Coatings World - August 2011

Today we can go online and select just about any combination of features we want in a new automobile including design, drive train, engine type, interior comfort and exterior/interior paint color. The car can then be delivered to the most convenient dealer location for pickup and financial arrangements.

What happens to the sale persons/sales managers’ role at the dealership in this model? These jobs will be gone. There’s no need for these positions since the role has been replaced by the online research education process and a place to take auto delivery and for service of that car.

Suppliers must change as customer buying behavior changes. We can’t lag too far behind this customer change dynamic curve or the competition will beat us. We must be hand-in-hand with our customers as they constantly try new methods of buying, adapting solid buying tools and rejecting marginal ones in the process. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO, located within the C-Suite) is the key manager in bringing together all the talent and infrastructure at this level, down into the workings of the entire company necessary to deal successfully with these new marketing challenges and turn them into opportunities.

Whether your company is global, re-
gional or local, there is today an increas-
ing set of complexities besetting the
company. There is more of everything:
customer segments, media outlets and dis-
tribution channels. Companies and their
CMOs are waging a battle with these var-
ious convolutions.

For example, within marketing, the ability to build brands across an increasing number of media, including channels dominated by user-generated content, will be critical. There will also be analytical muscle to build, such as the data-manage-ment skills needed to compare and maximize the effectiveness of on and offline marketing expenditures.

Many of these skills, such as expertise in the business use of social networking, in digital marketing or in emerging markets, require a degree of specialization that complements the generalist capabilities of traditional marketing management. As a result, many companies will be forced to restructure their marketing and sales organizations by creating centers of excellence for key marketing capabilities and, perhaps, by outsourcing marketing activities requiring specialized skills, just as some CIOs rely on external IT-devel-opment resources.

New marketing capabilities The changes in customer behavior environment call for new marketing capabilities, both in the marketing organization itself as well as the company as a whole.

CEOs need to assist their CMOs Here are three areas a CEO can work on to assist their Chief Marketing Officer in becoming more successful.

First, take time to understand what is really happening with customers. De-focus on the brand-image and financial results in marketing meetings. Instead, find out how the needs of different customer segments are evolving, who is saying what to our customers on which blog, who are the social influencers of your product and how customers are changing their approach to decision-making.

Second, foster the right connection between the CMOs efforts and those of the other parts of the organization. In other words, BUILD BRIDGES! This connection is not only critical for bringing together marketing, public relations and corporate affairs but also important when CMOs are asked to lead major corporate initiatives on strategy and business models.