by Phil Phillips, PhD
Contributing Editor
phillips@chemarkconsulting.net
Sadly, we know when a war is started it starts at the top of a government or a group. This is an historic fact.
What is also an historic fact is . . . the
war is completed either successfully of
not so successfully at the bottom of these
organizations.
In this column, I will not discuss why
wars are started but only the “WHO”
starts them and who finishes them, as it
relates to business models. References indicate that most wars are started at the
highest level (the TOP of an organization Strategy) and, of course, are fought
by organized troops or followers (the
BOTTOM) to its completion (the Tactics).
Of course, the TOP must have instituted
funds for training of the BOTTOM as
well as authorize support resources during the tactical conflicts. But, in the final
analysis, when push-comes-to-shove the
BOTTOM either wins or loses the war.
As it is in war, it is true with the business of successfully running an organization it is, to win.
The TOP of a business unit (
management) must determine what it wants
to do: remain as it is or become something else and then determine if its’ current strengths of position, resources and
power can achieve that strategic objective. These determinations must then be
weighed against its competitors’ and their
current strengths of position, resources
and power, in the target markets, to determine what the odds of “winning” will
look like.
Of course, the TOP should always
confer and evaluate intelligence from the
marketing and sales group (the Bottom),
however, the bulk of the decisions on
when and how a business “goes to battle” is accomplished at the TOP of the
organization.
Like in war, there is an enemy and in
business, it’s called competition. There
are other, what I describe as “
nit-picking” enemies like time (wasting elements), tempo (the strides & frequency
of same taken by all functions), and energy (“fatigue makes us all cowards” . .
. Coach Vince Lombardi) As a business
manager, one must accurately measure
(marketing) both its competition against
your target goals . . . as well as the customers’ (market) needs or wants.
Perhaps the best model is described by
John A. Howard of Columbia University
when he described marketing:
“Industrial Marketing is the process
of (ACCURATELY):
1. Identifying customer needs,
2.Conceptualizing those needs in
terms of an organization’s capacity
to produce,
3.Communicating that conceptualization to the appropriate laws of
power in the organization,
4.Conceptualizing the consequent
output in terms of the customer
needs earlier identified, and
5. Communicating that conceptualiza-
tion to the customer”
It is interesting that Mr. Howard did
not insert any discussion of the enemy . . . .
Competition, in his five-point “Marketing
Process”. Competition will always attempt
to block its’ competitors progress and foul
their capacity to fulfill this “process” suc-
cessfully. Therefore, a no. 6 point would
be to “out maneuver the competitive pres-
ence and successfully block their attempt
to disrupt the competent flow of the first
five marketing elements.
When making a point in business we
seem to inevitably revert back to a sports
parallel. Let me bore you with another one.
In (American) football, you win
by outwitting, outflanking, and over-
powering the other team. In war, you
win by outwitting, outflanking, and
over-powering the enemy. The territory
you take is only a reflection of your abil-
ity to do these things.
Why should industrial marketing
behavior be any different? It’s a conflict
(a War) in every sense of the word. The
true nature of business marketing today
involves the conflict among competing
corporations. Let us NOT forget this
essential nature of what industrial marketing (warfare) is all about, because it’s
NOT the satisfying of individual human
needs and wants (retail), it is the “want”
the market (made up of many similar
companies) requires.
What is the bottom-line take-away
message here? It’s very simple . . . the
whole of an organization, like any other
“living” organism, from the TOP through
the middle to the Bottom must be totally
in tune (in touch with itself) and coordinated much better than its competitive
enemy, to be successful.
It’s not easy and takes a great deal of
intelligence and hard focused work but,
the organization must “see” itself as the
combination of all the other key component elements of its target value chain . .
. from the four corners of any business
universe . . . the Voice of Customer;
Voice of the Customers/Customer; Voice
of Competitors; and Voice of Company . .
. . and it will have captured all the chain
influencers, points-of-view and become
better positioned to win the “war” in the
industrial marketing battlefield. CW
It Starts at the Top...
But... Finishes at the Bottom
“As it is in war,
it is true with
the business of
successfully running
an organization it is,
to win.”
