I’m willing to take a kicking for saying the most obvious things in this article. But I believe it is most often the most obvious and clichéd things that are critical and central to what we do. It is in practicing them that we sometimes truly make a home run. Let me begin with the question – Who is responsible for Marketing? Well…the Marketing function, of course! But we’ll return to this question shortly. Marketing, as a function has been thoroughly redefined over the years. More so, in the IT context, where technology has begun to play a significant role. But the real redefining that has happened is in its fundamental role. From being merely obscure, jargonized "concepts out of MBA text books" some years ago, Marketing has emerged as an essential strategic driver in most respectable companies today. It has clearly moved from being a rather questionable cost head to a highly outcome driven function. Its existence is now vindicated only by tangible, metric-based results. In making this radical and rapid role transformation, from back bencher to front line leader, the Marketing function has had much to cope with. And it has coped admirably.

iYet, for many organizations, despite their best Marketing efforts, it often seems something is amiss. Many firms spend days in review meetings wondering why the top line isn’t going up as desired, why conversions are lower than expected, why the sales pipeline isn’t as healthy as it should be, and why the market isn’t responding with the buzz they expect from their public relations efforts. The answer, it appears, is as banal and mundane as it can get. Every individual and function in the company is not consciously contributing to the marketing effort. (Now don’t say I didn’t warn you about stating the obvious!)

But as clichéd as it sounds, what does this really mean?

Surely, the Marketing function takes full responsibility for the marketing effort, but unless everyone in the organization is on the same page, in the same direction and up to the same speed, results will never be as expected. It simply means everybody is not ‘marketing’ as they should be. It is often said that every individual, is marketing something or someone all the time, whether he or she is conscious of it or not. When a candidate attends a job interview he is marketing himself. When a HR manager transacts with a potential employee he is marketing the company. When an Administration executive deals with a vendor, he is marketing. When a project manager delivers to a client, he is marketing. When a sales person interacts with stakeholders on the field, he is marketing.

Guess you know where I’m coming from. Sounds like the over-used TQM concept? Precisely! Unless the total experience the company gives all its stakeholders (Clients, Prospects, Vendors, Shareholders, Employees) is not up to the mark, Marketing will be no more than a well monitored sham. An organization that is truly marketing itself well, is one that is conscious of this fact, and working on getting everyone aligned to communicate positive messages to every kind of stakeholder consistently.

So what happens when this holistic approach is not adopted? The organization sends contradictory messages to the market. While, for instance, its Sales force talks about flawless delivery, its delivery team doesn’t live up. While its Public Relations team talks about being a best-of-breed employer, its HR practices do not ensure delighted employees. While its proposal documents detail issue handling and escalation processes and promise to hand-hold customers through delivery, its account managers can’t care less for the customer’s real problems.

Unfortunately, the obvious and simplest is often ignored. Integrated marketing is often confined to the alignment of marketing efforts within the function. So while the CEO is losing sleep pressuring his sales heads over bleak looking sales charts, he is perhaps oblivious to the real damage being done outside the ‘sales and marketing function’ - Delivery, Account Management and Quality (Client facing), HR, Administration and Facilities (Employee and Vendor facing), Finance and PR (Shareholder, Employee and Vendor facing). Scratch the surface, and we find one inconsistency after another. Dig deeper and we find burning issues that can turn into show stoppers. While everyone is busy ‘marketing’ and ‘selling’ the Organization, it limps along reluctantly with many hidden wounds.

So if Marketing is to have the desired business impact as it is expected to, what paradigm are we to adopt?

First, the awareness that surface level marketing and sales efforts can’t go far enough or long enough. Second, a re-look at every stakeholder transaction at all levels and across all functions to ensure what is preached is practiced, and what is promised is delivered. Third, a consistent effort to drive home the message to every individual in the company that marketing, or sales, or any business facing function will have nothing to lean on if there is no real organization wide ‘marketing effort’. True integrated marketing will span the organization and cut through every function, every individual, every stakeholder experience. For Marketing, indeed, stands on the shoulders of every function and process in the organization, on the broad shoulders of collective organizational endeavor.

We had a question to return to – who’s really responsible for marketing anyway? I think I’ll let singer Vanessa Amorosi answer that….. “Absolutely Everybody!”

Konrad Fernandez
Marketing Manager