When the CEO of Melbourne Convention Bureau Julia Swanson is asked about the secret of Melbourne city’s success as the world’s leading destination for large international conferences, her answer is: “We call it Team Melbourne!”. She believes that it is the spirit, unity and the consolidated efforts of the industry and the entire community that makes Melbourne the city of choice. This statement is yet another evidence that supports the famous theory that “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” as well as another more recent theory of Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka, who argues that "The whole is other than the sum of the parts", explaining that the whole has an independent existence.
“Competitive Set”?
It is not a secret that the boundaries and landscapes of competitive markets have been changing dramatically in the last two decades. Although organisations continue to benchmark themselves against their immediate “competitive sets”, many of them recognize that the real competitive market is much greater and is being disrupted every day.
Markets are becoming more and more fragmented and saturated. In order to maintain and grow their market shares, businesses involved in B2B marketing cannot not rely on “traditional” advertising and direct marketing as much as they did before. Many small and medium-size organisations admit that in the last few years majority of their revenues were generated by repeat customers and through referrals. Without underestimating the role of branding, advertising, direct marketing, digital marketing, and publicity, organisations place more and more focus on building successful partnerships, personal selling and creating unique customer experiences. They believe that these are the key components in satisfying an ever-growing demand for a greater value.
Salesperson - “L’Homme Orchester” (The Orchestra Man)
Subsequently there are growing demands on a salesperson that has traditionally been the first point of contact for B2B customers. In modern world a salesperson is both the first, intermediate and the last point of contact that is expected to be fully committed and personally accountable for the desired results. He or she should be creative, proactive, responsive, knowledgeable of his client’s business and be able to represent his client’s interests within his own organisation.
I had numerous cases in my experience when I knew more about my client’s organisation, its buying behaviour and most recent developments than some of its employees which helped me to shape stronger value propositions when presenting to senior decision-makers.
The “Holistic” buzzword seeps through Marketing
So what is the the main issue that organisations need to address in order to be able to achieve their business goals?
More and more strategists advocate the ideas of “holistic marketing” and the need of creating “strategic sales & marketing organisations” where the function of sales, marketing, customer relationship, product and service concept development are embedded into the entire organisation. What does that mean? Essentially it means to create working environments where:
OPERATIONS generate future opportunity leads through great service experiences;
DEVELOPERS and asset managers are not only finance, legal or other subject-matter specialists, but also marketers, operators and talent managers;
“PEOPLE and culture” are not the prerogatives of HR departments only;
a company promotes the CULTURE of COURAGE to think outside the box;
RESEARCH is a cross-functional activity and knowledge is communicated at all levels;
BRAND propositions are created by operations, finance, HR teams along with marketing and sales to ensure that they are fully aligned with the true values, goals and capabilities; and
MARKETING does not need to create fictitious statements about “who they are” as a company because they do not have to!
Sounds simple and logical, yet the implementation can be hard as reality is dynamic and continues to evolve and challenge traditional parameters. In other words, reality in itself is a challenge. Organisational cultures that nurture lateral thinking while deploying the best subject-matter expertise can flip challenges into opportunities and stay ahead of the game.