“What is the DNA of a well run marketing organization?”

Date: Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Host: TMG International Inc

Introduction:

On Wednesday, March 24^th, 2010, TMG International Inc hosted a Roundtable discussion with a group of marketing   thought leaders, to discuss “ What is the DNA of a well run Marketing organization” Of specific interest was what would the key characteristics of the organization be and what are the requirements to ensure a successful marketing organization.

In summary, the participants identified a number of key DNA characteristics of a well run marketing organization.   Specifically: 

• Strong CEO support for Marketing
• A well established and clearly focused goal for the business linked to the culture of the organization.
• Strong  clarity and understanding around Marketing’s objectives & roles
• A continuous learning environment focused on the marketplace, customers, and competition.
• Strong orientation around marketing and business training ( knowledge & skills) including mentor coaching
• Visible understanding of the organization’s economic model by Marketing including key drivers of the business.
• Visible ongoing business development experimentation as an integral extension of a continuous learning environment

During the discussion a number of ideas were considered and can be summarized into three key areas:  

1. 1.    What are the requirements to enable/achieve a high level of success within the Marketing organization?
2. 2.    What role does culture, play in facilitating a highly successful Marketing organization and how does it manifest itself?
3. 3.    What is the nature and quality of training required to enable a highly successful Marketing organization?

Discussion:

What are the requirements to enable a high level of success within the Marketing organization?

The  discussion was focused on looking for answers from the past and  observations from the present to identify what needs to exist for Marketing to successfully move forward.

Key mentions include: 

• Clear goals with a customer focused vision
• Strong performance based recognition and motivation for greater results
• Trust – most obviously embodied by a strong sense of team and the  freedom to experiment
• Passion instilled through senior management 

Key Insights taken from this discussion were: 

• Successful marketing organizations develop a strong sense of calculated risk taking as part of the organization’s culture.
  • Nourishing a team atmosphere to meet the end goal through shared ownership.
  • Honestly recognizing an organization’s weaknesses, relative to market trends, competitors and customers, and addressing them head on.
• Successful marketing organizations build competence and confidence.
  • Instill confidence in young marketers to say what is on their minds 
  • Share a culture that encourages  open debate 
  • Empower the team to support and defend the company’s goals and vision
  • Empower through mentoring 

What role does culture, play in facilitating a highly successful Marketing organization and how does it manifest itself?

The consensus  was that culture  enables a successful Marketing organization  in a number of ways beginning with creating an  atmosphere that encourages marketers to understand  the key drivers of the  business economic model and  uses that knowledge to validate Marketing’s value to the business. This ensures CFOs and COOs are advocates of marketing and marketers.  Organizations that provide their marketers with strong cultural support models enable its marketers to try new strategies and explore new ideas. 

Key Insights taken from this discussion include: 

Successful Marketer’s understand the business’s economic model and what drives the business. 

• Marketer’s understand how the organization makes money, and the barriers to improving its economic model not just the P&L
• In successful marketing organizations, Marketers display strong analytical abilities and naturally link performance metrics to strategies and tactics. 

Successful marketing organizations conduct fact finding analysis to build alignment on key marketing issues 

• Influence organizational decision making by leading the data collection and synthesis of relevant information to draw fact based conclusions.
• Have strong business acumen and leadership skills to effectively facilitate the alignment of the organization.  

Utilize an experimental approach to the business to foster learning and enhance critical thinking within the business. 

• Challenge the learning by allocating a budget to encourage measurable testing to develop the employee’s intellectual curiosity 

Marketers must be clear on the purpose of the organization, its overriding goal and related strategies. 

When experimenting, marketers should ask themselves:

• What makes the organization uniquely different and sustainably different
• What drives success within an organization
• What is the organization good at –is it better than the competition or not
• What should we not do?
• What are we not about?

What is the nature and quality of training required to enable a highly successful Marketing organization?

The critical issue identified was the current lack of mentorship and coaching in organizations.. Specifically, the lack of time spent by senior management in mentorship; motivating and coaching  to invoke the right attitude and direction of marketers.  Currently, organizations are challenged by the many specialized Marketing roles that are eliminating the general management way of thinking.  Organizations need to be more concerned with the quality of Marketing training and education that is hindering marketers from becoming the corporate marketing general managers that the once were.    

Key Insights taken from this discussion were: 

• Marketers must learn and understand what the roles of everyone in the organization are to ensure the ability to successfully lead and support cross functional business building initiatives..
• Organizations must generalize their marketer’s business knowledge by developing courses within the organization and/or by allocating ( non-variable expense)  budgets for marketers to take  job and skill specific  courses.
• Organizations need to find ways to retain and keep their most talented, high potential employees in spite of the career lattice that many marketers must currently undergo in order to get broad based marketing  experience..  This career lattice has marketers scattering to find new opportunities, typically in new organizations within a 1-2 year timeframe to gain more generalized business knowledge and to feed their intellectual curiosity.