Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Most Companies Need a Yoga Instructor

Most companies won't tell you this, but most that are successful are that way in spite of their organizations.

Many run reactively, based on competitor's new product launch, an important client wants certain changes made, cash flow (especially when launching a new product) etc. But being flexible as an organization and open to new opportunities can make for a huge change in the fortunes of the company.

I have a particular bias. Marketing should be part of every department. From how phones are answered, to how job ads appear in the news paper, sales materials, customer contact, and product design, Marketing has a part in all of this. Even at the executive level, research performed by Marketing is valuable in assisting in the development of long term goals.
Example #1: A web design company was running low on cash and had already performed their second round of layoffs. There were few prospects in the sales pipeline and many existing companies decided to move their projects in-house. Many of their customers were lawyers and kept asking marketing and sales groups for recommendations of anyone doing computer forensics. As the Executive and Marketing groups did the research, they realized the potential available in this new and growing industry. They started doing small projects while learning about the industry, then opened a new department dedicated to computer forensics. As this department quickly eclipsed the web design revenue within a few months, the web business was referred to other local firms. They launched a new company out of the ashes of the previous one by changing the name and moving closer to their client base in downtown Chicago. At this time they have opened a second office in Detroit and have plans to move into other metropolitan areas in the near future.

Example #2: A hardware/software telephony organization was being funded by one of the executive's parents and there was quite a lot of pressure to turn a profit. Their standard voicemail systems that they were selling at the time had a lot of competition, an eroding market share and profit margin. They decided to develop a fully featured unified messaging system. Marketing knew it meant, not only opening up a new sales channel, but launching a new product, while not losing the existing customer base. Marketing proposed a module based system and developed product sales literature based on the premise that mid-sized companies could start small and build in features as the company grew. They approached editors at systems integrator trade magazines to evaluate the prototype and our concept, and they loved it. Nokia heard about the new inexpensive unified messaging turnkey product and bought the company for $56 million.

Get your internal Yoga and exercise your brain. Flexibility and risk-taking at the worst possible time could sometimes be the best path to take.



Jeanne-Elise M. Heydecker is founder of JHeydecker Design Systems (http://www.jheydecker.com/), an Internet company that specializes in designing, developing and executing web-based and traditional sales, marketing, and management solutions. Ms. Heydecker brings over 20 years of experience in traditional and internet marketing programs for the business-to-business and consumer markets. She can be reached at: jheydecker@jheydecker.com.