Marketing’s Leadership Journey: Five Challenges for 2007

More than 200 marketing leaders representing many of the top technology, telecom, and IT services companies explored five challenges for 2007 while meeting at ITSMAs Annual Marketing Conference on November 15 and 16. Under the banner of “Driving Value: Marketing’s Advancing Role,” conference speakers and participants suggested that the following issues should take center stage next year as marketing takes on more of a strategic advisory role in the business:

Deepening Customer Insight. Despite all the rhetoric about companies being customer driven, the reality is that many technology and services firms still operate largely from the inside out. Tapping new digital channels (blogs, social networks, etc.) to improve customer (and market) insight is gaining interest among marketing leaders, but participants also agreed there is still no substitute for personal, face-to-face interaction. Even within tight budget constraints, marketers need to find ways to get closer to customers and use customer insight to help drive investment priorities, business development, and marketing strategies. As Bob Baginski, executive vice president for global marketing and communications at Satyam noted, “marketers should know more about their customers than anyone else at the company.” One approach receiving great attention at the conference: building private online customer communities to gather more regular, real-time insight into customer perspectives, wants, and needs.

Sharpening Market Segmentation. Building on deeper customer insight, marketers are also focusing more on segmentation, and moving beyond simple industry or demographic approaches to more sophisticated needs-based models. Some of this revolves around customer business needs. At AT&T, for example, Sue Soares, vice president of product marketing and operations, described how the company is driving new growth with small and medium business customers by mapping telecom services offerings to specific business needs within priority industry verticals. On a different level, 5, ITSMA’s senior vice president of thought leadership, outlined the importance of segmenting customers for integrated solutions based on why and how they measure solutions value. While some buyers are focused mostly on technology performance and functionality, others look at return on investment, and still others are more concerned with ongoing measurement and continuous improvement.

Accelerating Market Innovation. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution, struck a chord with participants by demonstrating the potential pitfalls of listening to your best customers. The most disruptive market innovations, according to Christensen, often come from low-end competitors creating simpler solutions for buyers far removed from your current customers (consider how the early personal computers seemed unimportant compared to the powerful minicomputers that business customers relied upon in the 1970s and early 1980s). As such, focusing mainly on improvements for current customers can mean missing important new opportunities as well as emerging competitors. But improving offerings for your best customers is also important, so creating a balanced approach is necessary. For established technology companies, Christensen suggested three possible approaches:

• Low-End Disruption: Creating new, low-cost business models to undercut existing competition
• New Market Disruption: Creating different, simpler, cheaper products and services to sell to currently unserved markets
• High-End Innovation: Creating better products and services to build more business with existing customers and similar prospects

Simplifying Portfolios and Messaging. Marketing simplification was another common thread running through the conference. Too many disparate messages and offerings overwhelm customers, prospects, and companies’ own sales forces, and many marketers seem determined to create more focus in 2007. Greg Root, director of services marketing at Symbol Technologies, described the gains Symbol has made in the last year after cleaning up the services portfolio and reentering the market with just three core support offerings. Similarly, Mary Garrett, vice president for marketing for IBM Global Technology Services, outlined IBM’s move to a simpler messaging approach, with a new effort to organize communications around priority audience segments such as CEOs, CIOs, and IT managers, rather than endless products, services, and solutions.

Building New Customer Connections. The fifth challenge comes back to the first; with deeper customer insight comes the possibility of stronger customer connections. The power of account-based marketing to build those connections was an important refrain throughout the conference, with great examples coming from Xerox and Northrop Grumman, each of which has generated significant results from substantial marketing investments in priority accounts. Digital connections was another area sparking discussion among participants, with general agreement that marketers should begin moving from interest and experimentation in new social media over the last two years to more focused investment in 2007.

The journey to market leadership, as Satyam’s Bob Baginski termed it, is a long-term one that requires new skills, new priorities, and constant attention to the changing dynamics of internal and external stakeholders. Marketing technology-related services and solutions these days is not for the faint of heart (if ever it was), but the five challenges noted herein should provide useful guidance as marketers continue the journey in the months to come.

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ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. We work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA annual program clients include business leaders such as AT&T, Cisco, Deloitte, EMC, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Tata Consultancy Services, among others. Our comprehensive research, consulting, and training on topics including ITSMA Account-Based Marketing℠, Brand Positioning, and Solutions Development provide the insight and experience companies need to improve business results. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.