almost entirely because
of data and technology advances that it is imperative to have
a handle on how the sector is evolving.
Marketing at board level is a generalist’s role and in-depth
expertise is not expected. The skill lies in being able to
engage the experts that will deliver the service to the
marketer’s design. This is not a tipping point where we
see the marketer embrace the bottom line at the expense
of creativity. Instead, it is the departure point from which
marketers can use detailed insight and information to inform
creative with increasing accuracy and efficacy.
Published by Econsultancy in association withMarketers in the Boardroom 21
22. ABOUT ECONSULTANCY
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