Getting Marketing Resource Management Right:

Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

Erik Didriksen Allstate Insurance Company Cristene Gonzalez-Wertz Covalent Marketing March 2012

Todays world is more connected than ever before. The combination of Internet users more than 2.1 billion worldwide and the growing proliferation of devices, data, applications and tools has empowered the individual consumer and paved the way for each individual to embark upon his or her unique digital journey.1The consumer today has the capability to interact across a broad scope of businesses, communities, friends and peers.

WHILE WE, AS MARKETERS, have embraced this

empowered consumer, many of us have yet to find the wherewithal to join him. We have increased our ability to create personal communications. We are transitioning from owning media and creating impressions to earning mentions, Tweets, likes and shares. But even as we make our forays into the hyper-connected digital universe, we find ourselves encumbered by time-worn and increasingly ineffective marketing planning and project management processes and methodologies.
Coordinating an enterprises customer interactions in a seamless, integrated and valued fashion takes orchestration across channels, departments, technology and data. It takes people: fearless marketing technologists willing to embrace new opportunities for close interaction with prospects in whatever media the customer chooses. Unlike their empowered consumer counterparts, who add new capabilities and applications with the touch of a key, these enterprise marketing pioneers must go bravely forward without the benet of a well-organized app store. Striking a delicate balance between IT enablement and marketing acumen is key in inuencing digitally savvy customers who have the capability through their very interconnectedness to become the voices of your brand. As a result, many of us need to revisit the historical practice of outsourcing much of our data and technology operations to dedicated IT professionals. The technologies responsible for marketing to and communicating with customers have become too critical to reside solely in the IT function. While in the past it was perhaps considered a luxury to have direct control over outbound marketing efforts, the need to skillfully respond to the changing wants and needs of todays consumer has made this control an absolute necessity.

March 2012

Controlling campaign execution often represents an organizations initial entry into targeted marketing technologies. The next step generally involves dedicated Marketing Resource Management (MRM) tools. Whereas campaign management (CM) applications often deliver more targeted communications, MRM applications improve marketing project intake, workow management, budgeting, process management, and automated reporting. MRM has much to offer any organization that seeks transparency, traceability, and efciency. While better resource management and improved accountability are compelling, the actual mixes of specic MRM benets are unique to each implementation. Some may choose to pursue lower operational costs or increased visibility, while others may value cross-channel communications management and consistency in processing. Regardless of how the benets manifest themselves, the breadth and depth of potential benets make MRM an essential component for increasingly complex marketing organizations.

However, any transformational technology presents challenges. MRM solutions must be designed to handle multiple initiatives, highly distributed networks, exible resource assignments and a growing media mix. Some marketers have succeeded in delivering signicant organizational value in their MRM rollouts; others have failed. To determine best practices, issues for consideration, as well as specic lessons and cautionary tales, Allstate in late 2011 undertook a survey of seven organizations that have implemented MRM solutions using software from Unica, IBMs marketing software enterprise. What we learned is that enabling the full benets of Marketing Resource Management and Campaign Management often requires organizations to restructure the way they think about their businesses, people, and processes.

SPECIFICALLY, enterprises must focus their efforts

on seven key imperatives necessary for effective MRM integration:
The

Business

The

Imperative

People

The

Imperative

Adoption

The

Imperative

Support

Imperative

The

Time

The

Imperative

In-House

The

Imperative

Initiation

Imperative

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

The

Business
Adapt or Die

Imperative
In its 2010 annual survey of marketers, IBMs marketing software enterprise, Unica, asked organizations about the biggest bottleneck they faced; IT Support of marketing technology needs topped the list at 67 percent (see Figure A).2 In 2011, that number dropped to 47 percent as marketing took greater control of its technologies.3
After addressing their technical support needs, marketers must now address core-business information and technology issues so they can continue to expand marketing competencies: Measurement, analysis and learning enabling the organization to understand its performance and act with precision Integrating cross-channel efforts creating the appropriate bridges to allow customers to choose or change their interaction channel seamlessly Marketing planning and objectives developing and allocating the marketing resources mix whether time, budget or human resources to deliver business results Channel execution and delivery. supporting effective and efcient customer communications that deliver timely, context-relevant messages to customers.
4

1
Next generation digital enterprises are being driven by a new wave of business managers and individual employees who no longer need technology to be contextualized for them by an IT department4
Gartner Predicts 2012, Daryl Plummer

March 2012

MARKETING BOTTLENECKS 2011 vs. 2010

Measurement, Analysis and Learning 57 58

Integrating Cross Channel Efforts

53 62

IT Support of Marketing Needs

47 67

Marketing Planning and Objectives

43 46

Channel Execution and Delivery

31 47

2010
2010: http://www.unica.com/survey2010 2011: http://campaigns.unica.com/survey2011/Unica-s-Annual-Survey-of-Marketers-2001_v22.pdf

2011

Figure A. 2010 and 2011 Unica survey of marketing bottlenecks.5

Instead, marketers need to adopt a hands-on, business-centric method for addressing these challenges. An increasingly common approach is to turn to trusted, experienced business implementation partners to support an MRM transformation. These partners support traditional areas, including infrastructure and conguration, but also address rollout strategy, process-driven solution development, change management and development of an ongoing support structure. They guide and assist the business in consideration, deliberation and planning.

This business-centric paradigm often includes a dramatically different approach to engaging marketers throughout the solution-design process. It embeds the delivery partner team alongside the business and provides a concentrated focus on user education and adoption that many IT organizations would be challenged to match. Employing an MRM solution, however, is a multi-faceted journey, and marketers would be well-served to consider the perspectives of those organizations that rst developed effective rollout plans.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

The

People

Imperative
The Need for Speed
Increasingly, business teams are facing demands for speed to market and communication turnaround times that necessitate greater control of operations than they have had or have been willing to take on in the past.
To deliver both effectively and efciently requires embracing the newly emergent class of marketing professionals who see technology as an integral part of their roles. However, that doesnt mean these expert marketing resources are always available to businesses when they need them. In Allstates survey, a major consumer retailer noted that with the initial installation of Campaign Management software, it placed campaign execution operations within the IT department because of a dearth of application and data knowledge within its marketing group. Over time, however, marketing realized it needed to develop application and data knowledge to accelerate the process of developing and delivering campaigns. Eventually, responsibility for campaign management and execution was moved to a team within marketing directly responsible and accountable for meeting marketings objectives.

2
These challenges are certainly not unique. Forrester Research Inc., in its report, The State of MRM in 2011, notes a fundamental divide in process exists between IT and marketing.6 Attempts to standardize process leads to a cultural clash, Forrester says. The exibility demanded by marketing departments lies in conict with the rigor and structure that IT departments see as essential to successful operations. The Allstate survey conrms Forresters conclusion. Finding a balance between marketing and IT support groups was referred to as painful, rather difcult, and time consuming by most respondents. Such a balance can only be achieved when both groups understand and are in sync with business objectives, perspectives, and intent. The organization needs to staff with marketers technically savvy enough to autonomously operate the applications. IT needs technicians who understand marketing strategies, methodologies, protocols and, most notably, marketings sense of urgency. MRM users from both groups need to be tech-curious and understand that their contributions will enhance the productivity and effectiveness of the entire user community. Both sides must embrace exibility and strike a balance between direct access and responsiveness in accessing the systems, tools, and resources needed to achieve the enterprises broader objectives.

March 2012

Fortunately, most surveyed organizations reported that marketers are nding ways to reorient their approaches, organizations, processes, and applications toward their desired outcomes. While most organizations developed their marketing technology experience with campaign automation applications, MRM requires people with different skill sets. There is less reliance on campaign measurement and data knowledge, but a greater need for a staff of change agents: educators, process experts, and strategic thinkers. This group needs to be able to dig into this software in order to understand all of the components and how they work together a fundamental prerequisite for crafting an MRM solution. Organizations with mature MRM installations have been able to develop support groups of tech-savvy resources on the business side. At the same time, they have brokered compromises with IT leadership to help IT serve them most effectively. In many situations, IT can provide the greatest value in removing layers of complexity, providing direct access to a small, highly effective team of experts that can make things happen in hours, not days or weeks. This approach leads to a resource matrix of dotted lines where support professionals can live on the marketing or IT side of the organization, with both sides appropriately empowered and able to quickly navigate organizational complexity to act with speed.

In deploying MRM there is a greater need for a team of change agents: educators, process experts and strategic thinkers.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

The

Adoption

Imperative
Users and the Business Implementation Partner
Successful MRM implementations not only build the desired functionality, they also build application knowledge at multiple levels across both the business and IT. The role of the Business Implementation Partner (partner) is broader than application conguration and documentation: a primary objective must be user adoption, curating deeply educated users.

3
A partner should be able to present methods that help an organization begin to feel comfortable with the application and solution development approaches from the start, creating the rst generation of engaged users that serve as the foundation for future users. The partner brings a shared base of knowledge that can prove invaluable. It is the primary resource for ramping up new users and minimizing the time needed for those users to start delivering value from the installed MRM solution. Training on an MRM application is just the starting line. Individual users must mature from trained to adopted to educated to empowered (see Figure B).

Trained
Users become familiar with the MRM application, its navigation and basic functions.

Adopted

Users know how their personal version of the MRM application works. It meets their intended needs.

Educated

Users continually add their growing knowledge of how to use MRM to recommend, adapt and modify their environment to their specic needs. They make the system more robust by adding functionality. They assist other users.

INCREASING FAMILIARITY

with the MRM adds depth and breadth to the user experience
Figure B. The rst generation of users serves as the foundation for future users. 8

March 2012

Mastery as the Method for Empowered Users

A small business support organization that supports your power users across the organization is your most effective means of knowledge dispersal. To that end, Covalent Marketing (Allstates Business Implementation Partner) has introduced a conceptual framework, education and delivery model for MRM Mastery. This new model was built from the foundational approaches used to echo Covalents Campaign Design Innovation Mastery, launched at Allstate in 2011. The Mastery model approach uses ve competencies across three levels of mastery, Apprentice, Journeyman and Expert, to support core delivery activities in Unica Marketing Operations. Privileges within the MRM application are accorded based on attaining mastery in each level. The competencies are: Translation the ability to understand a user need and develop a solution Reusability the ability to leverage assets, including templates and workows, for greater value or extensibility Education the ability to transfer knowledge and act as a mentor to new users Administration the knowledge of structures, tables and back-end processes that enable front-end success Design the ability to create well-documented, elegant solutions that are effective for highly complex marketing problems across MRM and the Enterprise Marketing Management application suite. Mastery helps develop these rst-generation power users, and they, in turn, develop a smarter user base. Once some of the marketing users have journeymen and masters levels, they begin to train staff to a basic skill level on the enterprise MRM setup, nurturing new local or departmental power users who then develop the mastery needed to support their immediate organizations. These master users reconvene periodically to share and expand their knowledge which is again passed back out into the organization. This cooperative approach to user education will broaden an organizations knowledge base as application adoption reaches maturity. Allstates approach to developing custom materials for user education enables the development of experts. Continually testing and applying innovative methods, such as video education and desk-side support for new users, is expected to yield not only better assets, but also smarter users.

Most of the training delivered by MRM application providers is not customized to the needs of the individual enterprise. While this training might provide a good walk-through of functions, it does not appropriately allow new users to understand their own environment. At the 2011 Unica IBM Enterprise Marketing Management Conference, Tom Woods, the MRM Implementation Owner noted: Campaign applications are 80 percent complete out of the box. MRM applications are 20 percent. This level of customization means that additional, specic education on enterprise-specic details is a must.

Campaign applications are 80 percent complete out of the box. MRM applications are 20 percent.
Tom Woods, The MRM Implementation Owner

These new empowered users understand their day jobs: namely why, when and who marketing communications serve. However, they also understand the process, workow, roles, handoffs, templates and approaches that create those customer communications. The transition from trained to empowered is complete when one user has the ability and the self-condence with the application to make many users smarter; its not sufcient to be able to resolve a single issue one time. MRM maturity is more involved than just removal of the roadblock, it is about strategically addressing business challenges by building MRM and campaign elements that are reusable, scalable, and modular. These power users can both assist the novice and empower the expert.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

The

Support

Imperative
Understanding Marketing as a Business
Based on our research and Covalents experience across multiple implementations, the level of support distributed between marketing and IT should be set by two key criteria: ITs understanding of marketing as a business at a detailed level and the service relationship between the two.
There are a few dominant models (see Figure C):

4
Business-centric: where the business has sufcient technical resources to own the application mastery and IT is a support function focused on traditional IT issues of infrastructure and application management Shared-support: where the business and IT have an active and engaged dialogue around business needs, with knowledge and expertise shared across both functions. The service level IT delivers is responsive enough to allow marketing to move fast IT-centric: where the business is new to these kinds of marketing applications and ITs experience in delivering these skills is effective and efcient.

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HIGH

Marketing has no or little experience in working with or managing technology Marketing has limited understanding of data or database functions IT has a well dened support model and can provide timely and direct assistance Marketing does not have the ability to add headcount

Marketing and IT have equal understanding of marketing technologies Marketing has an understanding of its data and how it is used

Business Controlled

Model 3:

IT Understanding of Marketing

Shared Support

Model 2:

Marketing has a well dened process and solid grasp on how to use technology to support business needs Marketing is familiar with its data, and how it is used in customer and marketing applications Marketing can expect the right level of support from IT from a day to day and more durable fashion

Heavy IT Support

Model 1:

IT support is both responsive and service levels are agreed upon Accountability and management reporting structures are shared Relationship is valued

LOW

Marketing Technical Experience

HIGH

Figure C. Three core models of support.

To these three core models, variants can be applied, such as outsourced models or shared service models. In Allstates research, however, the outsourced models experienced challenges in delivering the desired results. For Campaign Management, the process of outsourcing was easier, but when it comes to MRM, having the application sit closer to the users delivers a better level of service. Campaign Management is focused on le-based outcomes. With MRM, the more difcult challenge is around specifying the content of elds, the workow and the resource assignments to teams.

The ability to understand what parameters can be changed, and which operational measures might be affected, is central to success. Given this feedback, the preferred method was facilitating the transition from Business Implementation Partners to internal resources (which can work in any of the three dominant models). Most applications under ITs purview require a rigorous approach to changing any element in the application, controlled by a specic documented request to IT professionals. However, with MRM and its companion

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

11

application, Campaign Management, marketers and marketing technologists can make and save changes to elements in the applications. These changes can entail criteria for customer selection, form modication, campaign design development, or new contact ideas. IT is not often equipped with the specic application, customer data or business operations knowledge to tackle tasks as rapidly as this software allows. Hence, a new balance must be struck in how these applications are supported across IT and marketing to allow revenue generation and customer responsiveness. This leads to a distinction in developing the types of support groups the business needs across these dimensions: Implementation and onboarding Marketing process and change management Shared administration Technology infrastructure. Since the rst support type is designed to last only as long as the Business Implementation Partner is onsite, it is important to commingle marketing, IT and the partner groups early on to ensure role clarity and accountability. Commingling also allows these groups to come to mutually agreeable terms that allow emergent matters to be met with appropriate responses. This implementation group transitions tasks to marketing resources after the new MRM system is up and running. With the right support structures in place, an organization can rapidly scale to meet multiple user needs, creating value through MRM software.

For the marketing process and change management group, it is critical that the support be centered on marketing power users. This approach minimizes the need for a large IT contingent to support relatively simple requests that can be handled rapidly and knowledgeably by marketing. This includes business technologists, who use MRM to specify and execute marketing strategies and tactics across channels. Figure D addresses the support delivery components for both the marketing and the IT Groups. Many organizations will have established vended application support components in place. These components can provide signicant benets, from adjusting generic support structures to t the unique nature of marketing applications, to empowering an organizations marketing technologists. The ability of these resources to take direct action is essential to making the most of them.

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Recommended Support Activities

Implementation and Onboarding
Back-End administration functions Exploration and resolution of escalated user questions Escalation of incidents to software vendor support Frontline support of users Targeting, development and empowerment of a power user group Conducting customized education built specically around the business Ongoing curriculum development and learning tools evaluation Management of in-ight activities and processes Identication of new groups/processes to be automated Development of new templates/forms/approvals Front-End administrative functions

Tactical

Establishment of new user accounts System and database performance management Software patching

Marketing Process and Change Management

Shared Administration

Software upgrades

Technology Infrastructure

Strategic

Periodic reviews of System Architecture Adherence to organizational IT policy Implementation/Integration of new marketing software modules Coordination with strategic IT Infrastructure projects

Execution of long-term rollout plan Development of reporting strategy Development and support of operational best practices Coordination with changing needs of the business Investigation & evaluation of new software modules Coordination with marketing and technology strategies

IT

Marketing

Figure D. Support delivery components for marketing and IT.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

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The

Time

Imperative
Managing the Four Dimensions of Time
Marketings operations departments are frequently called in to support initiatives with little time to spare. Firstclass tools and high performance are fast becoming the norm for organizations that want to win in the customer experience and loyalty race. Delivery of critical path components is essential to any initiatives success. The empowerment brought to consumers through the blogosphere and social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and forums for every specialty, requires immediate and judicious response. Never before have marketers faced so much noise in managing their brands.
Markets are emerging, developing, and sunsetting faster than ever before. With that, marketers face irrelevancy if they cannot successfully manage time. Four dimensions of time should be considered with an MRM solution: Time to Launch How fast can software be set up, piloted and ready for development? Time to Execute How quickly can these designed solutions become real?

5
Time to Iterate How rapid is solution understanding, analysis, and design? Time to Value How long does it take before new resources can deliver value?

Time To Launch
On the path to delivering value, launching an MRM initiative requires a level of readiness be reached before or during the initial technology installation. To accomplish this, preparing the processes is critical to success. When a sub-par process is automated, instead of examined for improvements beforehand, the users experience through MRM software can be compromised. As such, Allstate relies on the results of documented and improved processes delivered by a joint team using Covalent Marketings Process Playbook. The Playbook equips the launch with user and business-based scenarios that focus on marketing technology competencies. IBMs Industry Business Value Assessment supplements the process. These methods better uncover user needs, create a better process and allow for faster and more effective design of solution components.

Time To Execute
In an effort to better position themselves over time, many marketing organizations have already begun stafng marketing and analytics/operations departments with technologists who blur the line between marketing and IT. To ensure success, marketings support of MRM software should follow suit. These business technologists have considerable technical skills, similar to those in the IT

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organization, and also have a full understanding of marketing strategies, rationale, and methodology. This direct connection allows operations groups to take requirements from strategists quickly and accurately without iterating through a full development lifecycle. Allstate has found that by using Scenarios and SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, Consumers) depictions leveraging Six Sigma methods, designed solutions can be developed more rapidly and with greater ability to tie to specic user requirements.

Time To Value
The education and development cycle is critical to maintaining a reasonable time to value. In Allstates research, responses from a business information provider indicated that a tiered user base proved immensely valuable in this regard. Developing a hierarchical set of user tiers is not only possible through user education, it is easiest to implement by focusing training on the top-tier in order to develop the deepest knowledge base possible. When users can troubleshoot problems on their own, their path to resolution is often fastest. The resulting decreased time to launch, execute, iterate and deliver value allows marketers to quickly react to changing market conditions, in some cases reducing response time from weeks to hours. Another aspect of time to value emerges as users develop mature competencies around the software. An automobile manufacturer surveyed indicated that while it had experienced an expected amount of employee attrition, it was able to absorb the workload for two key reasons: 1) The company was able to leverage the softwares efciencies 2) It was able to assume additional responsibilities as skill levels matured. This same respondent indicated that the key to success was a coordinated set of assets developed in and around the MRM solution.

Time To Iterate
Time to iterate means focusing on meeting timelines not necessarily aiming for process perfection. It may be worthwhile to understand the end-to-end process, i.e., the full marketing value chain, but launch or improve iteratively. By doing more rapid iterations, users and the organization at large see progress. By determining the end-to-end process upfront, rework can be minimized while faster delivery is enabled. As an example, American automobile manufacturers have long been chasing overseas competition in the development of innovative marketing approaches. However, an automobile manufacturer in Allstates study fares better than most because it understands that delivery times are a critical component of success. In seeking time efciencies around requirements, analysis and design, the automaker combined the experience of power users and reusable asset libraries. It leveraged a consistent, expert approach along with delivery sprints. It moved away from a traditional Systems Development Lifecycle because it was heavy on approach and took too long. Instead, the company implemented agile approaches and utilized responsive resources in marketing and IT, both of which shared accountability to the organization for results. Shortening the cycle between execution and value is what iteration is all about. It balances the desire to ship a complete suite of functions with adding new and user-desired functions in smaller groups. How much functionality each release cycle contains is dependent on the organization, and the business relationship with IT.

Launch Value Execute Iterate

Figure E. Four Dimensions of Time

15

The

In-House

Imperative
Establishing Lines of Demarcation
There isnt one major motion picture lm where a director served as cinematographer, just like no two productions follow the same script. All participants need support behind the scenes to keep things running, and these marketing technologies are no exception. Every organization has a unique structure that is its very essence, and every organization must determine the best path to success.

6
Marketing success depends on clear roles, dened responsibilities and the freedom to execute quickly. Each organization will have its own lines of demarcation between users and support groups, but survey respondents indicating they had successfully built a working support mechanism had the following in common: Recognition that marketing needs MRM to be responsive and effective Communication between all involved parties needs to be frequent, clear, open and honest Minimization of conicting accountabilities, typically through direct control of essential systems and related resources. For example, one of the nancial institutions participating in Allstates survey noted that the success of its support model came from a trusted relationship between the marketing systems department and the broader IT group. This allowed for a highly collaborative yet comprehensive installation and conguration, completed in a brief amount of time minimizing costs while maximizing results.

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It sounds so simple, but organizational gamesmanship around headcount and control can often take even the most well-intentioned organization off the winning track. Two respondents whose support teams were outsourced wholly agreed on the above, but with signicant differences in the level of satisfaction with the outsourcing arrangement. A Midwestern nancial institution felt its relationship had matured over time, while a consumer electronics manufacturer felt its outsourcing relationship had soured over time. Contrasting the tales told by these two organizations, one is able to determine that the nancial institution achieved greater levels of success as a result of having internal resources ready, willing, and able to assume direct control over critical systems, while the electronics manufacturer struggled to get two resources groups to cooperate in the best interest of their shared client. Most organizations start with contracted resources and then shift to employee resources who are able to maintain and adjust according to business needs. These organizations will often shift back to contracted resources for expansion activities. A well-established staff on both sides allows partners to exit seamlessly when transitioning the engagement to internal employees. In the end, the interests of a business must be represented for success to be realized. Marketing organizations that have the ways and means to directly maintain and administer the applications they utilize are best positioned for success.

The dichotomy between control and exibility has no simple resolution. However, several organizations have taken steps to effectively manage: Minimizing handoffs in their support structure avoiding the introduction of extraneous contacts during issue resolution that can introduce lag, confusion, and errors. The day-to-day administration and operational support staff, which must be accountable to those who rely on these tools to meet what is demanded of them. The day-to-day operations group, which must drive the evaluation of new software to be integrated with the current solution. Sound operating principles, which must be in place to provide all users and support staff with a clear understanding of the processes theyre expected to follow, as well as what is expected of their work products. For most, organizational redesign is not an immediate option. Ensuring that your resources have the skills, knowledge, and access to respond to your business needs is key to success. This is most easily achieved by placing support resources within the same group as those accountable for MRM asset design and marketing campaign execution. Involving third parties not motivated by or attuned to marketings unique needs increases the risk of priority conict.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

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The

Initiation

Imperative
Managing Expectations
Every organization will naturally gravitate toward easing its pain points. MRM software has the ability to centrally manage marketing projects while providing visibility and accountability to the processes developed. MRM is a change management project, not a technology project. Technology supports marketing activities, but the lions share of the work is in relationship building, communications, and change management.

7
It is critical to manage expectations early and often in your rollout. Users that are allowed to believe that MRM is a panacea will be left disappointed when they nd that theyre still being held responsible for the same workload after implementation. Keeping end users involved throughout the implementation process prevents this perception. Selectively involving group members into business process and solutions mapping will empower these voices in support of the project. MRM brings a world of opportunities to your feet, but the responsibility is yours in determining which foot to lift rst.

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MRM CONSIDERATIONS by Subject Area

Process
c

Method
c

Examine your organizations strategy to determine where to add value Take as broad an outlook as possible outline key highlevel processes end to end so you are familiar with the interactions youll need over time; plan processes modularly But keep it simple start with discrete tasks without a lot of dependencies across the organization Pilot your initial efforts close to home for the greatest control and learnings Develop competencies before announcing availability

Use Agile or Waterfall, or try an alternative (such as the process playbook) that adds incremental value to development efforts Make sure adoption approach and efforts are developed in advance. User adoption is critical and MRM is a change management project Figure out support model as early as possible, before purchase if possible Dene the resource model in multiple stages, so that the organization has an idea of cost, timing and ramp-up

Assets
Here is a checklist to consider:
c c c c c

People
c c

Find qualied resources who can be marketing technologists Determine how much bench strength you need in given roles before, during and after rollout. Solid processes and effective designs lead to reduced support requests Design a scalable resource, support and user model people can be added as process competencies are built into MRM or as new user groups are added Use an education model that respects users at all levels, small classes, desk-side support and accessibility to resources that respect the users need to keep working

c c c

Campaign Marketing Requests Contact Strategies Optimizations that select between discretionary customer communications Digital Assets (including pictures, video, logos, type standards and treatments, translations, composed artwork, le specications, etc.) Financial Details (cost per contact, cost per sale, incremental revenue, xed, direct) Templates (information capture and metadata) Workows (that drive the timing, approvals and benchmarks)

Figure F. MRM considerations by subject area.

Allstates research revealed that MRM is most commonly used to manage the activity of campaign execution teams. Much of this comes from a need to manage campaign operations groups as they scale, and most marketing suites offer tight integration with campaign execution functions as long as both the MRM and Campaign management software are sourced from the same vendor. While many organizations begin with managing

operational functions, thats not always the most appropriate place to begin. A consumer electronics manufacturer in Allstates survey started its MRM usage by managing procurement compliance processes, which was its greatest perceived need. Evaluate points of pain, not only on the front lines but throughout all layers of the organization. When successfully implemented, MRM has something to offer everyone (see Figure F).

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

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As you develop your roadmap and broaden MRMs footprint across the organization, it is likely that your success will bring you a torrent of groups seeking to take advantage of the opportunities that MRM presents. In an ideal world, your resources would scale to accommodate any reasonable request. Unfortunately, we work with the resources available to us. Being able to queue these requests for inclusion during later phases in your rollout roadmap is useful for further justication of ongoing implementation expenses, but also for rationalization of costs incurred thus far. Prioritization of deliverables into phases where they mature from plan to production should be done carefully, keeping in mind that quick wins should be interlaced within larger strategic initiatives. All of these must be carefully considered based on your organizations direction, willingness to embrace change, and desire to invest in an efcient future. When balanced with precision, exibility and agility, businesses that successfully implement MRM across the marketing organization develop the ability to scale operations. Also, they can exibly respond to uid marketplaces and executive re drills, all while providing visibility into dayto-day activities. As with any technology investment, human resources are needed to make the technology useful. MRM is no exception. Technical integration specialists, business technologists, process experts, and educators are all needed to ensure a successful rollout plan. Scaling is possible, but needs to be done evenly across all concerns for success. Contracted resources can get you off the ground, but it is in your best interest to begin developing organizational competencies around MRM as soon as possible this group of resources will be the backbone of the business-side support structure.

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Words of Wisdom and Tales of Caution

Words of Wisdom
Establishing a connection between software and its user base is a key component of successfully integrating software into a user community. Development of a brand, including a name and brand personality, can go a long way toward engaging a user community. A well-thought-out brand and name are also useful for grouping otherwise disparate concepts together into a single cohesive entity that executives can rally behind. Make sure that you have support resources that have the resources (time and experience) they need to be effective Rollout Plan - Speed - Scope - Scale - Process - Method - Assets - People Understand your organizations tolerance for change Understand what MRM can do for you and develop those competencies over time. The software will only be as valuable as you make it.

Cautionary Tales from Those Who Have Been There

What not to do: Rush to roll out everything at once. Even if you have disassociated MRM in place across the organization make sure you have the development and training resources needed to manage change at a reasonable pace. Direct cutover does not work for this type of change. Dont try to use this software for resource and demand management right away. Many people will not fully understand the pathways between input and output until they have experienced them through several iterations. Make sure you wean yourself off of partners over time, dont rush this or you will pay the price.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

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Final Thoughts
In todays world, the essence of competitive advantage can be captured with a single phrase: speed to market.
Yet, in all too many instances, the frequently disconnected priorities between marketing and IT hamper the efforts of even the best organizations to decrease time to value. Whats needed is a rethinking of this critical partnership, with each learning from the other. IT needs to understand and respond to marketings sense of urgency, while marketing needs to understand, embrace and, ultimately, be able to assume many of the roles currently within the purview of IT. In our experience, Marketing Resource Management and the accompanying development of skilled marketing technologists provides the best opportunity for organizations to align their technological capabilities with their marketing mandates. Even so, the path to MRM success is not an easy one. A knowledgeable business implementation partner, with the accumulated knowledge of best practices and past failures, can assist in the transition and help make the organization faster and more responsive both critical elements in a business environment dominated by todays empowered consumer.

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March 2012

Authors
Cristene Gonzalez-Wertz is Covalent Marketings Chief Strategist and formerly IBMs Institute for Business Value Research Leader for CRM. For more than two decades, shes delivered organizational innovation and marketing strategy through analytics, customer experience, market intelligence and creativity. She works at the intersection of marketing and technology to assess how consumer factors, emergent weak signals and corporate culture deliver customer success. She helps organizations nd valuable opportunities for customer innovation. Then she applies passion and action-orientation to move these opportunities from plan to execution.

References
1 Internet World Stats, Usage and Population Statistics, www.internetworldstats.com 2 The State of Marketing 2010: Unicas Global Survey of Marketers, www.unica.com 3 The State of Marketing 2011: Unicas Global Survey of Marketers, www.unica.com 4 Predicts 2012: Gartners predictions for the year ahead. Gartner. www.gartner.com/technology/research/predicts 5 The State of Marketing 2010: Unicas Global Survey of Marketers; The State of Marketing 2011: Unicas Global Survey of Marketers, www.unica.com 6 The State Of MRM In 2011: Marketing Operations Technology Is Increasingly Contextual , Forrester Research Inc., September 28, 2011, www.forrester.com/The+State+Of+MRM+In+2011/fulltext /-/E-RES60420

Erik Didriksen focuses on Marketing Technology and Strategy in the Customer Marketing group for Allstate Insurance. He assesses opportunities to better deliver customer contacts and improve the customer experience while maximizing the effectiveness and efciency of marketing operations. His innate ability to understand and see value in technologies helps frame new marketing solutions while providing a fast path for implementation. He drives roadmap creation and planning to architect smarter marketing, dening early ROI while creating long-term value. He works on quick starts and early-cycle adoption for new technology.

Getting Marketing Resource Management Right, Advice from Marketers, for Marketers

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 Copyright 2012 Allstate Insurance Company and Covalent Marketing