Jean-Pierre Aerts, Professor of Executive Master in International Association Management, explores the comprehensive nature of marketing and emphasises the need for strategic alignment within organisations - stressing the importance of addressing four key questions to create value, impact the market, and foster growth.
Surprisingly, few people know how to correctly answer this question. Most believe that marketing is communication, though communication is only a tiny fraction of it. By going back to the origin of the word, we understand that MARKETING is choosing a MARKET and doING what is needed to impact it.
MARKET-ING, therefore, involves a vast number of management disciplines in which you might get lost, unless you have a powerful methodology to coordinate everyone's efforts.
The objectives of market-ing are:
1. to create value for your target customers and
2. to capture the largest possible part of that value created.
Doing this efficiently requires that all internal departments and external partners work in synergy.
The reality is however far from that goal. Research indicates that >90% of management time is spent on operations (meaning that less than 10% is dedicated to the formulation of strategic questions and decisions). On top, most organisations have been developed around departments, and those departments naturally tend to work in silos. As a result, most organisations are far too slow to address strategic issues and far too 'narrow-minded' when reflecting on disruptive scenarios.
Organisations have a golden opportunity to better balance leadership (collective envisioning) and management (controlling the execution of the vision in its various facets). Seen the current convergence of revolutions (societal, technological, environmental), being fast and proactive to seize this opportunity is crucial, in order not to become an obsolete species.
Of course, organisations cannot afford to work randomly when envisioning their future (leadership) and implementing their decisions (management). The following questions are essential to address in your reflection process. They work in a sequence and through iterations, as any draft answer to a question must be validated or reformulated by analysing its impact and relevance through the next questions.
We often observe egocentric statements ("we exist to be the leader in...") or product-centric statements ("we exist to offer the best product or service in our categories...") but those are risky formulations. Simply because customers care much more about their own evolving needs than about your market share or your products.
Acknowledging you exist to create value for specific customers, the next question becomes... "which customers ?". In this respect, it is key to remember that the biggest source of business lies with non-customers. Spending time to explore why non-customers do not choose you is as important as exploring how the needs of your current customers are evolving. Besides, it is essential to understand the market segments and clarify which segments you do not want to work for. Indeed, trying to please everyone means becoming average for everyone.
Seen all new forms of competition, being 'good enough' is no longer attractive. To maximise value and defeat competition, organisations must better resonate with the rational and emotional needs of their target customers. Partnering with (non)customers to investigate what really creates value in each segment is a must. In that respect, testing fast and cheap is a best practice that start-ups have documented very well for us.
Start-ups understand how to leverage networks, co-creation, and testing. Besides, they also initiate fascinating new forms of organisations. For example, look at how Spotify boosts agility in its structures and methods.
Opening-up your minds to challenge old paradigms is an essential first step to build VALUE, impact your MARKET and GROW.