Gesellschaft für Marketing

Segmentation you can act on (Classic McKinsey Article)

Value-Based Pricing Segmentation vs Scoring Forsyth 1999 McKQ herunterladen

 

Five Steps to Shifting Marketing's Capabilities

Five Steps to Shifting Marketing's Capabilities to Meet Today's Needs

by Larry Lucas, Hilary Fazzone

MarketingProf

 

Many business leaders are making important strides in transforming their marketing strategies to address changing competitive environments, emerging product and service categories, and evolving customer needs. They're thinking in terms of solutions rather than products, stakeholders rather than customers, and redefining rather than upgrading.

But, unfortunately, leaders often expect new marketing strategies to be successfully executed with old marketing capabilities. The fact is that great strategic plans have failed in the absence of capability shifts.

With the right building blocks, however, business leaders can advance their companies' marketing capabilities to give promising strategies the support needed to succeed.

What's Required

The marketing capabilities required to support meaningful business shifts fall into four key categories:

• The first category is competencies—the right functional, technical, teaming, and leadership skills to build and activate differentiating customer solutions. Such skills can be introduced in many ways, including in-house development and external talent acquisition, but they must directly align with emerging business strategies.
• The second is processes. To ensure consistent execution as teams adapt, leadership must institute replicable approaches and frameworks for the range of value-creating activities that teams undertake to deliver customer solutions.
• The third category is tools, encompassing the systems, information, assistance, resources, and metrics that teams need to work effectively. The success of tool-based capability enhancements depends largely on leadership's insight into the evolving needs of its teams, and its ability to identify the tools that address those needs.
• The final category is organization. Without the structure, governance, roles and responsibilities, and mindset that enable accountability—as well as decisive action—a business shift will flounder.

How to Get There

Building out such capabilities on such a scale requires significant time, energy, focus, and resources on the part of leadership, as well as buy-in and dedication on the part of team members. Prophet, our company, has identified five foundational methods for capability development, each of which will contribute to an emerging business strategy's chances of success.

1. Launch pilots

Introduce new capabilities or enhance current ones by starting with small, central, in-market impact examples for the rest of the organization. Take a highly regarded group that has bought into the new strategy, and usher that group through a high-visibility capability shift. Other groups will be encouraged and inspired by the pilot group's success.

2. Evolve management routines

Lead by example: Start at the top of the organization, and incorporate the solutions-shift into the way the company does business. Leadership, having actively undergone change itself, can much more effectively request change from others.

3. Promote knowledge-sharing

Asking teams to change is often insufficient. Leadership must provide examples that demonstrate what successful change looks like. By sharing best-practices from inside and outside the company, leadership will give teams a defined and proven road map to follow.

4. Develop talent

Sometimes, the capability requirements of the current business strategy will translate directly to the new strategy. But, in most cases, you'll need a new talent-development process. Talent can be fostered internally, hired externally, or some combination thereof. In any event, a system must be built to fill talent gaps and rely on relevant strengths.

5. Shape the culture and mindset

Change can be intimidating. Employees may not know where they stand relative to your emerging strategies, or whether their legacy capabilities will remain relevant as their roles evolve. To maintain focus, leaders must evolve perspectives and incite passion for transformation.

It Ain't Easy

Shifting the capabilities of a company's entire marketing function is no small undertaking. Several common pitfalls can undermine a company's efforts.

• One pitfall is allowing internal focus on the transformation to obscure the company's delivery of benefits to customers. Customers don't want to feel the growing pains of a strategy shift; they simply want to experience its positive impact. Therefore, companies should take care not to give customers a reason to look elsewhere while the kinks are worked out.
• A second pitfall is adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to capability development across the business. Some teams may have a more relevant current skill set than others, and teams will respond differently to various skill-building methods. Companies should consider each team's circumstances when designing capability-development plans.
• Another pitfall is failing to build the case for transformation internally. Leadership can be so eager to enact change, it forgets that individual team members were not part of the strategic process that brought the business shift about in the first place, and, therefore, those team members may not understand why change is necessary. Company leaders should build understanding, buy-in, and enthusiasm for the business shift if they want employees to be engaged with and energized by the change.
• Finally, leadership can underestimate the difficulty of the new business strategy, resulting in insufficient implementation resources, unattainable timelines, and unreasonable metrics for monitoring its progress. Leadership must understand and appreciate all of the requirements of a marketing capabilities shift, and create an environment that promotes its success.

But You Can Do It!

Marketing capability shifts are substantial undertakings, but they are also the lifeblood of a company's longevity, sustained relevance, and competitive differentiation. Such shifts are not only attainable but also often necessary.

Take, for example, a global adhesive manufacturer that Prophet has worked with. The company's organic growth had stalled, and historical geographic expansion was limited. In addition, the firm had minimal insight into end users' behaviors and decision-making processes. The firm was taking a reactive (rather than active) approach with competitors, and it didn't have a distinct point of view in the market. Its leaders, and Prophet, knew that better marketing could drive strategic growth.

In response, the firm embarked on a three-year strategic marketing transformation, using a marketing council that spanned the organization's divisions. The council used internal and external best-practices to identify the competencies required to "win," created a tailored way of marketing that would establish the company as a market-driven organization, developed tools and training to build key marketing competencies internally, and built processes to ensure those competencies transferred across the organization.

The result? More than 1,200 new products launched globally, resulting in nearly $1 billion in identified revenue. Margin improvements of more than $38 million resulted from a product portfolio management pilot. And specific development programs have been established for more than 400 marketers across the globe to ensure continual learning and sustainable growth.

* * *

Many business leaders understand that strategy and capability shifts are necessary in today's dynamic environment, and that the time between such shifts is shrinking. The challenge is in navigating and executing those shifts successfully.

Putting the building blocks of competencies, processes, organization, and tools in place, and being mindful of the pitfalls, is critical to effectively spurring transformation and business growth.

Published on March 19, 2012

Strategic Marketing in Action, April 23-27, 2012

Who
********
You are a mid-level or senior manager with strategic, marketing or commercial responsibilities and have at least 10 years of experience in different fields.

What
********
- Boost your strategic thinking about the evolving competitive landscape, understand how to co-create more value with your customers and capture more value with smart pricing
- Gain insights into drivers of customer value, behavior and choice, and align different stakeholders, such as employees and partners, to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty of your key accounts and most important customers
- Formulate a differentiated value proposition for customer-focused strategy and brand platform incorporating social media
- Meet the challenge of implementing your strategy and gaining internal support by demonstrating the financial value marketing creates in terms of Net Marketing Contribution

Dates
********
1st program: April 23-27, 2012 with 1 month pre-phase and 3 months post-module learning
2nd program: Oct 29-Nov 2, 2012 with 1 month pre-phase and 3 months post-module learning

 

Duration
*******
Phase I - 1 month (web-based)
Phase II - 5 days on campus
Phase III - 3 months (web-based)

Web
********
Find all information on http://www.imd.ch/sma .

Erfolgreich mit neuen Businessmodelle? Airlines als Beispiel

Die folgende Zusammenstellung zeigt anhand von vier Beispielen, dass Erfolg und Misserfolg nicht zwingend von Businessmodell-Innovationen abhängt. Deshalb haben wohl beide Sprichwörter nach wie vor ihre Berechtigung, auch wenn sie sich gegenseitig widersprechen:

"Schuster bleib bei Deinen Leisten" und "Wer nicht mit der Zeit geht, der geht mit Zeit"

ServiceModelInnovation Airlines herunterladen

 

Strategie Professor CK Prahalad stirbt 68-jährig [English]

CK Prahalad, Professor für Strategie an der University of Michigan, hat zwei wichtige Entwicklungen im Strategischen Management massgeblich mitgestaltet. 1990 hat er zusammen mit Gary Hamel die Idee der Kernkompetenzen einem breiten Publikum vom Managern zugänglich gemacht. Sein Harvard Business Review Article "The Core Competence of the Corporation" gehört zu den häufigsten zitierten Artikeln der Management Wissenschaft. In diesem Jahrzehnt war CK Prahalad eine treibende Kraft für ein vertieftes Verständnis der Märkte mit armen Konsumenten. Als gebürtiger Inder hat konnte er zeigen, dass Märkte "at the bottom of the pyramide", also am unteren Ende der Einkommenspyramide, durchaus interessant und lukrativ sein können.

CK Prahalad starb am 16. April 2010 in seinem Haus in San Diego, USA.

By VIKAS BAJAJ,

New York Times

 C. K. Prahalad, a management professor and author who popularized the idea that companies could make money while helping to alleviate poverty, died Friday in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. He was 68 and lived in San Diego.

The cause was an undiagnosed lung illness, his family said.

Mr. Prahalad wrote “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits,” about how companies could tap the poor as customers and, as a result, improve the lives of millions of impoverished people in developing countries.

His work on poverty, and earlier on how companies should build “core competence,” earned him a loyal following in corporate boardrooms around the world, especially in India. Though he had lived in the United States for more than 40 years, he traveled frequently to India to advise corporate executives and political leaders.

Anand Mahindra, chairman of a Mumbai-based business conglomerate, Mahindra & Mahindra, said Indian executives flocked to listen to Mr. Prahalad, who pushed them to be more adventurous in expanding their companies overseas and at home.

“He would say, ‘I just don’t believe you guys have enough ambition,’ ” Mr. Mahindra said in a telephone interview. “It had to do with his patriotism, his very, very deep desire to see Indian brands and companies succeed.”

Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad was born in the south Indian city of Coimbatore on Aug. 8, 1941. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a judge and prominent labor rights lawyer who wrote several books about Hindu philosophy.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Prahalad came to the United States to pursue a doctoral degree in management at Harvard Business School. After earning his degree, Mr. Prahalad moved back to India in 1975 but he arrived just as Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, was declaring emergency rule and suspending many civil rights.

“As a patriotic person, my father believed that is not what India represented,” his son, Murali, said. Two years later, “they made a very tough choice to return to the United States.”

He became a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where he taught until his death, traveling regularly from California.

Mr. Prahalad had established a reputation as a formidable business strategist when he started his work on poverty in 1995, according to the preface of “Bottom of the Pyramid.” His daughter, Deepa, said her father was concerned about the lopsidedness of growth in India, which had begun loosening government control over its economy in the early 1990s — something that he had long advocated.

“India was starting to see some examples that money could be made and consumers could be tapped,” she said. “What concerned him was that the focus in developing countries was often on the middle class and upper class.”

In the book, he focused on initiatives that he believed had succeeded in reducing poverty. One example was e-Choupal, a project started by the Indian tobacco, food and hotel conglomerate, ITC. The company provided computers to farmers so they could check the prices of soya beans and other commodities in various markets, and compare them with the prices ITC was offering. Doing so raised farmers’ incomes and reduced ITC’s costs because it did not have to use middlemen.

Executives and scholars say his research helped encourage companies to serve poor customers with products like small-size pouches of shampoo and low-cost cellphone service.

In recent months, he was researching new management styles emerging in nations like India and China and how to assure that the economic rise of people in developing countries could be managed in an environmentally sustainable way, his daughter said.

In addition to his wife, daughter and son, Mr. Prahalad is survived by three grandchildren, a brother and a sister.

GfM Trendtagung 2010: Spannende Referate und interessante Kontakte

Die Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Marketing GFM führte am Mittwoch im Zürcher Kongresshaus zum 20. Mal die Marketing Trend-Tagung durch. GFM-Präsident Ulrich H. Moser konnte am Anlass rund 600 Fachleute begrüssen. Die Tagung stand unter dem Motto "Strategic Marketing in Action". Das Thema dürfte bei den meisten Teilnehmern grosses Interesse ausgelöst haben, sind doch wirksame Marketingstrategien ausschlaggebend um in schwierigen Zeiten zu bestehen. Auch in diesem Jahr traten hochkarätige Referenten auf. So zum Beispiel Prof. Kamran Kashani. Er sagte vor versammelter Branche: "Das klassische Marketing ist heute nicht mehr so effektiv wie es einst einmal war. Es ist neues Wissen gefragt, um strategischen Innovationen zu entwickeln." Das Marketing sei noch nie so anspruchsvoll gewesen. Die Konsumenten seien einflussreicher und starke Brands längst nicht mehr so einfach aufzubauen wie vor Jahren. Die neue Faustregel laute deshalb: "Meet costumer needs, exactly."

Spannende Erkenntnisse waren auch im Referat von Manor-Chef Bertrand Jungo zu hören. Unter dem Titel "Strategie - ein Blick zurück und ein Schritt nach vorne" gewährte Jungo einen Einblick in die Strategie der grössten Warenhauskette der Schweiz. Jungo will im Detailhandel nicht in erster Linie mit tiefen Preisen bei den Konsumenten punkten, sondern mit der Kunst der Verführung künftig Marktanteile gewinnen. Manor investierte im letzten Jahr rund 85 Millionen Franken in Ausbau der Läden. Für Jungo ist das Erlebnis am POS entscheidend: "Die Kunden sollen Manor als Ort der Emotion und Inspiration wahrnehmen." Die Abdeckung in der Schweiz sei praktisch vollzogen. Manor möchte die Warenhäuser modernisieren. Als Vorbild zeigte Jungo Bilder der neuen Flaggschiff-Filiale in Genf.

Auch der Marketing-Nachwuchs durfte vor versammelter Branche auftreten. BWL-Studierende der Uni St. Gallen zeigten auf, wie das Marketing von Morgen aussieht. Für die jungen Akademiker steht ausser Zweifel, dass das Internet einer der wichtigsten Faktoren einer erfolgreichen Marketingstrategie spielen wird. Egal ob die Konsumenten mit Produkten in Berührung kommen oder diese später kaufen. "Die reale Welt wird immer sträker mit der digitalen verknüpft", so die Studierenden, die heute nach eigenen Angaben die Weinwahl auf dem iPhone treffen. Auch die Werbung müsse eindeutig interaktiver werden. Die Formel für erfolgreiche Kampagne lieferten sie auch: In einem ersten Schritt müssen starke zielgruppenrelevante Communities aufgebaut werden. Erst im zweiten Schritt sollten klassische Wege eingeschlagen werden. So das Fazit der Jugend.

Am Nachmittag hielt Stefan Michel ein höchst spannendes Referat mit dem Titel "Strategic Marketing in Action: Globale Trends". Für den Marketing-Professor am IMD International in Lausanne ist klar, dass die Kundenorientierung im Sinne der industriellen Logik nicht ausreiche. Die Kunden seien nicht passive Verbraucher, sondern sogenannte "Cocreators". Cocreation passiere in Value Constellations. Das heisst: Wichtig ist nicht, was das Produkt oder Service für den Kunden bringt, sondern was der Kunde mit dem Produkt oder Service macht. Zudem vertritt Michel die Ansicht, dass durch diesen Wandel auch der Geldfluss in Frage gestellt wird. In einer Wirtschaft nach dem Prinzip Cocreation Logic spielen geringe variable Kosten, enorme Netzwerkeffekte und Partnerschaften eine wichtige Rolle.

Quelle: persoenlich.com

Wachstumsstrategie: Briefmarken auf Babies

Der US Konzern Pitney Bowes startete mit Frankiermaschinen. Im Laufe der Jahrzehnte wurde des Angebot erweitert zu einem Full-Service, mit welchem Pitney Bowes seinen Kunden die gesamte interne Post abnimmt. Verschiedene technologische Innovationen finden heute in anderen Branchen Anwendung. Die folgende Werbung zeigt, dass das Markierungs- und Verfolgungssystem von Pitney Bowes beispielsweise auch bei Spitälern eingesetzt werden, um Patienten zu identifizieren.

Marketing ROI. Resultate einer globalen McKinsey Studie

Der Zusammenhang zwischen Marketing und Return on Investment (ROI) ist sicherlich schwierig zu messen, aber viele Unternehmen nutzen nicht einmal die Werkzeuge, die ihnen bereits zur Verfügung stehen.

Eine McKinsey Studie mit 587 Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) quer durch alle Branche hat gezeigt, Die Studie zeigt, dass insbesondere Business-to-business Unternehmen bei der Marketingbudget-Allokation zuwenig auf die Effektivität der Marketing-Massnahmen schauen, und zu stark auf historische Faustregeln abstützen.

Der englische Artikel kann hier heruntergeladen werden.

Strategische Überlegungen bei Promotionen

Verkaufspromotionen können leicht zum Eigentor werden, wenn die relevanten Kontextfaktoren wie Brand, Positionierung, Margen, Botschaft und Konkurrenzreaktion nicht berücksichtigt werden.
Betsy Gelb und ihre Koautoren zeigen in diesem Beitrag, unter welchen Bedingungen Promotionen Sinn machen.

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/files/pdfs/48401SxW.pdf

Krisenmarketing für FMCG: GfK/Serviceplan Studie

GfK und Serviceplan untersuchten das Marketingverhalten von 700 Marken im Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Bereich nach dem Platzen des Dot.Com Hypes 2002-2003. Die Analyse zeigt, dass Marken die antizyklisch in Werbung und Innovation investieren gestärkt aus der Krise hervorgehen. Sie zeigt auch, dass Marketingleiter in den USA die Krise aktiver bekämpfen als in Deutschland.
Download des Studiensteckbriefs (pdf)