Freddie Daniells

More presenting duties - Marketing Resource Management conference

I will be speaking at the Marketing Operations Management Symposium in New York on Monday May 9th. If you are interested how technology can help improve the way marketing departments and brands are run, then this is THE event for you. This is the best place to hear about Marketing Resource Management (MRM), Marketing Operations Management (MOM), Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) or whatever 3 letter acronym this technology currently sports.

More specifically you can learn about how to use technology to improve internal marketing processes such as:

• Strategic planning
• Financial management and budgeting
• Production of marketing collateral
• Accountability and audit, including reporting for Sarbannes Oxley
• Brand management

Sessions will also discuss the issues around using technology for:

• New product launches
• Management of the marketing supply chain
• Marketing Return on Investment calculations
• Managing local implementation against a global backdrop
• Marketing knowledge management
• Six Sigma
• Integration with operational and analytical CRM

The conference runs on both the 9th and 10th May.

I will be talking about:

• How to conduct a needs analysis: understanding and optimising your processes before automating them
• A roadmap for MOM implementation
• Components of MOM, and key vendors in each category – CRM, marketing analytics and campaign management, DAM and MOM
• Comparing vendors that are typically short-listed – features and functionality, costs and benefits
• A product/competency matrix for MOM suppliers
• Enterprise versus mid market solutions
• MOM specialists versus enterprise infrastructure giants
• Examining the value proposition of these solutions – suggested and actual benefits

I have also been asked, in association with the conference, to facilitate a workshop on the Wednesday morning. As their marketing blurb says:

“Drawing on Freddie’s extensive experience” (yawn) “of auditing marketing operations at several major companies, this tutorial will provide a practical framework for understanding your current marketing processes, identifying opportunities for enhancement, and understanding how long your MOM project will take and how much it will cost.

• How to examine the structure of your marketing organisation
• How to audit your existing marketing program management processes, encompassing the brief, budget allocation and tracking, supplier relationships, creative workflow, review and approvals, through to execution
• identifying bottlenecks, duplications, delays and inefficiencies
• Setting project objectives and building a business case for MOM: finding short term wins / building with the long term in mind
• Developing a checklist of required and desired functionality / process enhancements to take into vendor selection.”

I presented at the same event last year, so am an old hand! If you have any questions about the event then please get drop me a line. Otherwise there are more details here.

For those based in Europe and unable to make it along, don’t worry! Henry Stewart, the conference organisers, are planning a similar event in London on June 21st and 22nd. I’ll post more details here as and when I have them.

PS If you wonder what I do for a day job then this should give you a pretty good idea!

173 Drury Lane

Johnnie Moore, Max Blumberg and myself recently set up a site called 173 Drury Lane.

We all feel a certain warmth for the UK’s third largest retailer, Sainsbury’s. Unfortunately, as UK readers will know, in recent years the company has fallen on hard times and is often the subject of takeover rumours.

We feel that Sainsbury’s has too much potential to ‘go down’ in this way. So 173 Drury Lane was born to talk about the specific issues surrounding the company.

We want the site to develop into a talking shop, a conversation about how Sainsbury’s might dig itself out of its current hole. As such, we will be looking for new authors who can bring fresh perspective on the company. In this vein, we have recently been lucky to have been joined by Adrian Trenholm who runs his own web design agency. We would like to hear from City folks, marketers, other retailers, employees and ex-employees, anyone who would like to take part in the debate on what Sainsbury’s future might look like.

Some good chat is already going on there. So, come on over and join us. It should be fun.

PS. For those wondering about the name, 173 Drury Lane was the site of the first ever Sainsbury’s – isn’t Johnnie sooo clever!

Your front line staff are your brand

At the CIMTech conference recently, one of the speakers said:

If you wanted to learn which was the best TV or Hi-fi to buy, where would you go? My bet is that you wouldn't’t go to Dixons or Currys*. You just won’t get the information you need from the staff there.

He was explaining how much front line staff have been de-skilled of over the past 10 years.

Staff in call centres follow prescribed speeches and look for options on a screen for what to say next. Sales staff in shops are not educated in the products that they sell. Indeed, as a consumer, there are few places where front line staff are more knowledgeable than they were a decade ago.

Yet these are the people who are the public embodiment of the brand.

To me this is a no-brainer – it is near impossible to create a great customer experience without investing in front line staff.

There are 4 things that I think companies should do:

1. Hire people who are interested in the products and services they are being asked to sell
2. Give them the time and information they need to stay on top on the products you offer and of general developments in the market
3. Empower them rather than make them follow pre-determined scripts
4. Make ‘making customers successful’ their mantra

I often hear how difficult it is to differentiate your business. This is a really simple way.

* For those on the other side of the pond, Dixons and Currys are the UK’s largest high street electrical retailers.

Updated Site Roll

For those who wonder what I read, I have updated my Site Roll to more fully reflect the sites that currently sit in my RSS feeds. The number of links jumps from around 20 to over 60. They broadly fall into the areas of:

• Marketing - inc marketing technology
• Finance - venture capital, stockmarkets
• Personal development - presentation skills, passion
• Gadgets and productivity tools
• Consultancy

I think there is some great stuff in there. Feel free to browse!

PS I have a bunch of stuff that I will be posting on over the coming week or two. Things are beginning to settle down this week after a pretty extreme start to the year.