miércoles, 26 de octubre de 2011

Strategic Marketing at Global MBA



CC DV TP: Create, Communicate, Deliver Value to a Target (market) at a Profit.

This is the mantra Philip Kotler uses to define the scope of a company, being (Strategic) Marketing the most powerful tool in the hands of executives and managers to listen, understand and identify consumer needs and requirements, while translating them into the right product/service, made available through the most convenient distribution channels, priced at the right level, communicated and promoted in the proper way.

Marketing is a lot of magic, a mix of sciences (psychology, finance, statistics, …) where things are not black or white and rarely it exists just one right solution: marketing executives speak today the language of CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) in order to get the credibility and fuel (resources, investments,..) to implement their strategies measuring them in terms of ROI or ROM (Return on Marketing).

An optimist, a visionary, a careful listener, a great communicator, a stage architect and a storyteller, the marketing expert must base his/her strategy on rigorous financial metrics, hurdling the company obstacles (dominant culture, silos, resistance to changes) and leading the firm towards a scenario framed by actual, non-actual and future profitable customers, giving them the memorable, sustainable experience they deserve.

It must be clear now the course “Strategic Marketing” I teach at the Global MBA at EOI has a focus directed on getting the basic philosophy and techniques to put together a sound marketing plan, based on a value proposition solving customer “pains”.

We start transforming a strategic idea into a value proposal, researching and segmenting the target market, analyzing Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) metrics and strategies and integrating the classic mix of Product, Price, Promotion and Place (4ps) with Process, People, Post Sale Service and Personal experience (4 more Ps), to offer a superior, differentiated marketing strategy leading to a long-term competitive advantage.

The conquer of trust and complicity of (enthusiastic and participant) customers, the use of transparency, passion, engagement, contextual marketing and personalization are the main topics in reported market strategies and tactics, escaping from competition and looking for “blue oceans”.

On top of consumer behavior, marketing basics, mktg planning and major strategic marketing tools (basic and advanced), some new and disruptive marketing trends and models are reviewed, included product development innovation and digital mktg.

Both a theoretical and practical approach is given with a global perspective, while students are able to deal with real situations, while introducing them to high performance management tools like One Page Plan, Marketing Dashboard and Magic Matrixes.

In terms of methodology, the case method, my blog, Ted.com, Seth Godin (we are not liars), professor Google and a huge blackboard are salted with the class enthusiastic participation, sharing our questions and doubts, our experiences and visions, in a diverse, multi-cultural scenario made by Italians, Turkish, Panamenians, Venezuelans, Germans, Russians, Spaniards, Colombians, … in a kaleidoscope of ideas and feelings.

Creating a 3 minutes video-blog, writing posts in their personal blogs and making their own marketing plan are some basic targets, complemented by sharing how marketing concepts are applied in real companies, improving students presentation and communication skills and providing opportunities to articulate and defend a business position.

 We want to create a sense of “tribe” belonging, driving the correct implementation of strategies into tactic customer operations and making our students aware of the need to bring our customers and their voice to the Board, through a Chief Customer Officer, creating a Customer Advising Board, and a Customer Relationship Governance committee, etc.

Resuming, the program shares a global vision of the marketing function, as a leveraging element of the company strategies towards customer knowledge, satisfaction and loyalty, while using imagination and innovative metrics as complementary tools.

Well, I have to confess I spent a session connecting dots, talking about Steve Jobs, Apple and happyness, but this is another story.

I think smiling, real, sincere, “Duchenne” style smiling, is a great tool in our business hands: we have the moral obligation to spread happiness and love in our offices to avoid the social pollution created by the economic crisis.

Happyness drives to success, being valid for individuals and enterprises.

jueves, 20 de octubre de 2011

Pongan a un tiburón en su estanque




A los japoneses siempre le ha gustado el pescado fresco. Pero las aguas cercanas a Japón ya no tienen muchos peses desde décadas.

Así que para alimentar a la población japonesa los barcos pesqueros fueron fabricados más grandes para ir mar adentro.

Mientras más lejos iban los pescadores, más era el tiempo que les tomaba regresar a entregar el pescado.

Si el viaje tomaba varios días, el pescado ya no estaba fresco.

Para resolver el problema, las compañías instalaron congeladores en los barcos pesqueros. Así podían pescar y poner los pescados en los congeladores. Sin embargo, los japoneses pudieron percibir la diferencia entre el pescado congelado y el fresco y no les gustó el congelado, que se tenía que vender más barato.

Las compañías instalaron entonces en los barcos tanques para los peces. Podían así pescar los peces, meterlos en los tanques y mantenerlos vivos hasta llegar a la costa.

Pero después de un tiempo los peces dejaban de moverse en el tanque. Estaban aburridos y cansados, aunque vivos. Los consumidores japoneses también notaron la diferencia del sabor porque cuando los peces dejan de moverse por días, pierden el sabor ‘fresco-fresco’.

Como resolvieron el problema las compañías japonesas? Como consiguieron traer pescado con sabor de pescado fresco?

Tan pronto una persona alcanza sus metas,  empezar una nueva empresa, pagar sus deudas, encontrar una pareja maravillosa o lo que sea, normalmente empieza a perder la pasión. Ya no necesitará esforzarse tanto.

Así sólo se relaja.

Experimentan el mismo problema que las personas que ganan la lotería o el de quienes heredan mucho dinero y nunca maduran, o de quienes se quedan en casa y se hacen adictos a los medicamentos para la depresión o la ansiedad.

Como el problema de los pescadores japoneses, la solución es sencilla. Lo dijo L. Ron Hubbard a principios de los años 50: “Las personas prosperan cuando hay desafíos en su medio ambiente".

Para mantener el sabor fresco de los peces, las compañías pesqueras ponen a los peces dentro de los tanques en los barcos, pero ahora también ponen ¡UN TIBURON pequeño! 

Claro que el tiburón se come algunos peces, pero los demás llegan muy, pero muy vivos. ¡Los peces son desafiados! Tienen que nadar durante todo el trayecto dentro del tanque, para mantenerse vivos.

Cuando alcances tus metas proponte otras mayores. Nunca debes crear el éxito para luego acostarte sobre él. Así que, invita un tiburón a tu tanque y descubre qué tan lejos realmente puedes llegar.


(Esta historia me la contó Pedro Suarez, alumno del Master en Dirección de Mktg en 2010).

lunes, 10 de octubre de 2011

Black Berry



"Le pusieron así, porque a los esclavos en Estados Unidos se les ataba una bola negra de hierro en el pie, irregular y cacariza (no era una bola perfecta), con una cadena y un grillete, para que no escaparan corriendo de los campos de algodón.  La llamaban “Black Berry” (Fresa Negra), porque se asemejaban a dicha fruta.

En los tiempos modernos, a los nuevos empleados, no se les puede amarrar una bola de hierro para que no escapen, en cambio, se les da una  “Blackberry” y quedan inalámbricamente atados con ese grillete, que al igual que los esclavos, no pueden dejar de lado y que los tiene atados al trabajo todo el tiempo.

Es el símbolo moderno de la esclavitud."

Este texto entre comillas es el post de Estefania, una alumna del Master de Marketing que quería denunciar una situación que seguro les suena a muchos y entiendo perfectamente su sentir: el video "desconectate para conectarte" que añado al final me dio una descarga emocional y después de verlo, pasé más tiempo con mis niños, por si acaso.

Lo que describe Estefania nos afecta a tod@s aquell@s que por decisión propia o ajena pasamos mucho tiempo haciendo cosas, informandonos, en la red, investigando, ejecutando, conectando.

Pasé un fin de semana en San Francisco y en el Hotel donde residía me pidieron dejara la "blackberry" en recepción: ellos se ocuparían de las llamadas y mensajes urgentes y si lo necesitaba, había un psicologo ofreciendo terapia de apoyo.

Le contesté al recepcionista que mi terapia para liberarme de mi PDA (entonces no había Iphones todavía y tenía una HP) era el botón OFF.

La tecnología debe liberarnos de los espacios físicos, hacernos más productivos y eficientes: he tenido reuniones importantísimas desde una playa, montando a caballo o navegando. Esto es más importante que lo otro a mi juicio.

Escribo desde mi casa y estoy utilizando mi iphone como un modem: mi "blackberry" me liberó de estar en un despacho, "atado" a un cable.

Cuando sienten que su blackberry les ata, APAGUENLO y si su jefe les regaña por no haberle cogido el telefono fuera de la oficina, recuerdele que el fin de semana y su tiempo libre es suyo, no de la empresa. Si insiste, intenten CAMBIAR de jefe o de empresa, por favor.

La vida es demasiado corta para estar atados en contra de nuestra voluntad.

Steve Jobs lo dijo: Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Pero LIBRES.


domingo, 9 de octubre de 2011

What (Guy Kawasaki) learned from Steve Jobs



Guy Kawasaki trabajó con Steve Jobs en Apple en el primer Macintosh: hoy es escritor, inspirador y business angel. Aquí va el link a su post de hoy que reproduzco a continuación y que me parece digno de nota.
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/#axzz1aGiggY6Y

What I Learned From Steve Jobs
Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top twelve lessons that I learned from Steve Jobs.
  1. Experts are clueless.
    Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but they only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the two biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s was the lack of a daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from the experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.
  2. Customers cannot tell you what they need.
    “Apple market research” is an oxymoron. The Apple focus group was the right hemisphere of Steve’s brain talking to the left one. If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster, and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can only describe their desires in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all people said they wanted was better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machines. The richest vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to use—that’s what Steve and Woz did.
  3. Jump to the next curve.
    Big wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel printer companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple introduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice factories, and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you still harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?
  4. The biggest challenges beget best work.
    I lived in fear that Steve would tell me that I, or my work, was crap. In public. This fear was a big challenge. Competing with IBM and then Microsoft was a big challenge. Changing the world was a big challenge. I, and Apple employees before me and after me, did their best work because we had to do our best work to meet the big challenges.
  5. Design counts.
    Steve drove people nuts with his design demands—some shades of black weren’t black enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash can is a trash can. Steve was such a perfectionist—a perfectionist Beyond: Thunderdome—and lo and behold he was right: some people care about design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but the important ones.
  6. You can’t go wrong with big graphics and big fonts.
    Take a look at Steve’s slides. The font is sixty points. There’s usually one big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speaker’s slides—even the ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is eight points, and there are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the world’s greatest product introduction guy..don’t you wonder why more people don’t copy his style?
  7. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence.
    When Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, Steve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could be doing to your phone. Safari web apps were the way to go until six months later when Steve decided, or someone convinced Steve, that apps were the way to go—but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari web apps to “there’s an app for that.”
  8. “Value” is different from “price.”
    Woe unto you if you decide everything based on price. Even more woe unto you if you compete solely on price. Price is not all that matters—what is important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into account training, support, and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool that’s made. It’s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products because of their low price.
  9. A players hire A+ players.
    Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people who are as good as they are. I refined this slightly—my theory is that A players hire people even better than themselves. It’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.
  10. Real CEOs demo.
    Steve Jobs could demo a pod, pad, phone, and Mac two to three times a year with millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call upon their vice-president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe it’s to show that there’s a team effort in play. Maybe. It’s more likely that the CEO doesn’t understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?
  11. Real CEOs ship.
    For all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasn’t perfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The lesson is that Steve wasn’t tinkering for the sake of tinkering—he had a goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets or creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, not a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?
  12. Marketing boils down to providing unique value. Think of a 2 x 2 matrix. The vertical axis measures how your product differs from the competition. The horizontal axis measures the value of your product. Bottom right: valuable but not unique—you’ll have to compete on price. Top left: unique but not valuable—you’ll own a market that doesn’t exist. Bottom left: not unique and not value—you’re a bozo. Top right: unique and valuable—this is where you make margin, money, and history. For example, the iPod was unique and valuable because it was the only way to legally, inexpensively, and easily download music from the six biggest record labels.
Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen. When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off against big challenges, obsessing about design, and focusing on unique value, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition. People needed to believe in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Not everyone will believe—that’s okay. But the starting point of changing the world is changing a few minds. This is the greatest lesson of all that I learned from Steve.


Read more: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2011/10/what-i-learned-from-steve-jobs.html#ixzz1aGikLJZt

domingo, 2 de octubre de 2011

¿Nuestra empresa está orientada al mercado?



 ¿Nuestra empresa está orientada al mercado? ¿O sigue enamorada de sus productos?

¿Nuestros modelos de empresa son Apple, Neiman Marcus, Starbucks?

Naturalmente, sin un buen producto/servicio que aporte valor, que resuelva un problema, un dolor a un cliente, ni hay empresa ni hay nada. Es decir: podemos adorar a nuestros clientes y decírselo continuamente, pero sin algo en nuestra mano que le aporte valor, por muy orientados al cliente que estemos, poco camino andaremos.

Lo que quiero discutir hoy es si nuestra empresa tiene en su DNA los componentes básicos necesarios para aprender del ecosistema en el que vive y que está formado por todos sus stake-holders: clientes, empleados, proveedores, etc. pero cuyo fin último es resolver el “customer pain”.

¿Como podemos medir, de 0 a 10, donde está nuestra empresa en una hipotética escala donde “0” significa: 100% orientada al producto y “10”: 100% orientada al mercado/cliente?

Aquí hay 25 elementos básicos:

1.   Estamos obsesionados con nuestros clientes?
2.   Nuestro modelo de negocio está basado en los clientes?
3.   Un cliente con un problema es nuestra prioridad máxima?
4.   Un cliente exigente es lo mejor que nos puede pasar?
5.   Conocemos a nuestros clientes? Tenemos “Customer intimacy”?
6.   Hacemos segmentación (dinámica)?
7.   Los tenemos identificados en categorías? (rentabilidad, satisfacción, lealtad, potencial, …)
8.   Tenemos equipos mixtos (empresa/cliente) que se reúnen periódicamente?
9.   Nos consideramos socios de nuestros clientes?
10. Tenemos un Customer Relationship Management operativo?
11. Tenemos herramientas de Business Intelligence, de Data Mining?
12. Existe un “Balance Score Card” de clientes?
13. Manejamos el concepto de “Total Customer Management”?
14. Tenemos experiencias diseñadas para aprender de los clientes?
15. Los clientes participan en el diseño de los productos?
16. Tenemos iniciativas de Crowdsourcing?
17. Nuestra organización refleja la de nuestros clientes?
18. Hay Key Account Managers/Global Account Managers?
19. Los responsables de los (grandes) clientes reportan directamente al CEO?
20. Ventas y Marketing están integradas?
21. Ventas y Marketing participan en el diseño de los productos?
22. Tenemos un sistema de remuneración basado en métricas de clientes?
23. Existe la figura del “Chief Marketing Officer”, “Chief Customer Officer”?
24. Existe un “Advisory Board” formado por clientes?
25. Se discuten “Dashboards” de marketing en el consejo?

¿A alguien se le ocurren algunos más?

¿Sobran algunos?