Is your industrial marketing effort so 2010?

Studies have shown that the first step to organizational change is for everyone to feel a sense of urgency that compels a desire to change. But now that we've all completed this first step, we might ask the leaders of government and industry whether they are skipping the next step that would lead to positive change. That step would seem to include an evaluation of why an organization does the things it does, were it guided by a more clear understanding of the organization's overall reason for being.

Such insight would be useful to our government, were its leaders to find out why it sent stimulus checks totaling $22.3 million to more than 17,000 prison inmates and almost 72,000 dead people.

As to why any organization, whether our government or an industrial manufacturer, would continue to overlook such counterproductive behavior, you can bet it has to do with "how we do things here" and the time-honored practice of employee self-preservation in lieu of genuine public/customer commitment.

This is the same problem for many industrial manufacturing companies whose leaders are challenged to understand why marketing and "marcom" continue to be a cost center, and why sales and marketing continue to act like they are divorced but still living together.

And yet, the root cause of these industrial marketing misbehaviors should be understood by now. They're called the 4 Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. The 4P's have formed the framework for industrial marketing for decades, and here's why this practice has to stop: In order to grow, many American industrial manufacturers must realign themselves based on a deeper knowledge of company potential and customer need. This will not happen when "how we do things here" is based not on company cause or customer problems, but entirely on paying homage to the first P (product).

When the very culture of an organization is built around the company line card, it doesn't matter how "customer centric" the mission statement is hanging on the lobby wall.

jb
www.centrifuge-now.com