Author Archives for Alan Hart

Mobile banking in emerging markets

Capturing the promise of mobile banking in emerging markets a new article and work by Christopher P. Beshouri and Jon Gravråk of McKinsey talks about the promise of mobile to bank the unbanked populations of developing and emerging economies.

I completed a project in 2005 with RTI, First Data, Whirpool, Microsoft, Yum! Brands and Humana looking at the possible future business models for emerging markets. This was a novel project bringing NGOs and Private Sector together for a hybrid economic development effort. Mobile banking was one of our more interesting recommendations and a very real possibility to drive economic growth and create/open new markets.

The McKinsey analysis is interesting and puts numbers to a real situation in the Philippines by sizing the opportunity and describing mobile banking providers. Most important and interesting was the willingness and interest of unbanked consumers in mobile banking. Definitely check this article out.

Developing countries excluding LDCs (Least Dev...
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Only 25% of Companies Are Managing Marketing Effectively, Study of 400 Companies Links Performance to Specific Marketing Management Best Practices

Only one-fourth of companies believe they are managing their marketing efforts effectively, according to the results of a survey of more than 400 companies by my firm, CMG Partners, and market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey. But the study also found that those companies that actively use marketing effectiveness best practices are reaping positive results in areas such as share gains or revenue growth.

The study, entitled The Marketing Performance Advantage, surveyed more than 400 companies across a variety of industries and company sizes to determine the key attributes of successful marketing organizations and to understand what marketing practices they employ.

“We found a high degree of interest in marketing measurement, but surprisingly very few executives reported success with translating that interest into improved marketing effectiveness or bottom line results,” observed Rich Schreuer, senior vice president of Chadwick Martin Bailey.

For example, the study found 75% of participants expressed interest in measuring the performance of their marketing initiatives yet….

  • only 27% of companies are fully integrating their marketing measurement insights into marketing planning,
  • only 20% believe they excel at measuring the performance of marketing initiatives, and
  • only 24% believe they are improving business results based on this information

For more visit the site, The Marketing Performance Advantage.

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Is IDC loosing relevance on marketing?

The IDC released a preview of their upcoming report, IDC’s 7th Annual Tech Mktg. Benchmarks Study.  I was stunned at the marketing kingdom protection rhetoric and support of empire building for marketing leaders. Most of the trends were aspects that have been underway for some time — shifting budget online, focusing on sales and marketing alignment. Where is the insight?

On a related note, it has been a while since publishing a meaty post due to finishing a research project for CMG Partners called CMO 2.0: The next step in the evolution of the Chief Marketing Officer. The executive summary is out today and you can sign-up for the free full report to be released to the public on Oct. 26th.

It is the CMO 2.0 research that forces me to question IDC’s relevance. In speaking with 30+ CMOs in this latest round and 60+ to date, we propose an evolution is occurring in marketing leadership.  CMOs of the future will be much more like what we have coined as a “Chief Transformational Officer”. This attainment is earned by demonstrating enterprise value not creating empires or protecting kingdoms as IDC suggests.

To earn the broader, more strategic role described above, lead marketers must accept accountability for business drivers and demonstrate impact. Three components include:

  • Accountability for revenue: Marketing should be driving the business, but this role is earned, not a birthright. Demonstrating value can take many forms, but a central theme was accountability for sales or revenue, which ultimately provides the opportunity to have a greater voice in setting business direction and more latitude to experiment.
  • Cut first or be cut: In the downturn, marketers that were fairing better emotionally and professionally made the first move in identifying where dollars could be conserved, and how to shift resources to higher quality or more measurable initiatives. In doing, so they clearly demonstrated corporate citizenship over defense of the marketing kingdom, and earned the respect of their peers.
  • Adopting the role of strategic advisor: Market-driven processes like new product development or voice of the customer programs provided a more rigorous and formal opportunity for marketing to assume a leadership role. Many leaders are using external market-facing processes such as these to increase influence in other areas like engineering, operations and customer service, and step closer to the role of strategic advisor.

What are your thoughts? Which side of the fence do you support?

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Poll: Is your head of marketing a strategic adviser to the CEO?

I am currently writing a summary of CMG Partners‘ second round of CMO Agenda research, which consists of 31 interviews with lead marketers. This topic is a central theme that determines the role and value of a CMO. Stay tuned for the release of the findings.

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Risk it all, stop watering down the message

Recently, I have taken a bit of a hiatus from this blog, which gave me a chance to get consumed by client work and personal adventures, but I am back!

One item that rarely gets talked about in business today is “risking it all”. The concept is usually associated with a mad man or women who is potentially throwing away their money or a companies money on a BIG BET. Why is this always seen as scary and potentially the dumbest thing anyone could do?

In a recent New York Times article, The Birth of ‘Just Do It’ and Other Magic Words, the author highlights great bets that advertising people have been taking in copyrighting and concepts based on the documentary Art & Copy, directed by Doug Pray.

Enjoy the trailer!

The bottom line

Despite what this documentary says about a function or industry, being bold and risky seems to be a very, very good thing – Just do it!

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IBM takes on SAS for analytics domination, but neither is superior

IBM Global Services
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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM plans to acquire SPSS for $1.2B all cash deal, which is roughly a 42% premium.

Watch out, SAS!

This match-up will be fun to watch… the massive public company, IBM, takes on the large private company, SAS — Abbreviation vs. Abbreviation. For those interested in the analytics that each is pushing the “abbreviation” comment has more to it than meets the eye. Each company is trying to help users make sense of their vast amounts of data through the use of statistics or business intelligence tools. Now, why is the “abbreviation” concept funny? Well by synthesizing data each company’s typical analytic process tries to make sense of the data by creating “buckets”, like an average or a customer segment. The consequence of “bucket-izing” or summarizing is data is lost for the greater good of manageability — International Business Machines becomes I.B.M and many much younger than I have no idea what IBM use to stand for.

O.k. so why are you still reading after such a failed joke? The main reason is that this is a big bet by IBM and SAS is already seeing the payoff as the market for these tools increases faster than the market for other technology solutions. Thee two companies largely now “own” this market and IBM with the acquisition hopes to offset a dying/shrinking annuity stream with a new growing one. The real fight for superiority in analytics is occurring in the new advances in econometrics and applications of mathematical models and hardware advances that make “abbreviation” or elimination of data a thing of the past. More simply, the power to treat a given customer the way they need to be treated and not like the generic segment they have been defined in.

More to come in follow-on posts as to the advances in analytics and implications, but until then check out Sentrana, a partner of CMG Partners and company with a superior science and technology. Read a Sentrana blog post debating the merits of IBM’s string computing claims.

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Will ESPN’s new local strategy succeed?

ESPN wordmark.
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The New York Times is reporting that ESPN is rolling out their local site experiment that started in Chicago to three additional markets – Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. In the Chicago test market they are now the top sports site, passing the local newspaper. This move will be one to watch.

The strategy is brilliant! Take a content mega engine and splice the coverage into micro sites that appeal to a more targeted, regional audiences. They are also using local resources from their owned radio stations with the option to use additional resources in affiliate station markets. Sports coverage is one of the easiest to plan and resource because sports by their very nature are planned events and have a ready source of data (e.g. box scores, etc.).

The Bottom Line

Keep you eye on this move as it could but another nail in the newspaper coffin. The one tricky part for ESPN will be scaling the advertising model effectively for Tier 2 and beyond markets. The cities they are going after next should be relatively easy to replicate Chicago’s success, but Charlotte or Detroit will be another kind of challenge. Stay tuned…

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Microsoft: leading by following

John Hodgman as PC and Justin Long as Mac
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Microsoft must be doing some damage to Apple based on Adage report, which Apple is asking Microsoft to pull their laptop hunter ads. Being a commodity must be working out for Microsoft….

“We’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them,” — Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft

More disturbing, is the mention at the end of the Adage report that Microsoft plans to open retail stores right next to Apple Stores.

“We’re going to have some retail stores opened up that are opened up right next door to Apple stores this fall” – Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft

The Bottom Line

Having a follower strategy has worked for lots of businesses, especially those that are market leaders and have the most to loose. What should be of more interest is the impact on investors (see stock performance chart).

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