Blog archive - March 2012

It’s the rare B2B marketer who hasn’t had to listen to sales reps complain about the quality of leads being provided. And sales forces tend to be underwhelmed by the volume of leads too. So what to do? Ramping up demand generation efforts makes little sense if the lead management process (i.e., what happens to it when it comes in the door) is fundamentally broken. Conversely, refining lead scoring and assignment won’t help much if demand generation is based on anaemic contacts database. Sometimes getting more of the right leads to Sales necessitates starting anew. The Growth Team Membership™ (GTM) recently profiled Kronos, Inc., a workforce management software and services company, on its overhaul of demand management. Here are some key lessons we learned from Kronos: It’s a (big) team sport: It is common sense to set up a cross-functional team when dealing with major initiatives, and fixing demand management is no exception. You need to think beyond including the obvious groups such as Marketing and Sales. Demand management touches multiple functions in one way or another, and involving them is crucial to identifying and root causing the challenges. Finance, IT and web teams were key parts of the taskforce Kronos established Speak the Same Language: Ever tried to Google some of the following terms: demand management, lead generation, or marketing automation? The great diversity in definitions you find is indicative of the confusion over terminology that often occurs within companies and between the functions involved. It is absolutely imperative for all stakeholders to examine their demand management lexicon and establish a shared set of definitions moving forward. Kronos defined demand management as the process of identifying and engaging prospects, converting them to leads, and moving them through the sales pipeline What Matters Most: It is not always obvious what issues you need to tackle first. Some marketers focus on technology and while there is invariably some new technology that appears to be the solution, ignoring process is quite a risky move. The better approach is to employ a comprehensive framework to assess where you have performance gaps today and then determine what your desired state is—this then drives your technology requirements amongst other things. Kronos used a simple people, process, technology framework to guide its evaluation of the lead management system Improve Lead Velocity: Even the best lead in the world degrades quickly, so it is imperative to get it into the hands of sales quickly. Marketers have to determine how process, technology and the hand off to Sales will work in concert to deliver leads promptly. Employing Marketing Automation Platforms will speed lead processing. Lead development (going from a Marketing Captured Lead to a Marketing Qualified Lead) is often bedevilled by issues that undermine the whole system. To solve this, Kronos created a lead development group that qualifies the leads. Employing service level agreements helps set expectations for this group Right Content, Right Time: Prospects exist at all stages of the buying cycle, so Marketing needs to create the right mix of content/offers to capture them. Prospects at the beginning stage of the buying cycle tend to behave more passively (e.g., downloading white papers or case studies), whereas later-stage prospects are more active (e.g., will participate in live events). You need to develop a content strategy that spans across the buying cycle, as well as being tailored to your target segments Revisiting your demand management approach with these principles in mind is no easy task, but marketing leadership ignores the function’s contribution to the sales pipeline at its own peril. Learn how Kronos revitalized demand management Kronos’ Corporate Marketing faced the core challenge we outlined at the outset: the need to provide sales with higher quality and higher volume of leads. Accordingly, marketing led a thorough overhaul of demand generation and lead management. Attend our webinar on Tuesday, March 27 featuring Kronos’ best practice and Q&A with Steve Gray, VP of Corporate Marketing, and Director for Corporate Marketing Operations, Susan Paugh Download a three-page excerpt from GTM’s 14-page Best Practice Guidebook, Implementing an Effective Demand Management Process Contact the authors: Austin Pullmann (Austin.Pullmann@frost.com) and Keith O’Brien (Keith.Obrien@frost.com).

Strategists continue to struggle with many of the perennial issues they identified in the 2011 survey—developing effective implementation plans and aligning corporate and financial objectives. In regards to implementation, the focus is on developing an effective procedure for execution that includes standardized metrics and milestones. Companies newfound focus on long-term planning—looking ten or more years out for game changing opportunities and threats has strategists endeavoring to integrate future or Mega Trends within their planning process. In addition, this emphasis on long-term strategies requires strategists to demonstrate the value of Mega Trend initiatives, even though they may not show financial results for a few years. When strategist’s challenges were analyzed by business model, strategist in B-to-B companies cite challenges with strategy implementation and integrating future or Mega Trends.. However, strategists in B-to-C companies stress additional problems such as: aligning divisional and corporate strategies and integrating sustainability into the corporate plan, in addition to strategy implementation. To better understand the top challenges, respondents were asked to “root cause” them in terms of staffing, process, technology/systems, or strategic alignment. The root causes ran the full gamut of options from insufficient staff to a lack of strategic alignment on common objectives. Companies continue to be cautious about resource allocation and corporate strategy functions are not exempt from this. Respondents foresee both budget and staffing levels remaining constant in 2012. Given the perennial struggle with getting strategies implemented, respondents were asked a series of questions about their implementation practices. Strategists indicate they use a variety of best-in-class implementation practices: Employing a dedicated implementation team Ensuring that divisions—both business (profit centers) and service units (support functions like Human Resources)—create annual strategies that are aligned with the corporate strategy Conducting quarterly strategy execution reviews within the strategy team and with senior management Despite using these best-in-class practices, most respondents graded their companies as “Average” regarding strategy execution. The divergence between best practices and effectiveness can be explained by additional findings from the survey: Implementation teams are understaffed and/or members of the team lack the “right” skill sets The clarity of roles between participants in strategic planning is only rated as “Average” Technology systems for strategy monitoring are outdated and insufficient for strategists’ needs In conclusion, the interest in Mega Trends for planning coupled with meeting the financial expectations of stakeholders, requires strategists to develop and apply implementation and monitoring processes. To strengthen strategy implementation, strategists need to first set their own house in order: ensure the department has the appropriate people, that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, and the supporting technologies are up to the task. Secondly, corporate strategy functions need to create greater transparency around roles, metrics and expectations. Access the full report for a more detailed analysis of the survey results—by business model, corporate development challenges, and trends in post-M&A integration. Strategy Implementation and Acquisition Integration - 2012 Corporate Strategy and Corporate Development Priorities Survey Results from Frost & Sullivan