Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Hello Stalha,

Correct me if I am wrong anywhere.

This is what the current situation is like:
- you are new to the software industry
- you inherited a team that is not working

- you are in charge of an under performing department (=team)
- team = 1 researcher + 4 others = 5 FTE reporting to you

- no market information for current region
- no market information for future regions (expansion targets)

- you are American and work in a hierarchical - boss can not be asked to help -
environment.

The challenge / complication you face is:
- must develop new products
- you must expand into new regions
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My answer to you:

Basically you have 3 options:
1a) get external help (consultant, or anybody competent) who has capability to understand, analyze your challenge and has industry insight to provide a solution
1b) Ask you mentor. Don’t have one. Great challenge to start with one. See 2)

2) get busy researching how marketing departments are set up in your industry:
++ find people on Linkedin outside your markets but in the same industry
++ go to library and research industry literature on your problem
++ call the editor of the most fitting trade publication and ask for a person who
could advise you on your challenge or if they ever ran an article on this
++ if you need to do research cheap – go to the best school and ask for junior student consultants to browse for information on your challenge
++ find a marketing association and ask them (if you are member leverage your membership)
++ find the industry association of your company (not your function) and check who is the marketing guru there and ask her/him (maybe a mentor candidate)
++ research competitors on LinkedIn and see who is working in marketing,
maybe you can find a small one where the entire team has a profile as a blue print.

3) Use your team to solve the challenge. But here you must provide a clear and definite structure how to solve the challenge. You do not need to have all the solutions, but you have to know the process to find them.

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MY RECOMMENDATION ON WHAT TO DO:

My recommendation is go for 1) if you have the money, do 2) anyway but be efficient – don’t loose yourself. Always ask people first and only do research unless you cannot find an expert. This is much faster. Trust me. Do 3) regardless whether you found somebody for 1) because your team needs to own the result.

There is a reason they are not performing. My experience: 70% poor goal setting and misalignment between what is drives the business and the actual (busy) work that people do. You be amazed when you really track down what they actually do. 20 % is motivation of which has a lot to due with the fact that people do not see their contribution making sense in the big picture. The last 10% is wrong talent.
This is of course strong generalization. Your situation might be totally different.

+++++++++++
HOW TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM :

I know the problem you are facing so I will propose some ideas. After all, you asked for help which is actionable answers. These are not blue print solutions – these are ideas to help you thinking.

A) Your problem is too vague. In order to really understand what your issues are you must first define what the “TODAY” state is.
- What works? What does not?
- How is the performance measured? Do the KPIs measure the right things?
- What drives the business really? Are these drivers (or proxies for) them measured?
- Look at the processes. Inputs clear available. Steps clear. End point. Start point clear. Is work sitting on desks or inboxes. Can you eliminate the amount of steps and give more responsibility to the people in the process (every step elimination = speed, the most loss of speed occurs when people hand other to the next in line).
- After task and processes – you look at people’s profiles. 3 questions:
a) can they do what needs to be done today?
b) can they learn it if somebody shows it to them and do it within 1-2 weeks?
c) are they motivated to learn and give their best?

+++ How : interviews with your team, with sales, customers, anybody before and after you in the process chains, ask the company’s yoda (the old wise guy who has seen it all done before and knows why it fails). Nobody is born with the answers, don’t be afraid to say that you want to improve how things work and therefore want their input. Be structured. Think of which questions to ask before launching the first interviews. You must talk to some key customers (those with insight about the company and industry – new buyers might provide insight from external point of view but you want to talk to people who have been doing business with your company for a while)
Duration : 1 week internal , 1 week external (face to face is best , if they know you phone or skype might work). Do not map out the company. Focus on 80/20. What are the 5 key drivers? Are they measured? Are the top 3-5 process working?

Tip: Ask people these questions in this order:
- What does not work? (gets them warmed up)
- What works well? (after they are warmed up they will have more positive things to say)
- How should things be ? What would be ideal but realistic ? (your FUTURE state)

B) After you have talked to your team, sales, customers and the people before and after your team in the process chain you should have a good understanding of what works and what does not and how is should look like.

Time to define the FUTURE or desired stage. Hopefully you gained a lot of the FUTURE state during the interviews in A)

Your boss should have given you some targets or objectives. If not ask or get confirmation on a proposal. Last thing you want is unclear goals for yourself. That is the first part, the next is what drives the business.

THE KEY TO INNOVATION
You get that from the customers and maybe sales.
While asking customers about satisfaction levels is ok it usually does not reveal insight for new product development or portfolio decisions. You need to learn what their desired outcomes is. What are they trying to avoid or achieve with your products or services? And what product benefits are driving this desired outcome. Then you can break down to features that your products must have and they ones you can omit to same costs. E.g. people want to feel save, a security door delivers this outcome with the benefits of : can not be kicked in, can not be opened with crow bar, can not be lock picked ,… The features are : whatever delivers the benefit like special steel on the lock , a locking deadpin against “jumping” the pins (a technique to open normal locks) etc…

Desired outcome -> Benefit -> Features.

C) You did the TODAY analysis, you talked to enough people to have an idea about what the FUTURE should look like. Time to call your team together. You should raise the urgency of need of action and change because results and are not where they need to be. This is serious but not reason to be alarmed. You count of the team to get there together and this is an opportunity for each to show motivation, dedication and flexibility in thinking and learning. Then you share your TODAY state , you explain why this is not good enough and show the FUTURE state of where you want to go. Then you ask if everybody understood. If you want to you can ask if there is disagreement on your facts or somebody has a serious issue with your FUTURE state as solution to the performance issues. Now is the time to speak up. This depends on your leadership style.

You set dates for work-shops and individual interviews on solving the how to get there. If targets and KPIs being clear , now is the time to shine for your team. Even if you have the answer (great if you do by the way) coach your team through inquisitive questioning to the solution. Or use the question techniques to examine what and how a proposal would result in reaching the FUTURE state. The beauty is there is always more than one way. And oh behold , your team might have an idea you did not.

I am pretty smart – that is why I ALWAYS ask for input. Over the years I was often surprised of who came up with a great idea or something that pushed in towards a great idea. The myth of the lone ranger is hype. Don’t buy into it. Great leaders are leaders of productive teams. And how will they own the FUTURE if they have the eat what you shove down their throats.

If you are bold you can use your team to not only develop the solution but also identify the needed skills and existing gaps in getting there. It will flush out those on board and not on board.

If your team has absolutely no clue, takes advantage of you for including them into the process or refuse to solve the challenge. Talk to your boss about making talent changes.

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HOW TO ORG STUCTURE A MARKETING DEPARTMENT

I can not answer that for you because you could any variation in the most common structures below:

1) Tech driven / engineering driven
Products get developed by R&D – company is R&D driven . Product mgrs. are ex engineers . Sales is key account and b2b
Org : 1 marketing manager , 1-4 product managers for major product families
Product mgr does support in sales calls with sales for tech questions.
Ensures proper legal, documentation and product related work
Marketing communication is not done by product mgrs., that is usually outsourced and managed by marketing mgr or director
Strategy is done by CEO, R&D and Marketing in joint. Sometime only one of them.
Sales is focused on key account. Not really involved into innovation process.
Separate laps or innovation centers (danger : sales, prod. Mgr not included in process!)

2) Product driven , b2b , high margin
Products get developed by product managers how steer and drive all key processes.
R&D develops to spec. Product mgrs. are marketing specialists, sometimes ex customer service or sales.
Org: more product mgrs. and marketing mgrs. than in tech. Usually 1 product mgr per major segment or product family. 3-4 product mgr under one marketing mgr who steers and executes strategic plans set by marketing dir and marketing mgr in cooperation. More sales . Usually a field force for distribution or channel partners and a few national key account leaders. 4-10 regional sales rep per region leader. Innovation is joint responsibility of sales and marketing. Frequent brainstorm and thought exchange session bring back insights from the customers into sales. Marketing frequently joins sales with customers on research missions (not so much as tech support). Maybe separate (researcher or analyst) person does nothing but pricing, competitive / market analysis depending on industry and size.
Less outsourcing. Design and communication often in sourced. Execution for niche expertise like graphic design, web , SEO ,… is still outsourced.

Good luck
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From your description of the problem it sounds like the most significant thing you never mentioned is your lack of a strategic and marketing plan. Is there a plan? What does it say to do? Does it make any sense?

If there is no plan, then you're all just tourists. (Gen. McArthur said that, I think...)

First, ask your boss for the organisational strategic plan and objectives. Ask how it all gets measured. What does success look like? How do we know when we've go there?

If there is no organisational strategic plan, you have a bigger problem. You need one, and fast.

Otherwise you really are all just tourists.

I'm going to assume there is a strategic plan, but no marketing plan. If you know how to create a marketing plan, then take your team into a room for a couple of days and create it. If you don't know how to create one, then hire a consultant to take you through the process fast.

Then, get the plan approved, and execute it. You might find your team is the right team once they have a proper plan to follow, and some decent, coherent, achievable objectives.

Maybe you're just mistaking them for tourists because of their hats, Hawaiian shirts, and cameras....

Good luck.

ChrisB