What
is different today?
Consumer
sophistication, competition, Internet age companies and technologies
have raised the bar on consumer expectation. e.g. consumers who had
tasted the level of information and customer services they get at Amazon.com
turned around and demanded and expected similar levels of service from
Barnes and Noble which had a vastly different marketing and technology
infrastructure.
Customer
relationship with a company has increased in complexity. Today companies
are expected to reach out to customers with the right, personalized
offers wherever they are, whenever they want and how they want. E.g
in the last years, consumers got to shop online but can return the goods
in retail stores, they get to specify how they want to be contacted.
Today as
all of us are witnessing the economic environment is very dynamic, stock
markets are on roller coaster, and business is expected to be conducted
in Internet times while we still have legacy processes and out-dated
infrastructures at the back end.
Companies
are consolidating, trying develop more efficient marketing programs,
which are challenged more than ever due to More environmental scrutiny
such as Privacy regulations - consumers are very concerned about privacy
and regulatory bodies are watching marketing practices closely. There
are more than 35 privacy bills pending on the floor regarding consumer
privacy which can affect the way you strategise and execute your marketing
programs.
Technology
has evolved rapidly and continues to outpace the pace at which you can
implement them in your organization.
Expensive
Investments make building enterprise-level customer relationship infrastructure
even more challenging given the economic climate and perception of marketing
within corporations as cost centers rather than investments.
What
does this mean for a marketing practitioner?
You still
need to build scalable marketing programs that you can easily ramp up
and down as business needs, corporate realities and economic environment
warrant effortlessly and seamlessly.
You need
to establish marketing metrics and processes that can demonstrate the
Return on Investment (ROI) on your marketing programs every step of
the way for getting the buy-in.
What do we mean by "scalable" marketing programs?
A scalable
marketing program is one which is flexible to accommodate the industry
/ company trends and realities effortlessly and seamlessly without crushing
your marketing infrastructure of the people, processes.
When you
add a channel or new customer segment, you still have flexibility to
adjust your infrastructure that suit your needs.
What
challenges are people encountering in building scalable marketing programs?
Clarity
of where the company , industry , consumer is going in the short term
and long term.
Technology
that can enable you to meaningfully communicate with consumer in internet
times has evolved rapidly and the plethora of options at your disposal
can be baffling(e.g in an independent study conducted by Quaero in 2001
more than 22 software products were featured that enable marketing practitioners
to automate marketing programs).
Today different
functions within an organization are required to work together as businesses
are rallying to be more customer-centric than ever before. Though cross
functional and departmental collaboration sounds idyllic, it is often
a play ground for organizational politics that make building scalable
marketing programs more complex.
Road ahead
: How do you make your marketing programs scalable and extend the reach
with optimized resources
Establish
your company vision / metrics as that will help you derive the requirements
for technology, people, process and will also help you with capacity
planning and strategies to build/ buy/ outsource
Especially
for very young companies today, outsourcing can be an option worth exploring
to de-risk technology decisions.
Outsourcing
de-risks marketing program – avoids unnecessary, upfront, massive capital
investment and will also equip the marketers with the flexibility to
ramp up or down as situation demands.
Technology
is key. Today there are tools and technologies that can make you a learning
organization, to provide impeccable customer service.
Be fanatical
about measuring Return on Investment (ROI) whenever, wherever you can
. It will earn you the credibility and champions in the company for
building even more scalability in marketing.
DeeVee
Devarakonda can be reached at deevee@quaero.com to answer specific questions
on this article. Opinions expressed in the article are only those of
the author.
About the
Author:
DeeVee
Devarakonda is responsible for all the marketing activities for Quaero,
a leading CRM services company. DeeVee brings to Quaero a wide range
of expertise in building the brand for a hi-tech consulting and services
company, in developing new markets and products in a volatile and global
context, and marketing expertise for a rapidly growing company.
Prior to Quaero, DeeVee worked at Infosys Technologies, where she was
heading the global marketing group. She designed, developed and executed
global marketing programs for Infosys that achieved multi billion dollar
market cap within a year of listing in 1999. She was responsible for
customer attraction and retention initiatives. Previously she worked
with Ammiratti Puris Lintas, now a part of Interpublic Group of companies
– the second largest advertising group in the world where she led the
media program for Unilever brands.
DeeVee has a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute
of Technology, Madras and earned a Masters in Management from Indian
Institute of Management , Ahmedabad.