Question

Topic: Other

Achieving Global Marketing Org Effectiveness

Posted by Anonymous on 6/10/2008 at 3:15 PM ET 250 Points
How can marketing operations use a wide variety of communications approaches to improve the operations of a global marketing team? Said a different way, working across the marketing functions, how can communications, leadership meetings, planning process improve leverage of the marketing people in HQ & geographies (field marketing). What are the best practices of other organizations in this area of marketing operations?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 6/10/2008 at 3:48 PM Member
    Wow, this is a broad question. Possibly better to rewrite your question with more focus. And also provide more input about the type of industry, business structure, etc.

    Best practices are always based around certain industries or markets. For example, the best practice for a global fast food company would possibly look at McDonalds as a comparison point, but likely would not look at Pemex (a cement company), as how Pemex does business likely would not be relevent.
  • Posted by melissa.paulik on 6/10/2008 at 4:00 PM Accepted
    Judy,

    What a great question - and a difficult nut to crack. When I have managed teams that were only in the US and China I held regular meetings. Somebody always had to get up early or go to bed late, but that's just the way it was. However, when India and Europe got thrown into the mix, times zones made the meetings a little unreasonable.

    A couple things that can help:
    - a yearly meeting at headquarters so everyone knows who everyone else is.
    - I play match maker a lot. For example, if someone in Europe asks about using Google Adwords, I might direct them to their US counterpart who has been doing it successfully instead of answering the question myself. Cross team collaboration is much stronger and I can focus on "fun" things like budgets.
    - As marketing leader, I make sure that I get onsite in each of the countries at least once a year. That way, I get to know my people much better and vice versa.
    - technical tools like Groove or Sharepoint can help for sharing materials.
    - Instant Messenger makes people in other geos more accessible.
    - I've never made my people watch the clock and with so much 24X7 work being done, this makes less sense than ever. If my person in California works at really strange hours I don't care as long as she gets the job done and collaborates effectively with the rest of the team.
    - I need to be ultra accessible and that means available at off-hours. That's just part of managing a global marketing team.

    Those are a few ideas off the top of my head. Hope they help!

    Melissa
  • Posted on 6/10/2008 at 7:29 PM Author
    To clarify my question - This is a high tech, b2b company. I am gathering data on best practices specifically targeting the hq & GEO marketing organization - what communications tools/meeting forums are most effective?
  • Posted by melissa.paulik on 6/19/2008 at 7:10 PM Member
    Judy,

    I am surprised you didn't get more responses on this one. Feel free to email me if you want to continue the dialogue. I am also in B2B hightech.

    Melissa
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