Description:

To stay at the top of their profession, marketers need to keep pace with changing customer behaviors, a global marketplace, the rise of digital media, and more powerful data management and collaboration technologies. Although the “tools of the trade” keep changing, a core set of marketing knowledge, skills, and capabilities remains to provide the foundation for services marketing excellence in a business-to-business environment. And those core skills are often different, or prioritized differently, than the core skills needed for product marketing.

Over the past two years, more than 800 services marketers from 20 companies have completed ITSMA’s Services Marketing Competency Assessment, providing valuable insight into the areas in which services marketers collectively are performing well and falling short.

This Update provides a snapshot of current performance in the services marketing profession, including recommendations for improving industrywide performance across seven categories:

• Strategy and market planning
• Portfolio management
• Marketing communications
• Relationship management
• Marketing operations
• Sales channel enablement
• Alliance management

In addition, the Update outlines ways in which the skills assessment can be used to improve individual and organizational performance.

Key findings include:

• Services marketers at top technology companies give themselves mixed ratings in key areas of services marketing competency.
• Services marketers report highest competency levels in marketing communications.
• Marketers fall short when it comes to portfolio management, relationship management, and alliance management competencies.
• Managers report the highest competency levels; general marketers, the lowest.
• ITSMA’s Services Marketing Competency Assessment can be used to identify gaps on both an organizational and individual skill level and to support plans for professional development programs to eliminate those gaps.