Making Your Marketing Strategy Work.

Should we focus on price or quality? Do we want to stay with small, expensive retailers or increase the market through large discount chains? Will our proposed new product drive away sales from our existing range? These are the kind of questions, related to strategy, that marketers deal with. But what happens when agreement is reached on a certain strategy? Will marketers effectively turn the drawing board strategy into a market reality? Too often, a seemingly effective strategy fails to do what it should, and marketers immediately assume the strategy is to blame. The author argues that it is usually the implementation that goes wrong. Implementation problems can arise from a variety of organizational and structural problems, as well as insufficient personal skills. The author provides guidelines to identify the most common problems, as well as suggestions for overcoming them.

Strategy or implementation?

Marketing strategy and implementation influence each other. While strategy clearly influences actions, execution also influences marketing strategies, especially over time. Despite the blurred line between strategy and execution, it's not difficult to diagnose and distinguish marketing implementation problems from no strategy. When a sales force of 50 computer terminals sells just 39 of the company's new line of "smart" microcomputers during a sales blitz in which sales are expected to exceed 500 units, is the problem with the management or strategy of the sales force smart devices? The question can be answered.

Fierce competition reduces the margin on the sale of your old "dumb" handsets. In addition, the smart terminal category is expected to grow by more than 500% in the 1980s. The new product, a portable microcomputer with built-in memory and printer, has many advantages that are appreciated by the target market. But since salespeople already earn more than $50,000 a year on average, they have little incentive to grapple with an unfamiliar new product. Management also loosely determined the sales incentive compensation on the new machines compared to the old machines. Finally, the sales cycle for older terminals is half that of newer terminals and no knowledge or software support is required. Here's a case where poor execution trumps good strategy.

When the strategy is inappropriate and the execution is excellent (top right cell), management is generally willing to admit and correct its strategic mistakes over time. For example, good branch managers are known to modify destructive corporate guidelines. In fact, some companies known for their marketing excellence, such as Frito-Lay, expect such adjustments from their managers. But sometimes the good execution of a bad strategy works like the engine of an airplane: it accelerates until it crashes. Since it is difficult to predict the outcome with a good execution of an unfair strategy, label this cell "Bailout of Ruin".

Structural problems of marketing practices

In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig proposes a list of pitfalls that can break a mechanic's determination to deliver quality work. For example, he describes how a nickel bolt holding an access cover in place can render a $4,000 motorcycle useless and send the mechanic into a botched accident and make some very serious mistakes. Like mechanics, managers have to list the pitfalls in marketing practice.

Work: Fundamentals

Marketing functions include sales, trade promotion and distributor management. These low-level tasks are the basic "block and discard" task of the seller. However, I find that most companies and their managers have great difficulty with these tasks. Often the difficulty stems from not promoting marketing fundamentals in a prescribed manner, such as when a CEO suspected a company's stock exchange fees were a good marketing communication tool but felt the company should be present. year.

While the drawbacks of each feature deserve a separate article, some management issues are the same for everyone. Problems with marketing functions are generally bigger than problems at the program, system, and level

Management was stumped. Its policy dictated that it should own foreign channels, but implementation was beyond its capabilities. Cash flow needs eventually seduced the company into deciding on indirect foreign distribution, with a different partner and arrangement in each country. The overall result was a complicated patchwork of direct and indirect distribution, which the thin ranks of executives could not handle. Management’s attempts to balance the contradiction between desired control policies and functional-level distribution structure were ineffective and led to conflicts among company executives and foreign distributors.

And a third cause of problems is when the head office fails to pick one marketing function for special concentration and competence and instead takes satisfaction in doing an adequate job with each—what I call “global mediocrity.” Officials thereby spread resources and administrative talent democratically but ineffectively. Typically, the pricing, advertising, promotion, and distribution functions are satisfactory, but no one function is outstanding.

The best companies have a facility for handling one or two marketing functions and are competent in the remainder. No marketers are good at everything, but the most able concentrate on doing an outstanding job at a few marketing functions. Frito-Lay is an example of a company that has refined two functional skills—selling and distribution—to such heights that they serve as the company’s marketing basis. Gillette’s Personal Care Division makes a science of advertising. Both these companies allocate resources, often unequally, to maintain competitive preeminence in the “showcase” functions.