Marketing responsibility – the ability to measure the contribution of the marketing organization to the value of the business – remains a critical issue.
A recent study by Forbes CMO and Neustar, “Accelerating growth through marketing performance management” (MPM), found that senior leadership in Global 5000 organizations recognizes that marketing responsibility is essential to creating shareholder value and growth organic. This echoes our MPM survey, which found that most marketing executives struggle to convey the value of marketing to their leadership.
What is the purpose of a center of excellence?
So, what is a CoE? It is an organizational structure that functions as a centralized center to carry out the management, visibility, and accountability of a specific area. A CoE provides leadership, promotes best practices, facilitates research, and improves the skills needed to generate business results.
How do I start creating a center of excellence in marketing?
Due to the potential impact of MPM on business, it makes sense to have MPM as the primary focus of your CoE marketing. Through our experience in creating centers of excellence for marketing organizations, we have learned over the past five years that there are four key factors to success:
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Appoint a primary sponsor
An executive sponsor allows CoE Marketing to succeed and thrive. Management’s commitment to scheduling time for COE activities is critical. The skin on the executive sponsor of the game ensures that new processes and best practices penetrate the organization and realize its full potential.
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Define goals and success criteria
A marketing association must be absolutely clear about the purpose, what success implies and what measures will be implemented. Determining this early is critical to success and is the only way to track progress.
Document the CoE’s status and purpose, as well as the value and results that the CoE will deliver. After defining your goals and expectations, map the processes to achieve those goals.
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Prepare the first action plan
In the beginning, the Council of Europe should focus on…
- Review all existing tools, policies, and procedures to determine what applies to MPM and identify gaps that need to be filled
- Definition of MPM methodologies and best practices
- Provision of reusable tools and templates
- Ensure the link between marketing and investment activities with the business results
- Select and provide experience using the tools
- Provides guidance and assessments for all planning, benchmarking, and marketing dashboard projects
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Provide staff with skills and tools
Creating a CoE requires more than just praise. People with passion, vision, and skills are needed (analysis, planning, project management, operational and social processes/skills related to change management, such as communication, collaboration, etc.) The path from marketing to excellence must be facilitated. There will undoubtedly be setbacks, so team members need to be creative and dedicated.
Develop an organizational structure and a process structure. It is important to determine who will lead CoE marketing, how your CoE will be conducted, and what the individual roles of the team members will be. Define and document the processes related to the operation of the CoE.
Why invest in launching a Marketing Excellence Center?
Starting a CoE marketing, or a CoE before it, requires energy, resources, and time. Why are you doing this? Because it can provide a platform for coordination, quality improvement, and cost reduction, improving differentiation in the market, and increasing turnover and customer satisfaction.
The Centers of Excellence have proven their worth for more than five years. It is no longer just good to have, but also mandatory for companies that want to remain competitive.
From an objective point of view, this company will not be involved in obstacles that, although real, can be overcome. Your external consultant must also be able to serve as a coach to the team and transfer knowledge so that they can successfully maintain and improve the CoE over time.