As mentioned in our first post, if a marketing excellence program is to have a sustained impact on an organization, it must have various interlocking components, each designed to address different challenges in getting rapid results while delivering long-term change. These components are: Design, Implementation, Inspiration, and Measurement. In this the second post, we will focus on Implementation.
Implementing a Marketing Excellence Program
“Build-it-and-they-will-come” ― when it comes to your marketing excellence program, this may not be your best strategy. Many marketers who lead excellence programs tend to follow a very product-centric, rather than a customer-centric, approach. While it is important to design the right marketing framework, tools, and training as compelling products of the program, designing the program with the core users in mind (marketers and marketing leaders) is a crucial step. These users have tremendous challenges and constraints in their day-to-day lives ― from meeting challenging deadlines to dealing with sliding budgets. If the program is not designed with this user context in mind, no number of corporate mandates will ensure sustained adoption. Successful implementation of a marketing excellence program addresses the following:
Implementation Methodology - The framework developed in the design phase is not the same as the implementation methodology. While they are obviously related, the implementation methodology has to create a mechanism by which teams can pick and implement the framework with the right level of support. Think of the users experiences — the moments when they encounter, learn, apply, and propagate the marketing framework. If this experience is not efficient, easy, and fun (yes fun… remember the reason why people become marketers in the first place) there is likely to be a backlash from users, no matter how good the framework and the tools may be.
Support Model - The teams implementing the framework usually need support during implementation. Even though the team has been trained and armed with the tools, they often need facilitation and support to implement the process to get excellent results. There is a fair degree of experiential learning that goes on during the first couple of implementations. If these initial implementations are not supported well, users may get switched off.
Roles and Responsibilities - An important component of the program is articulating the changes required in roles and responsibilities at various levels in the organization. While some of these are new roles, reflecting the priorities emphasized in the framework (e.g. segmentation and insights leaders), some are existing roles with changed responsibilities.
Knowledge Sharing - As more and more teams start to implement the framework, there is a body of knowledge that gets created. Some of this is the learning of best practices and what works and what does not when implementing the framework. The other set of learning is around customers, markets, channels, competitors, and other market entities. Yet other knowledge is around tools and their use. For the long-term sustainability and growth of the program, it is important to collect, retain, and spread all these forms of knowledge.
Rhythm - An important factor in managing the implementation is to have a rhythm of reviews to ascertain progress and make course-corrections. This usually happens at multiple levels within the program management at corporate as well as in the regions and SBUs.
Resources - While we have discussed training, tools, and people support above, there may be a requirement for additional resources to help businesses get started. This may take the form of a venture fund that pays for a portion of the first few projects.
Centers of Excellence - As the program begins to be embedded in the organization, COEs have an important role to play in becoming the go-to resource in the organization around a specific topic such as a marketing competency, a specific customer segment, or a particular channel. The COEs capture and disseminate best practices, play a critical role in cross-organizational lateral mechanisms, and act as internal counsel when teams require their expertise.
In our next post, we will focus on how an organization can utilize inspired change to ensure the long-term sustainability of the program.
