Blog: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
Could engineers teach a thing or two to marketing folks?
In an edition of the Harvard Business Review in 2017, results of a survey show that 40% of the CMO’s have been in their positions shorter than 2 years, 57% shorter than 3 years. Furthermore, 80% of the CEO’s are either not impressed with their own CMO’s or do not trust them! There are multiple reasons for this according to the article however, I would like to add one more factor to the mix. In my experience in B2B, too many decisions are made based on gut feeling, history, and what worked in the past. Not too many firms go the extra mile of measuring the outcome of the single marketing activities and weigh them against the initial expectations.
concentrate on analyzing the data to make decisions rather than gut feeling and justifications such as we do it because we have always done it that way
This gap could be closed by defining a measuring mechanism into the single activity from the start and by employing the appropriate tools, such as SixSigma, to analyze, measure, control, and even improve the results. SixSigma is nothing new and has been deployed and adopted by thousands of firms around the globe since 1980’s. At its core, it looks at the entire process (let’s say exhibiting at a trade show) and highlights the shortcoming(s) and gaps(s) in that process related to that activity’s original objective. Anyone familiar with some basic SixSigma tools and concepts would be able to concentrate on analyzing the data to make decisions rather than gut feeling and justifications such as we do it because we have always done it. I am not going to go into the details of what exactly SixSigma is in this blog post however, there are literally tons of material available on the Internet. At the same time, applying SixSigma tools and methods to help coming to meaningful decisions in marketing will not be free of challenges and obstacles.
- 1. Marketing managers and CMO’s, in my opinion, do not view their activities as process-oriented and strongly believe that employing such and methods would limit their freedom and creativity. In B2C however, we have been seeing a drastic change in how collecting data and targeting has changed the face of the advertising.
- 2. Organizations who have already adopted SixSigma and implemented it successfully, have mostly concentrated their efforts in areas of manufacturing, R&D, or quality management due to the fact that SixSigma stems originally from Production.
- 3. In most cases, the SixSigma professionals are engineers with technical backgrounds who tend to shy away from marketing or sales-related subjects.
- 4. And the most controversial point of all, the top management needs to understand the potential of applying SixSigma methodologies to Marketing and Sales-related topics and enforce it.
the marketing plan or the process steps seem to exist only in a few people’s heads, and that has turned out to be the definition of “flexibility” in many B2B organizations
Even achieving trivial tasks requires spending some time up-front on planning the steps. A plan is really nothing but describing a bunch of steps how to achieve the desired outcome and that is the very definition of a process. From what I have been exposed to – and sadly enough I might add – when it comes to B2B marketing, in many cases, the marketing plan or the process steps how to go about obtaining results seem to exist only in a few people’s heads, and that has turned out to be the definition of “flexibility” in many B2B organizations. SixSigma’s focus is nothing but to look at any given process and analyze the data collected out of that process to suggest ways of how to change or tweak individual steps within that process with the ultimate goal of increasing the overall efficiency. Thousands of organizations around the globe have been employing SixSigma methods and tools successfully since 1980’s in production, research and development, quality management, administration, finance, and IT. Marketing and Sale are no exceptions either and could definitely benefit from what SixSigma has to offer, the only prerequisite would be the willingness to embrace it.
by: Ali Hoorsun, March 2018
See also blog: Change Management for a continuation of this discussion