Marketing Operation - Revolution in the corporate landscape

There's a quiet revolution going on in the corporate enterprise arena. It's not on the forefront of new technological discoveries, nor the high rolling adrenalin-spilling merger/acquistion/IPO investment side of business. It's the re-alignment of all business units and personnel with the vision and mission of the company. Under the banner of Marketing Operations, businesses pain-stakingly realizing that the basic fundamentals of business, that of providing goods and services to customers is a customer-centric value proposition, is and should aways be the driving force for the sustainability of any business.

Marketing is no longer just the traditional "promotional barrage" of drowning the market with potent messages. It is all about building a dialog between buyers and sellers, resulting in a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship. On the surface, nothing revolutionary. But under the leadership of visionary Chief Marketing Officers and champions of Marketing Operations, marketing is gaining new respect from the top of the ladder through the rank and file.

"Marketing owns the voice of the customer." In today's business world, listening to the customer and responding immediately is key to building customer loyalty and retention. And the underlying mechanism that makes that happen is, of course, the Internet. Millions upon millions of dollars are going into the technological infrastructure that enables marketing ops to gain insight into customer's buying habits and thought processes. It enables customers to voice their opinion and actually "get heard". The internet enables meaningful metrics to be applied to promotional campaigns to measure performance. It also allows for data flow upstream and downstream so management can see front line customer interactions and respond to issues and opportunities quickly.

Where does this leave small business who don't have the budgets and the resources that global enterprise companies have?

The same business and marketing issues and challenges apply to the small and midsized companies as well. As technology advances and the costs go down, the tools of the trade will trickle down to the smaller organizations and businesses. But it's the people who understand the mission of Marketing Operations that will re-engineer the buyer/seller relationship to a more interactive dialog proposition.

Gary Katz, of Marketing Operations Partners, is a champion of this quiet revolution. After years of consulting and presenting workshops across the country and in Asia, Gary recently launched the very first marketing operations course in the country. Through the University of Santa Cruz Extension, Gary's mission is to re-educate and elevate the ranks of marketing professional and give them new tools and methodologies to empower a company's marketing efforts. I had the pleasure and honor to be a part of this inaugural course. Gary is a wealth of knowledge and a visionary in his own right. His enthusiasm in the subject matter is infectious. This revolution in the marketing operations arena may not make headlines anytime yet. But Gary is determined to make a difference... one class at a time.

For more info, goto mopartners.com