Many years ago … a few years after graduating from college, I called a college marketing professor whom I thought the world of and asked him for some advice as I was in the “messy middle” of training and middle management as I was developing my career. I explained to him that the company I was working for just seemed to sell cheap products and pushed and pushed the sales department ruthlessly. And that I always thought I would be with a company that would be the “gold standard” of the industry. He wisely took the opportunity to remind me of some case studies in the marketing textbooks about the difference between a company that is marketing driven versus a company that is market driven. And I have recalled his sage advice often over my career … here’s what he shared, paraphrased:
Marketing Driven
A company that gives the marketing department a lot to say about the way you make products or has a lot of influence on your policies is a marketing driven company. Which means the “marketing” person has power and authority in how a company is run?
He also noted that you could have a sales driven company in which the sales person and the sales department drives things with the focus always being on what their buyers want and how to get it for them, usually at the lowest price.
Market Driven
Then he reminded me that in a market driven company they are going to by-pass the marketing department and focus instead on where the market is going … where the market is and where we think it will be in three years, five years, etc.
Real Life Example
Let’s take this opportunity to use some hindsight to point out two companies that took distinctly different paths.
Going back twelve years ago (2002) look at the difference between Dell and Apple. Dell computer was driven by production and sales. The sales department dictated everything they would do to make the phone ring and to generate sales. And their production department dictated how they needed to make everything cheaper in order to be the most competitive in the market. At Apple computer neither sales or production or price drove any of the decisions they made. And basically that is why the two companies reversed positions over the last twelve years, because one company (Apple) was driven by one thing … how do we lead the market? And the other company (Dell) was driven by the sales department and how do we cut cost and generate sales?
Is your company marketing driven or market driven?
© Phil Hoffman 2012. All rights reserved
I Am Phil Hoffman 