MLC’s B2C team is in the midst of our annual research project, and this year we’re focusing on Big Data. In the process of figuring out why organizations have trouble making sense of unstructured data streams, one of the biggest themes is “marketer skill”. We’re hearing time and again from marketing and analytics leaders that decision-making processes are biased against the inclusion of data, in part because individual marketers aren’t comfortable with it – they place too little weight on it, for instance, or they endow it with magical properties and expect it to remove all the subjectivity from their work. The result is sub-optimal decisions.

That got me generally interested in the idea of marketing training – how do you teach a group of marketers, whose job is notoriously nuanced and imprecise, to do their jobs better? To see more of the market, and in a more detailed way?

In any case, it might turn out that training marketers to handle data better won’t make marketing organizations more fact-based – we’re not sure, and it’ll take a lot more interviews and thought on our part to figure out the challenges here. But I wanted to highlight some of our most popular training and development resources, just in case you’re on the same path. Here are a few steps to building a better marketer: Read More »

By Ana Lapter

People are an organization’s greatest asset.  No process, vision or tool can compensate for the lack of an adequate talent pool when elaborating or executing a strategic marketing initiative.   Having the right mix of capabilities and skills dishes up the key ingredient for any successful Marketing recipe.

Obviously, this is easier said than done.  To solve this challenge, a lot of marketers with whom I have spoken recently professed to employing previous talent planning experiences as a proxy for building a roadmap of future capabilities.  The major problem with this approach is that it assumes that the marketing organizations operate in relatively similar consumer, technology, business, regulatory and economic environments as in the past.

How can a Marketing organization design the right capability model that acknowledges radical change and forward looking planning? Read More »

By Ana Lapter

Radical changes in the consumer, technology and business landscapes are forcing executives to rethink their approaches to marketing strategies.  But successful execution of these new strategies calls for an adequate pool of marketing talent.

Senior executives who are effective at talent management can generate up to 7% more in revenue than those less-focused on developing staff skills.  Unfortunately, more than 80% of executives are ineffective at talent management.  Part of the reason is that typical approaches to crafting future talent plans are infused with executive bias, as reflected in the adage “Old habits die hard”.  Acknowledging this problem, one member told us that “What got us here won’t get us there,” suggesting the need for new skills and capabilities road mapping.

We’ve been studying the evolution of marketing talent for the last few weeks, and trying to summarize my recent talent-related conversations with numerous MLC members, I came up with a list of 3 key competency areas that are necessary for the marketing function of the future: Read More »

By Ana Lapter

Businesses are once again in the mood to grow revenues.  Unlike the pre-recession era, the source of growth, however, will no longer come from streamlining and automating processes, or from adopting systems for better management of structured data.  Since the majority of businesses have been improving processes and data management for some time, there aren’t too many gains to be had there.  Rather, the next era of growth will likely come from from understanding changing customer preferences and acting quickly on those insights.  In other words, your company needs to get smarter about using information, as compared to processes, to more effectively drive customer insight and quickly translate that knowledge into usable plans and strategies.

It’s not that organizations don’t have this data; you do. But the problem is how to effectively use all the information that companies gather about markets and customer preferences.  Over the past few weeks, I heard the words “analytics” and “customer insight” in separate conversations with eight senior marketers, while discussing the key analytic competencies that their teams need to strengthen or develop to move forward.

Here is my list of things to avoid when building an analytics-driven Marketing organization: Read More »

Senior executives who are effective at talent management generate up to 7% more revenue than their less dedicated peers.  Unfortunately, more than 80% of executives are either uncommitted to talent management, ineffective at it, or worse—both. 

Talent management, though, is not a matter of skill (most executives have the business skills necessary) or time (effective executives and ineffective executives spend roughly the same amount of time on talent management): the issue is focus.  Executives should approach talent management strategically—managing key talent like a corporate asset that is developed and deployed in support of business objectives. 

Becoming a Talent Champion outlines five key activities executives should focus on in place of day-to-day staff management, including building the high potential bench, holding the senior team accountable for talent outcomes, and owning the organization’s talent strategy.  To learn more, download a complimentary copy of this new publication or order the eBook.

MLC Members, check out our best talent management tools and insights in our Talent Management Topic Center

You’re now finding your buyers and consumers throwing caution to the wind, opening their wallets eagerly and jumping at the chance to buy your product no matter what it costs, right?

Well, probably not quite.  Even with things looking up slightly from last year, your buyers and consumers are still pulling your cost-value ratio through a fine-toothed comb. Read More »

This post was written by Amy Gallo for our Finance and Strategy Practice.

Everyone complains about their boss from time to time. In fact some in the U.S. consider it a national workplace pastime. But there’s a difference between everyday griping and stressful dissatisfaction, just as there is a clear distinction between a flawed manager and a truly horrible boss.

Difficult bosses come in lots of different flavors. Your manager might be overly controlling, giving you little to no autonomy. Or perhaps she rarely shows up at the office, doesn’t give you direction or feedback, and has no idea what you do all day. Bad bosses may be insecure, incompetent, or simply new and inexperienced. First-time managers are often more likely to hinder than enhance employee performance and potential. A 2005 study by CEB’s CLC Learning and Development Roundtable found that nearly 60% of first-time managers underperform in their role.

Working for a bad boss has a large effect on your work experience. Managers have a direct effect on how you perform and whether you want to stay in your job. They are the conduit between you, the organization, the team, and your job. This goes both ways. Not all bosses are bad of course and great bosses can inspire people to do more. CLC Human Resources found in its research Managing in the Downturn: Four Imperatives to Drive Employee Innovation and Performance (for CLC members) that managers are increasingly important for improving discretionary effort: the impact of manager quality on whether employees go above and beyond the call of duty has jumped by 50% since the recession began. On the flip side, bad bosses sap motivation, kill productivity and drive everyone crazy.

If you work for someone you wish you didn’t, consider this: Read More »

This post was written by Amy Gallo for our Finance and Strategy Practice.

In CEB View’s last Talent Matters post we discussed how difficult it is to work for a bad boss. But what if, instead of working for one, you are one?

Of course it’s not easy being the boss. Research from CEB’s CLC Human Resources program shows that the three areas that most managers – even great ones – struggle with are evaluating employee performance, providing effective feedback, and turning around underperformance. These are hard things to do and because the way you do them directly affects your team, any missteps are likely to create friction.

Fortunately, the recession seems to have improved many employee-manager relationships but boss-bashing is still a favorite pastime (as proved by last week’s traffic on the first “bad boss” piece). So, how do you know if your employees are just letting off steam or if you are truly difficult to work with? Unfortunately, many bad bosses are the last to know how awful they are to work under. This may be because you aren’t getting the feedback you need, you’re disconnected from your employees or you just aren’t watching out for the signs.

Here are five indications that you may be a worse boss than you thought: Read More »

Increased number of customer touch points, cluttered channels, more specialized media, global 24/7 buying environment…many of us will admit that the business landscape of today is calling for a very strategic approach to marketing communications, but what is the reality at the home front?

According to MLC research, top marketing organizations are challenged by product positioning getting lost somewhere between product and communications development, consumers experiencing disjointed messages due to lack of clarity in product positioning, and struggles to communicate brand positioning strategy effectively and simply across functional silos.

Sound familiar? Read More »

Do you feel like the biggest change to your 2011 marketing plan is changing the title from “Marketing Plan – 2010” to “Marketing Plan – 2011”?

While you might not exactly be “carbon copying” your previous plan, determining which elements to include in your plan, as well as how to ensure you’re planning around your customer, your products, and your partners requires huge effort and a significant amount of experience and knowledge. Each step of the process requires a comprehensive understanding of various marketing concepts and tools to ensure the strongest possible marketing plan. Read More »