Are Most Organizations On Life Support | Marketing Management
We are on a marketing management journey to discover if most organizations are on life-support. If you’ve read our previous post ‘Questions CEOs Ask About Marketing’ you know by now, that we are on a quest to understand the marketing dynamic within organisations. As we delved into this dilemma we asked ourselves: Is marketing the life force within organisations? Is there a marketing planning gap? Could marketing be the safety net most organisations need? Well…
-1- MARKETING THE LIFE-FORCE
Is Marketing Healthy – Marketing The Heart | Consumers The Pulse
In organizations if the operations function is the legs of a company, then finance is the blood, technology the brain, sales the voice, and human resource the hands, all moving in tandem. But none of them can work without Marketing the heart of an organisation …and without a healthy heart, an organisation is well… on life-support!
So why is marketing management the heart of an organisation? No organisation can exist for its own sake. Organisations exist to provide a service or a product to a specific audience (whether institutional, customer, or consumer) as the case may be. The audience is the pulse. The pulse is monitored by marketing the heart. Marketing connects the organisation to the audience at a deeper level. Marketing is therefore a must! Until and unless an organisation, realises that Marketing Management is indeed the heart, that gives life, then the organisation is on life-support!
-2- MARKETING THE PLANNING-GAP
Is There A Marketing Gap – Action Plans | Marketing Strategy
In most organisations, marketing plans are action plans. Well, action plans are not strategic plans but are purely tactical. This then creates, The Marketing Gap… Why is that? Action plans are actually an off shoot of marketing strategy. So, if there is no Marketing Strategy in the first place, this begs the question? Where did the action plans come from?
If you take a peek into the strategic planning sessions of many organisations, you will find that marketing management does not sit in on the conversation from the very beginning. The narrative is usually ‘marketing needs to wait until we agree on the next FY’s numbers. Which begs the question: Where are the numbers from? Isn’t that working backwards?
In such a scenario, marketing will ensure its not left behind. And, marketing will commence crafting its own strategy. This is despite not having the benefit of a thorough understanding of the organisations overall commercial objectives. The strategy will therefore be mostly composed of previously carried out activities that met with a modicum of success. A gap then begins to form. And this is where things fall apart. Because the marketing ‘strategy’ is not based on the overall organisation’s strategy. So again, this begs the question where did the marketing strategy come from?
-3- MARKETING THE SAFETY-NET
Is Marketing In A Vicious Cycle – Marketing Basics | Strategic Thinking
For organisations to build a solid marketing foundation, they need to have a safety-net beyond the traditional Product, Pricing, Placing, and Promotion basics. Organisations should stretch critical and strategic thinking, to include the Marketing Purpose, as well as the People driving the Process. This is achieved by developing a solid Marketing Organisation, that connects Marketing Strategy, directly with the Company Objectives. Marketing is evolving beyond the traditional principles of marketing. A more holistic take on marketing has developed. In a nutshell, unless an organization wants to remain on life-support, it must have a clear understanding of its marketing management operations:
PURPOSE how its overall objectives tie in with the marketing strategy.
PEOPLE the structure of the core marketing operations function.
PROCESS the fit for purpose role of the marketing resource.
Lack of a thorough understanding of the Marketing Function’s Purpose, People and Processes. Is like going bungee jumping without a safety net. You might end up on life-support! And, so without a safety-net, organisations are on life-support! Without a holistic approach, the marketing function continues to be a last resort. Marketing remains mostly tactical and not strategic. Unless, this changes marketing, keeps falling through the cracks. In the end marketing gets into a vicious cycle and cannot get off the exhausting treadmill and onto sure-footed solid ground!
MARKETING MANAGEMENT FOR ORGANIZATIONS ON LIFE-SUPPORT
Get Marketing Management – Off The Tread-Mill | Onto A Safety-Net
Start by making the marketing function a priority going forward… to shift the conversation from purely Tactical to resolutely Strategic, one step at a time, eventually this will:
- Make marketing the life force because, without a healthy heart, an organisation is on life support.
- Close the marketing planning gap so that marketing strategy lines up with the company’s objectives.
- Set-up marketing as a long-term safety net and get marketing off the treadmill and onto solid ground.
Get Organisations Off Life-Support | Use A Marketing Management Solution
That is the reason why we developed the SSR Marketing Management Solution. To resolve the Marketing Management issue in organizations on life-support. The SSR Solution© is designed to elevate marketing from largely ambiguous to a valuable function with clear bottom-line deliverables. The result is a marketing organization that is a commercial pillar able to justify marketing effort and budgets and directly attribute the same to the bottom-line.
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Julia Kibore, is an Independent Marketing Management Consultant with over 20 years of brand, marketing and communication experience. She has held leadership positions in the FMCG, Telco, Fintech Online Payments and Mobile Money sectors as well as consulted on Marketing Strategy.
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