November 14, 2005

The sessions here are only 35-40 minutes long so we are whipping right through them. Given that I have a relatively short attention span, it's nice to switch topics frequently. However, this means that most of the presentations are a little too high level to have many tangible take-aways.

That being said, here are some highlights from the past three sessions...

Six Sigma Marketing
According to Laurie Cremona, Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Operations at BEA, an organization should consider Six Sigma for marketing for the following reasons:

• To make things more measurable
• It focuses your attention on process management at all organizational levels
• It improves your internal and external relationships
• To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your processes by aligning them with your customers' needs

Cremona briefly described the various stages of Six Sigma (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) and how they apply to marketing. She concluded by recommending a shift in thinking when it comes to innovation. She said that the Western perception of middle and top management is that they are the ones responsible for driving innovation. However, one of the compelling elements of Six Sigma (and Lean, for those who are familiar with it) is that it pushes organizations to encourage innovation across all levels.

Marketing Operations at eBay
The eBay case study was a little disappointing since it was very, very high level. It also had a distinct vendor sales pitch flavor to it - Marketing Transformation Services was back on stage discussing the strategy it has used to help eBay.

However, if you are interested, here are the lessons eBay says it learned from its MRM (Marketing Resource Management) implementation:

1. Use a phased approach
2. Iterate where possible
3. Keep everyone together (location, location, location)
4. Aim for common systems, common processes, etc. with enough flexibility to handle various segments and scales
5. Remember that easy things should be easy

Strategies for the Marcom Supply Chain
The primary message of this presentation was simple, yet strong. If you don't take a hard look at your entire marketing supply chain, how can you possibly find ways to improve it. One of the best examples the speaker (Michael Moon, president and CEO of Gistics) provided involved something he describes as "carbon monoxide expenses."

Moon says the problem with carbon monoxide is that you can't see it, touch it, taste it or smell it... but if you ignore it, it will kill you. So too will the hidden expenses in your supply chain. For example, he challenged marketers to determine exactly how much they were spending on paper for collateral worldwide. He said that chances are, costs will vary widely based on suppliers in each country and there are almost always ways to "trim the fat."

Kinda makes you wonder what carbon monoxide expenses might be lurking in your programs, doesn't it...?

Posted by at November 14, 2005

Comments

Endaf Kerfoot email - www.momsymposium.com

Hi Tara,

I was the producer of the event last week, and I was thoroughly enjoying reading your views but they stop with Michael Moon's presentation. Were you around for the rest of the event and do you have any further comments that you'd like to pass to me?

Best regards,

Endaf Kerfoot

MOM Symposium

Tara email - www.marqui.com

Hi Endaf-

First, thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment. It's great to know that you are monitoring feedback on the conference.

I was there for the full event, but I got frustrated with the wireless network. Despite paying for access in my room and on the floor (multiple times, I might add), it kept kicking me off. So I gave up and stopped blogging. Overall, I thought it was a pretty good event, although some of the sessions seemed redundant. I was also curious about the table arrangements at lunch -- it didn't seem very conducive to networking.

One suggestion I might also make for future conferences is adding in a session or two targeted at medium-sized businesses (or even smaller ones). Most of the advice was aimed at very large organizations, but surely there are some helpful tips for businesses that don't need (or want) to conduct a multi-state road show that will convince the 43 decision-makers within their organization that MOM is a good thing...

I'm happy to chat with you live about this, if you are interested...

-Tara

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