Thats my take of it, not the Economists.
The Economist: The Big Rethink US The Age of the Entrepreneurial CMO
10 on the Park
Time Warner City
New York City
March 5th 2015
It was a snowy day and a lot of folks didn’t make it but those who did experienced what the Economist does so well, in person. A fresh unique and special voice on matters of business and society. It you haven’t read the latest issue, “Planet of the Phones”, do so, its good stuff.
In a nutshell, bigger companies are going to lose their customers and their people, at least their good people unless they start acting like smaller companies.
If you ask 10 people what is marking you get 10 answers. Although marketing is an ever increasing importance its still a position with an average lifespan of 22 months. Its a position to be hired to be fired. Its a position picked by the CEO or other senior officer and it should be a board decision and the CMO should report to the board.
What is marketing? Marketing is responsible for all customer facing experiences for the corporation. So you say, “What about sales?”, Well there is a lot more customer or prospect contact from marketing outreach and listening and its better that sales and has the benefit of that information and exchange. So sales reports to marketing.
Bigger companies have to give their people the ability to fail before they get it right otherwise they will be left behind.
Event moderators Matthew Bishop, Charlotte Howard and Alexandra Suich in true Economist spirit were at the top of their game. Many of the speakers shared unique special knowledge and a few were just doing a warmed over sales pitch. Shame on them.
The big corporate silos are too deep and move too slow. They have to start thinking like startups. Maybe that means taking the big corporation and breaking it down to a whole lot of little companies.
You can see last years event here http://bit.ly/EconomistBIgREThink2014
This years event will be on the Economists YouTube channel in two weeks or so, or maybe I should say in a lovely fortnight.