Pressure,
customer types, and missions
The current economy is creating a new set of pressures on enterprises.
Each organization will likely respond to these pressures by doing
what they do best - by reinforcing their particular market discipline,
the one trait that makes them more successful than their competitors.
In their book "The Discipline of Market Leaders," Michael
Treacy and Fred Wiersema detailed three types of business disciplines
that create highly successful companies:
Operational excellence:
These firms manage their internal operations to create highly efficient
organizations that drive down costs. Think Wal-Mart or McDonalds.
Product excellence:
Innovative firms that are constantly challenging the market with
the latest in product innovations or which create disruptive technologies.
Think Sony and Macromedia.
Customer intimacy:
These firms become intimate with their partners and customers. They
know the other companies business and work to improve it. Think
Airborne Express and IBM.
I'm going to propose a forth discipline for this list - one that
is more common in technology markets than in others. Let's call
it the discipline of the Trusted Expert. These firms display a particular
expertise in a subject, and use their guru persona to propel the
sales of their product. The products may not be the best of breed,
but by demonstrating a mastery of subjects in which their customers
are interested, they establish immediate product credibility. Rational
Software has perfected this art in terms of understanding software
development processes and Siebel has done so in the expanding fields
of automated relationship management.
So what does this have to do with marketing technology in a tight
market? Just about everything. When economic times are difficult,
customers reinforce their particular disciplines. Selling technology
that reinforces these disciplines become critical to your success
because selling anything else will be ignored. Try selling ice cream
to someone committed to losing weight - they won't buy, though you
might tempt them with low fat frozen yogurt.
Let's look at some of the pressures companies face in the new millennia
and compare these issues to the three disciplines into which corporations
typically fall.
Cut costs (operational discipline):
All organizations are under pressure to cut costs. Most will establish
broad targets for cost cutting such as mandatory 10% across the
board reductions. But firms that have operational excellence as
their defining discipline will go further than others. Their internal
dictates for cost cutting will be severe, and any investment made
by these firms must be justified by greatly improving their internal
operations.
Streamline operations (operational discipline):
Akin to cost cutting is the notion of streamlining. While cutting
costs focuses on reducing expenses, streamlining focuses on working
better or smarter. The end result is reduced costs or the slowing
of escalating costs. You need to learn the different language of
each type of operationally excellent company (and they may use both).
Get new products out (product discipline):
Product leaders force customers to part with their cash by making
their new products irresistible, be they digital cameras or enterprise
software platforms. Accelerating product development provides these
companies with a competitive advantage - being first to market with
the Next New Thing.
Create new markets (product discipline):
Some firms must survive by creating new markets. This can be through
product extensions or by creating new product categories with unique
new items. Anyone leering at the internet as a means to distribute
multimedia content is such a company.
Improve customer relations/ CRM (intimacy discipline):
Numerous studies have shown that customers like being taken care
of. This was, and remains, a major driver behind CRM efforts (and
do note that CRM is more than software - it must be a corporate
wide attitude). Organizations that define themselves through being
intimate with their customers will likely not buy any technology
that does not deepen and improve their customer relationships.
Integrate customer business operations (intimacy discipline):
Many corporations are now functionally intertwined. It is common
for organizations with a customer intimacy discipline to have employees
and computers in their customers' offices, or to have their mainframe
applications sharing transactions with those belonging to their
customers. There is human intimacy (CRM) and there is corporate
intimacy (xEAI), and these are not always mutually dependant.
Next Page >>
Guy Smith (guy@SiliconStrat.com)
is the principal of Silicon
Strategies Marketing. Guy specializes in strategic marketing
and market development for technology companies. Aside from his
marketing successes, Guy has a background as a technologist for
NASA, McDonnell Douglas, and Circuit City and remains active in
technology, primarily within the Open Source Community
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