Kevin Tewis from London’s BPP Business School

This month, London’s Kevin Tewis, shares with London marketing professionals his insights for getting the year 2012 off to a successful start by ensuring you know your organisation inside out.

Re-design your strategy – know your enemy well but know yourself the most

Building on the theme of Sun Tzu ‘The art of War’ 400BC, many businesses will need to re-design and refine their strategies for 2012 and onwards to ensure successful competitive advantage and penetration into existing and challenging new markets. In the business world so many companies are focused on the ‘enemy’ or competitor whilst their own internal organisation is not functioning anywhere near correctly, affecting its output and performance and potentially shortening its lifecycle.

Getting your own house in order is the most critical thing as of 2 January 2012 that is if you are a director who can manage to sleep over Christmas whilst existing and new competitor brains outwit your current positioning and charge into your markets more effectively. It is the most basic of principles; Charity starts at home. Internal first, external second or else all you ensure is that the likely output of your organisation is not “wow”, not effective, and certainly not one that commands retention from customers addicted to the digital click tick (Like) market.

The more and more businesses get to know themselves they can then close highlighted market gaps (not always known by firms) and win critical loyalty through the recognition of business action from responsive consumers.

• Know your internal customers well (staff)
• Know your faults and what is being done to address them
• Know the impacts of process, systems and structures

Does your current internal position and operations stifle or create innovation, creativity and revenue? When were these last evaluated? Can costs be controlled further and what investments need to be made today to ensure business survival.

Then there is the external environment to deal with. Knowing your key customer groups/stakeholders and satisfying them regularly is where most businesses are missing a trick in today’s market. Competitive Intelligence (CI) has never been so crucial in winning, securing and retaining business both B2C and B2B globally. Not enough is done to fully understand and respond to raw data that has a pattern and a picture to demonstrate to the senior teams.

Providing actionable data that is timely and appropriate will demonstrate to the business world that you really do mean business. Secondly you will be able from this identified data to understand the need to protect business activities against competitor intelligence that will be gathering information on your operations and will try to steal or capture some of your well earned thunder.

If you are unable to see key obvious trends or key performance indicators then design your own portal through a detailed CRM process and capture data that is finite and that actually helps you when re-designing your strategy.

Here are key examples of what to look for:

• Anticipate competitor activities (Use historical reference to make a judgement)
• Analyse global trends and emerging markets
• Learn from the firms past, rebound and innovate upwards, fast
• Improve the quality of output processes particularly communications

Sun Tzu didn’t have the luxury of digital technologies 2412 years ago; however the distinctive and transparent example of completely understanding a firm’s strategy, particularly the army (or in today’s case, employees) must be the core principle which literally defines businesses and the designing of strategy.

Here’s to 2012.

As Britain slides down the rankings from position 10 to 13 in the Future Brand’s Country Brand Index, a global study of country brands, it shows how factors such as economic problems and unrest have a negative affect on a country’s brand.

It’s not surprising. One minute Britain is basking in the pageantry of the Royal Wedding, relishing our history and sense of occasion. The next, the streets are full of rioters and unrest.

Having a strong country brand is pivotal as it influences the perception of tourists, investors and buyers of British products. Can we recover? The signs are positive having just won the bid for the 2017 World Athletics Championship, and Brand Britain marketers are hoping that the London 2012 Olympics will give us an opportunity to showcase a fresh image.

Let’s take inspiration from the countries who’ve improved their brand. Japan’s increased its ranking despite the earthquake, and Thailand is showing a strong performance in tourism despite political upheaval in the country. Brazil has seen a boost following successful bids to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, and Canada which took full advantage of promoting its natural beauty throughout the 2010 Winter Olympics tops the Index.

I’m hopeful that next year Britain will have a fantastic year. With campaigns such as Visit Britain’s tourism campaign to inspire the tourism industry to promote our country in the run up to the Olympics, we’re heading in the right direction.

I’ll be playing my part by working with British companies to help them market themselves effectively. We’re putting on a very British event, a family Olympics day and a Street Party celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 in Marketing Zone’s home town. And on the subject of Marketing Zone, we’re delighted to take our place on the CIM Marketing Excellence Awards Finalist List in the Retail Category.

John Lewis is using ‘Made in UK’ on over 4,000 products as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility programme. So I’d like to know if London members think that ‘Made In’ is relevant to today’s consumers.

My opinion is that it works for certain countries. Switzerland is synonymous with fine timepieces, Germany highly regarded for precision machinery, Italy is the ultimate for gold jewellery, and France is associated with perfumes and luxury accessories.

What does Made In mean?
It sounds obvious, but it needs defining. Currently, as long as imported goods are 51% produced in Europe, it can qualify as ‘Made In’. But we suspect that John Lewis has a more stringent category, because as a British retailer, their customers expect it to support other British firms when it can.

What does it mean for Britain?
What do you think ‘Made in Britain’ conveys? Is it design, creativity, quality, traditionalism? Let me know your thoughts on @CIMLondon Twitter. Certainly, ‘Made In’ triggers the emotions and branding is all about emotional connections.

So maybe its time to ride the wave of British Pride – keep calm and carry on style.

It’s been an interesting couple of months here in Australia.

Talk about a PR nightmare – Qantas had a lot of bad worldwide press with their staff striking and then the issue escalated when CEO Alan Joyce grounded the Qantas Fleet until the matter was resolved affecting tens of thousands of passengers world wide. Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard was forced to step in and then matters came to a quick resolution. I don’t know how it was publicised in the UK but it was a round the clock commentary here and Julia Gillard was criticised for not stepping in soon enough.

One could argue that Alan Joyce’s decision was a brilliant one PR wise as no PR is bad PR right? Although he had just given himself a nice 71% pay rise which further rubbed salt into the wound. Not great timing.

We’re seeing the aftermath of the strikes now with Qantas sweetening customers up with frequent flyer offers and complimentary gifts, and today Alan Joyce has been plugging Qantas’ new investment – the Boeing 787 which one could say is interesting timing.

We’ve also had the Carbon Tax passed here in Australia recently which if you don’t know what it is basically means that companies that generate pollution will pay per tonne of carbon they release into the atmosphere.  The cost will increase up until 2015 when there will be a move towards a trading scheme that will let the market set the cost.

Many people have been for and against the tax so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

More recent news, Queensland is celebrating having just been awarded the right to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. This will be excellent PR for the Gold Coast as it often gets a lot of bad press, although the Acting Queensland Premier Andrew Fraser has been a bit of a killjoy over the announcement today suggesting that the financial gain for the Gold Coast was completely unquantifiable.

Finally, Canberra has been at a standstill recently as US President Barack Obama was there Canberra on a whistle-stop tour.  So it’s all go here down under at the moment.

More soon.

30 November 2011
8:30
LCCI, Queen Street, EC4
£15 for CIM members
£25 for guests and students
What’s it all about?
A century ago a group of sales managers met in London and formed the Sales Managers’ Association, which eventually became The Chartered Institute of Marketing. This paper suggests that the time has come for the two disciplines of sales and marketing to be reunited, after years of fragmentation. It asks if sales and marketing intrinsically belong together. Organisations that do create closer links between them seem to post better results, have more effective inter-departmental relationships and create positive culture change. Yet the challenges to successfully merge these powerful business forces are significant.

What’s in it for me?
Sales person or marketer – join the debate!
Get insight into how sales and marketing departments can intellectually fuse together, gain one hour CPD and receive a complimentary hard and PDF copy of the paper.

Sign in, find out more and book.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to a meeting of the London region of the CIM, sharing the platform with Anthony Thomson, chairman of Metro Bank.

My theme for the evening was marketing’s readiness to lead change and develop powerful customer experiences. After 8 years as CMO of Hilton International, striving to transform that great brand’s customer experience on a global basis, I had a few ideas I was keen to share.

The challenge facing just about any business today is leading and managing change in order to improve competitive performance.  Managing change is a complex and costly field.  It’s fraught with pitfalls and success generally requires specialist knowledge and experience.

Yet despite this, how many businesses hire specialist managers or external support with a proven track record of delivering successful change programmes? In my experience very few, which is perhaps why so many change initiatives falter. The pattern of “launch it – neglect it – re-launch it” is a familiar one yet CEOs, COOs and CMOs continue to make the same mistakes.

When it comes to brand and customer experience, marketing should surely be the catalyst for major internal change…change that transforms what customers receive…change powerful enough to influence customer buying decisions. Marketing should be the glue that holds everything together, harnessing the energy and talent of all key functions to achieve the desired outcome.

The question is, are marketing departments and CMOs, sufficiently equipped and influential to lead the change that’s required….to secure the necessary investment…to persuade and unify senior colleagues and inspire people behind a shared vision?

A recent CIM survey suggests that in far too many cases the answer is NO, a conclusion reinforced by continuing debate about the lack of robust financial, operational and broad-based commercial skills that are essential for anyone wishing to influence business strategy and shape customer experience.

In my experience of leading and managing change across organisations like Hilton, Stakis Group and ScotRail and with clients at ABCG, the most common barriers to successful change continue to be:

• Failing to identify all costs and plan adequate investment  2-3 years ahead
• Failing  to anticipate & plan for the operational complexity of change and resources required
• Failure to deliver sustained programmes of engagement and communicate over time
• Failure to identify & remove the infrastructure that stifles change & rewards ‘old’ behaviour.

These prickly issues are at the heart of managing change and shaping competitive strategy.  In my view, these are issues with which CMOs and aspiring marketing leaders must be conversant if we’re to play the leadership role our chosen discipline demands.  So may I humbly suggest that it’s time to dig into the nuts & bolts of what really makes out businesses run, to build our experience and with it our credibility and demand to be heard at the most senior levels.  We owe it to our customers.

Mike Ashton’s website is http://www.abcg.co.uk/

London’s Kevin Tewis, is quite the music marketing expert! This month, he shares with London marketing professionals with an interest in music or customers in the business, be they songwriters, producers and media employees, valuable insights for music professionals, budding on targeting the right market to assist you in creating a worldwide hit.

In his article, Kevin gives advice on:

• Establishing a business check list for success
• Determining where audiences are likely to be receptive to music
• The key marketing factors that are critical for musicians to understand
• Obstacles and barriers to entry for commercial success
• How to gain a competitive edge to become a market leader.

You can read the full article here.

Photo credit: Vaughan Williams

Effectively monitoring the wider business environment to continually support strategic goals is not an unfamiliar concept however for marketers who design effective short, mid and long term plans they will now face their toughest professional changes in the months and years ahead. Recent reports from sources such as the Financial Times and the Economist have shown that even the most senior analysts are not able to accurately predict the business reactions within the current economic crisis.

The fact that there are currently many business variables globally will mean that any fast paced planning should be much more considered as this will likely effect the marketing plan. Traditionally these highly effective analytical economists have been the benchmark when predicting business and will demonstrate to marketers that they will not only need the ability to create and design robust plans but will have to ensure that a reactive mechanism and a fast radar sensing factor built within  plans in order to account for fluctuations within the business world.

Having a strong ability to react well to fluctuating market changes which influence the commercial ability of businesses will be of great importance to marketers as identified in Marketing Week August 11, 2011; 19 ‘How Marketers can climb to CEO level’. Building corporate empathy and having a broad and detailed understanding of where marketing actually fits in to the corporate platform will likely win respect from the commercial or sales director.

The commercial team will have the most influence and decision power towards the board of directors in turbulent times of order to recommend how best to manage financial fluctuations in order to remain top of the business game. By demonstrating that marketing not only understands and reacts well to the sensitive economic environment but also to find effective solutions, (‘Fix’) and advise on business challenges through their own marketing expertise.

Through concise and regular monitoring of the market (constant analysis/research and radar sensing) marketers will be able to assess both traditional and digital platforms in order to make flexible informed decisions that can then be demonstrated within marketing plans. It’s time for marketers to fully reach out to commercial teams in order to grow to assist the business in order to grow this to a new strategic level so that finally marketing gain total corporate recognition and credibility.

Consumer trends, slower and erratic market growth and the threat of a double dip recession will at the very least provide justification for marketing professionals to be even more meticulous to detail and look even wider than ‘out of the box’ in order to identify and close possible gaps and then have a contingency plan to suit. The difficulty then will then not be with the currently designed strong plan that does reflect quality marketing messages but the economic and analytical front line now ‘blurred’ by the current dimensions of the disruptive business world.

As always the 999 call must be for marketers to ‘Fix’ and cope with the challenging corporate terrain in order to retrospectively demonstrate that the marketing function is much more than sales, corporate events and a catchy campaign or tag word. From here on marketing will provide total clarity, strong leadership and a brighter futuristic understanding for the corporate world to embrace.

More from Kevin

Hear more from Kevin by reading his other articles; Leadership Verses Micro Management, and The New Leaders of Marketing.

Marketing insights from Kevin Tewis. Photo credit Vaughan Williams.

Widespread amongst the large corporate environment are insightful visions from strong leaders and key business executives who try their best to engage stakeholders in order to achieve a more efficient working practice in order to meet strategic goals. This breath of visionary fresh air should be a defining and positive moment in reshaping the future of corporate culture in order to develop and provide the finest performing employees possible.

However on the other side of the coin exists a widespread and somewhat oppressive micro-management style from some senior staff that strive to make their own management mark by controlling other staff and manipulating them in order to achieve their own agendas, not in line with the inspired vision/strategy of the CEO.

Whilst such managers are well embedded into most corporate environments and difficult to remove it is important to note no matter how obvious that this negative behaviour only stifles employees and dampens organisational spirit. Playing corporate ‘mind games’ will only ever result in a negative outcome; it is just a matter of time before employee feedback is relayed to the CEO through an executive management team.

Most employees need help and advanced training regularly in order to complete their tasks to an exceptional level and it is also fair to address the fact that across this ever changing global fast-paced digital climate, unification would be a hugely beneficial tactic rather than a pre-historic suffocation and control. The digital world has provided unparalleled clarity into business and personal lives, so where does the line blur? Digital platforms can provide opportunities that can allow employees who practice micro-management the chance to spy on their staff and use information to influence a work based decision.

Let’s be very clear this is not a practice which is legal or ethical but do not close your eyes to this two way process. The digital age has brought back a key concept that should be at the forefront of an employee’s mind which is keep your work and personal life as separate as possible. You do however have control and can create an internal advantage at work by responding to unfair micro-management tactics.

Remove your digital work life from your personal one, particularly if you have a view of moving up towards middle management within the organisation. If you have mutual friends on B2B social media platforms then it isn’t as simple as deleting one or two people without causing further negative influence within the workplace.

The advice is to extra vigilant with what information you allow to appear on line and also be aware of what you own account security settings are. It is important that you effectively manage what you blog about/upload to the outside world. Some websites will display when you have been updating your CV/joining new groups which could lead a manager to think that you are job hunting which could have further negative impacts on your working life. 

Allow the inspiration of leadership to make your corporate life flourish and excel. When you are promoted up, you can then tackle internal issues effectively and put an end to micro-managemnt and ensure true leadership and quality management practices are at the heart of the organisation.

When times are tough and budgets are cut, small business can struggle. Or thrive. It’s down to you which, and we’ve put together a list of helpful tips and resources that might help you on your way.

• 10 Minute Guides from the CIM
• Small business start up advice from Business Link.
• 10 Powerful marketing tips from about.com
• Small business tips from businessknowhow.com
• Business start-up resources from Marketing Minefield.
• How to market your small firm from the BBC.

Small Business MIG

If you run or work in a small business or SME, why not join the Institute’s Small Business Market Interest Group to keep up to date. They have a whole host of resources available including top tips, business profiles and a free newsletter. They also run events throughout the year. The next one is Marketing excellence for small businesses on 22 July in Holborn. To join, contact Dena Peace.