1) Which of these two important areas would you tackle first and why? (Hint: most people would start with the ‘now’ and go to ‘future’ but a case can be made for doing it the other way round.)
2) You have identified a number of issues around the current way of working, how would you prioritize and summarize these? The issues are:
? No clear marketing objectives, only sales targets and market share (no idea on profitability by sector/product area).
? Marketing communications not quantified (no idea if they are working!).
? Product portfolio objectives not defined (impossible then to brief R&D).
? R&D decides on which new products to launch (the tail is wagging the dog!).
? Distribution strategy non-existent (just try and maximize shelf space, no idea on what that costs).
? No key account management with the leading retailers (SCE’s sales department are often last in the queue to see the buyers).
? Pricing strategy is based on cost of components, not what the market will pay.
? Most of the marketing department have only worked for SCE.
CASE
Stanley Consumer Electronics Stanley Electronics is a large multinational corporation whose main business is in electronic components, which is primarily business to business. However, its division, Stanley Consumer Electronics (SCE), sells final products direct to consumer. This means they are largely independent of the rest of the corporation in terms of the processes they need to be successful. Given their background, SCE are very technologically driven, rather than consumer led. This is a major issue as their main competitors are some of the leading consumer goods companies who are acknowledged as the best in terms of marketing to consumers. From a large strategic review of the SCE’s overall business, it is recognized that this weakness in marketing expertise has to change if they are to improve sales and profits. A long-term project has therefore been initiated called ‘Creating Marketing Excellence’. It has six key tasks:
? Improve the marketing processes;
? Improve the competences within marketing;
? Improve the learning within the organization;
? Have better organizational fit to requirements;
? Make better use of the tools available;
? Reset the culture and mindset to a new way of working.
This is a large task and your consulting firm has been brought in to help the senior management at SCE deliver this project over the next 12 months. They are particularly looking for you to provide experience from your work with their main competitors on the latter’s marketing processes. Your first task is to understand what SCE does now, so you look at both the ‘official’ process handbook and also interview key players to learn how the marketing function runs in reality. The senior management want a process imposed that mirrors ‘best practice’ from the competitors. However, you feel some resistance from the marketing department itself, who feel that the current way of working just needs tweaking, rather than a radical overhaul. After all, they will be the ones responsible for implementing the new marketing planning process and understandably, they believe they know what will work in their organization.
Mindful of the sensitivities around this area, you prepare for the first workshop. The first part of this will be a presentation by you about ‘where we are now’ and the ‘best practice marketing processes’ in order to generate debate on the way forward.