Got your digital agencies, putting some
training in place, playing around with Facebook & Twitter. Think that’s
enough. The short answer for most global 2000 companies today is no, it’s
nowhere near enough.
Companies are facing a major shortfall in
their marketing capabilities that, without redress now, could cost them
hundreds or billions of dollars of lost sales to better prepared competitors.
In a market place characterized by
fragmenting audiences, rapid technology innovation and empowered digital
consumers, the majority of marketing organizations have a fundamental shortfall
in appropriate digital skills & competencies. They’re also ill equipped to
track and respond to changing market conditions. Creating a marketing strategy
was once an annual occurrence. Today, companies must constantly reassess and
refine their strategy in response to changing market conditions. To
achieve this ‘marketing agility’, brands will have to think beyond their
traditional agency relationships, investing in trusted resources that can
highlight market changes.
If the current rumblings of discontent with
marketing agencies are any measure of the future, brands are increasingly
looking to lower their agency dependence by introducing alternative sources of
ideas and innovation.
Launching social media pilots, shifting
spend from traditional to digital marketing and seeking out better digital
marketing agencies are all important activities for success. But brands that
fail to address fundamental issues around internal marketing capabilities risk
losing out to competitors better equipped to grab digital sales.
