​THE MARKETING CATCH-22 DILEMMA

Nearly half (48 percent) of U.S. consumers would use ‘smart-reordering’ services where intelligent sensors in the home pre-empt when a product, such as laundry detergent, is running low and automatically re-orders it on their behalf. Another 36 percent use digital assistants. While the vast majority (89 percent) are satisfied with the experience, 40 percent say it can feel slightly creepy when technology starts to correctly interpret and anticipate their needs.

Hyper-relevance is the next wave of growth for companies operating in consumer industries, but it cannot be achieved without engendering digital trust. To pivot to hyper-relevance, companies should consider:

• Giving customers full control over their data – As consumers demand greater control over how companies use their personal information, organizations must become more transparent. Customers must be given full access to, and control over, their data which will demonstrate responsible stewardship and ethics. Furthermore, they must ensure the appropriate safeguards are in place to protect it.
• Creating new customer value – Companies that distinguish themselves with hyper-relevant experiences look beyond the traditional customer journey. They prioritize areas where they can dynamically deliver something that customers value, at the right moment every time.
• Investing in precise insights – Hyper-relevant companies invest in predictive analytics, collaborate with an ecosystem of partners to capture real-time customer insight, and mine data in new ways to understand their specific needs.

The B2B selling space is increasingly complex sales process, and changing buyer expectations present new challenges for B2B sales teams. In order to remain competitive and hit revenue goals, it is imperative that sales teams understands the shifting landscape, the factors that influence buyer behavior, and steps they can take to more effectively sell to the 21st-century B2B buyer. Let's start with the five factors that influence the B2B buyer behavior.

1. The Availability of Information
2. Skeptical Prospects
3.  Hyper-Connected, Socially-Influenced Customers
4. Buyer Confidence and Risk Cognizance
5. New Decision-Making Process

 
To see continued success, sales reps must adapt to better serve the needs of the modern buyer by understanding buyer personas, adding value to the conversation, and engaging buyers early on in the purchase process with relevant content. Learn more about these five factors at the Salesforce blog.

CAN IT BE BUILT VS SHOULD IT BE BUILT
Many established businesses spend several months building and perfecting new products in their pipeline without ever showing the product or its early prototype to prospective customers. When the products are eventually launched they fail to attract interest from the market. Upon post-mortem (pun-intended), it is often discovered that the market feedback was never incorporated while developing the product. 

YOU CAN’T PREDICT THE FUTURE
Most businesses operate in an ever-changing environment. Thus, investing time and effort on formulating detailed business plans with uncontrollable assumptions would not be the most efficient use of company resources. Unless building a spaceship to transport critical payload, established businesses should take a cue from lean start-ups who do not rely on a step-by-step plan. Instead, they formulate a milestone-based plan and adopt hypothesis driven experimentation and validated learnings for course correction until they reach those business milestones.

DON’T COLLECT DATA FOR THE SAKE OF COLLECTING DATA
We have all been guilty of this one. Spending hours gathering data from multiple sources and creating reports to share with our team – simply because that’s what everyone else does. However, if the data does not accurately reflect the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the business then the resulting intelligence may be meaningless and waste of company resources. For example, analyzing total impressions of company social media profiles may not be as critical as analyzing number of product demonstrations performed by sales associate against actual sales.

STEP OUTSIDE THE CUBE - TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
Even after investing resources on data collection, analysis and jaw-dropping dashboards - you still need to meet with customers to understand them and their pain points. Following up after customer complaints can not only reduce attrition rates, but can also be a source for product and process improvement. For example, your customers may share insights about new ways of using the product that the engineers may have overlooked. No matter how large or successful your company may be, it exists because of your customers.

FURTHER READING
Many books and best-practices have been professed about value-creating & waste eliminating lean management techniques that can be deployed at an organization, department and even at the product level. My thoughts in this article were influenced by the production philosophy pioneered by Taiichi Ohno, considered as the father of the Toyota’s lean production system, Eric Ries, consultant and author of The Lean Startup, and James Womack, management expert and co-author of Lean Thinking.

Feel free to share your experiences and other best practices with me (and others) by posting your comments.

I had observed that some of the industries I had previously worked, have had a high turnover rate resulting in a constant  influx of new team mates entering and exiting different phases of the projects. With these high-knowledge professionals transitioning the Organizational Intelligence (OI) acquired during the projects/operational activities is lost with their departure. However, most businesses do not have a planned knowledge transfer process resulting in a loss of OI.  

This makes me ponder - how should businesses prepare for these unplanned exits?  I read this article that shares a few great ideas to retain OI. For more details check it out: http://linkd.in/1xS8AAS

The history of the word “entrepreneurship” is fascinating and scholars have indeed parsed its meaning. I will spare you the results, and instead share the definition formulated by Professor Howard Stevenson, i.e. the godfather of entrepreneurship studies at  Harvard Business School. He says, "...Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled..." - Read this on a thought provoking article by Harvard Business Review. For full details check out:  http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/01/what-is-entrepreneurship/

Read this interesting article on Forbes the other day by Peter Drucker, who is considered by many as the father of business consulting and it made me ponder. Peter made a profound observation, " ...because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business...”  
Quite an interesting article. Check it out here: http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/30/jack-trout-on-marketing-cx_jt_0703drucker.html 

One of the critical skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur is the ability to talk about the product in an effective and engaging manner. I have been there myself and learnt a lot through my mistakes. So, here are a few pointers to keep in mind for your next big presentation: