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I’ve been invited to one of my favorite places –Swagelok, to prepare and deliver an overview on the B-to-B uses of Social Media…
Luckily, I have a lot of great content from our March 2010 ISBM Members Meeting to share on the subject, and have put together a basic “primer” for them — hope it’s not too basic.
If anyone elese has seen a good one of theseor would like to see this one –please email me at roliva@psu.edu.
Folks:
Well, it’s been a while — very busy summer, in the fall is now underway, with the students back on campus!
And with the arrival of the students, will be shifting the ISBM blog away from only personal posts from ralpholiva, to include posts from my students, with the same commitment to ISBM members.
This will be a forum where we have a chance to discuss items of interest in business-to-business, we’ll be able to post questions, create dialogue, and hopefully get some answers as well.
We’re currently exploring the opportunity to connect to the GE network, which will enable us to bring a broad variety of additional content our knowledge community.
So all be communicating with all of you soon to “stay tuned”. This channel is been silent for a while, and we hope over the next few weeks to begin broadcasting a more regular basis.
All the best,
Ralph
Getting back into Blog – drive time
Well folks: I had abandoned this blog for a while – a very busy first half of 2010.
But it dawned on me, that I have an awful lot of “windshield time” ahead of me in the second half of 2010, so I’ve decided to dedicate some of this windshield time to the blog.
What’s new in B-to-B?
Lots going on in business-to-business right now.
The chief marketing officers of ISBM including those at GE, Kennametal, Parker Hannifin, Dresser, and others, are working together to forge a maturity model moving toward the “gold standard” of business marketing. As of now, these folks are sharing this work among themselves, but it promises to help us with a blueprint for what excellence in our practice — especially looking forward to this new “new normal” decade” should be of great interest.
Social Media and B-to-B — lots of buzz going on now about Social Media and B-to-B but it seems to me that reflecting on our Members Meeting it boils down to a few key principles:
A bunch of real insight on this is coming from Rick Short at Indium, who seems way ahead of all of us in terms of experimentation. Beyond that, there are insights from Cisco, and DuPont, who have a variety of experiments underway.
Marketing Sales Interface
This tricky place continues to be an ongoing conundrum. For some firms this seems to work really well — they have a well-defined demand generation process, with frameworks for thinking through how to resolve issues, and have marketing genuinely be a lever for a more efficient and effective sales force.
For others, it remains a war zone — or worse than that an area of complete and utter disregard of one for the other.
The next ISBM Members Meeting coming up September 15 and 16, we endeavor to shed light on this area. We are genuinely blessed to have Mr. Marketing — Dr. Philip Kotler of Kellogg and The “Professor of Professional Selling”, Mr. Neil Rackham, together on the agenda to kick off the proceedings. Cases, research, more — we hope to dig into this area and shed some real light for ISBM members.
BMA Meeting – engage
Before that, business marketers have a chance to listen and learn at the upcoming BMA conference, June 2-4 in Chicago. This promises to be an excellent conference. Gary Slack and his team have done a tremendous job of presenting a first rate slot of speakers, with plenty of ways to “engage” across the practice.
Keeping things going.
I’ve discover that as I’ve tried to service this blog that although the media is really quite inexpensive, it takes the thing I have the least — time.
So… as we move forward, I’m going to be gathering sources from many other areas, and stop having me be the gating item on his blog. I’ll have my students, speakers, researchers, and others on as “guest bloggers”, so I invite you to tune back into this blog and see if you can jump on in, add value, post questions, and revitalize things.
Sorry for the long pause.
Ralph Oliva
Tweets coming:
Ralph Oliva has rejuvenated his blog, and is working on a process to keep it going. Tune in at http://isbm.peachnewmedia.com
Great new article from Jim Anderson in MIT Sloan Management Review on Pricing
Keep tuned in to ISBM Knowledge Community for fresh content – coming your way via the ISBM “MBA on call” program.
As the new year/new decade gets underway it would seem as if things are looking better. Across Member firms the buying/ M&A frenzy seems to be dying down a bit and the integration process is moving forward. For many we’re hearing that the worst seems to be over and that things are flat ( now a real achievement) to up a bit (in today’s world amazing).
At ISBM we’re looking forward to:
Our New Offering realization Consotium Meeting February 11 at Kellogg — see :
http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/professional-development/isbm-new-offering-realization-consortium
and our Members Meeting on Social Medai and B-to-B coming up March 2-3, see:
http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/professional-development/isbm-winter-members-meeting
The ISBM Trends 2012 study is just out of the field –be looking for results soon!
Keep on pulling for the economy — and spenmt a moment today reflecting on the many Contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King…
Well it’s been busy fourth-quarter here in happy Valley, and it’s time for me to get back into the blogosphere, and reflect on some of the trends we’re seeing in our practice, as well as some interesting new insights.
We’re at work right now finalizing the ISBM “trends 2012″ study, which is pointing to some very interesting ideas on challenges will face and capabilities we will need to build as we move on into a new decade. First results indicate that the primary thing we as business marketers must focus on is redirecting our role to be seen clearly as the drivers of organic growth: spotting opportunities, assessing them, and bringing them to our firm aggressively. And tying the results of our marketing efforts and emphatically to cash flow and asset value – in language that our CFOs and CEO’s understand, and appreciate.
Just finished reviewing a very interesting paper from researchers here at Penn State on “Referral Equity and Referral Management: The Supplier Firms Perspective.” Some powerful insights on the whole business of referrals, their impact, the equity they create, and how to better mobilize them. I can’t help but triangulate the research results with the unfolding of social media and all things “Web 2.0″.
And speaking of Web 2.0, we have been hard at work to setting up the next ISBM members meeting — coming up March 2 – 3 2010 in Houston. We’ve been very fortunate who’s accepted our invitation to speak, and reflect on the whole business of “Social Media and B-to-B: What’s Working , What Isn’t, And What’s Next.”
Finally, in all candor to all my friends out there, I’m looking for this year to wind down. It’s been a busy year, not without a lot of waves in the water, but all in all most of us made it through okay. Anyone choosing to read this, my very best wishes for a peaceful, restful, and healthy holiday season and a happy and prosperous new year.
Hello!
Been a while since I’ve updated of the blog — lots going on in business-to-business.
First of all, Gary Slack has shared with me some very exciting stuff about the relaunch of Xiameter. What a great job he and his team have done, and xiameter still seems to be setting the way on alternative channels to market.
Recently attended a great session at the Gallup organization on customer engagement — and the importance of customer engagement as we move forward into “the new normal” coming our way is 2010 unfolds.
Also had the chance to intend a great symposium on energy sustainability and water sustainability at CSIS in Washington, DC. A panel of very prestigious speakers. Unfortunately they presented a future that is sort of dismal — it still seems as if most of our power will be coming from coal as we move on in the near future, primarily because we continue to apply ancient technologies toward the problem.
My own view is that only a tiny fraction of what’s needed is being spent on research to create possible new sources of energy. It seems as if were throwing spitballs at a huge problem.
Meanwhile getting ready for class tomorrow — starting up on strategic brand management, and essentially finishing my experiment (which sort of failed) having MBA students work together with undergrads on campaign planning. This didn’t seem to work out at all, and by mutual agreement will probably have a parting of the ways on this.
We’ll try to get into the groove on getting back into the blog as we move toward our “grand opening.”
Just finished laughing out loud, and smiling at the imagination in this B-to-B campaign from EMA –sent to my by the grand B-to-B master John Favalo:
Don’t miss seeing this.
Hello Piasano,
Happy days in Happy Valley, especially after you kicked the butts off my Orangemen. Regardless of that transgression, I hope you and ISBM are very well. I’m working hard up here in CNY. And speaking of working hard…
I don’t often send around EMA stuff, but this: Charlotte Pipe goes to dogs :: BtoB Magazine is too neat to not. It’s not only an example of how to leverage an industry issue, in this case sub-standard, offshore knockoff products, but it’s also exemplary of how to differentiate and build interest in a commodity product – what could be more of a commodity than plumber’s pipe! Even if you don’t read the case study, click on the video – it’s a hoot and I thought you’d get a kick out of seeing it.
The video started off viral and is backed up by print, online, social posts and telephone. It never ceases to draw chuckles from people who see it – great for building connections. More importantly, 40% of viewers go to Charlotte Pipe’s website – great for building conversations and business. Lots of people ask me to explain “Talk Human”…in the future maybe I’ll just run this.
Best,
Lots of action this week, both in class and outside of class together with member firms. I believe that firms are starting to get serious about investing in giving their employees the sharpest tools for navigating not only does downturn — but the upturn that will follow. We’ll see…
Some quotable quotes from Gary Lilien from our B2B marketing class.
One he attributed to Mohan Sawhney particularly struck me:
”If you divisions are named for your technologies, it’s hard to be market oriented…”
Interesting how we see this issue unfolding across member firms, as one reorganization after another is driven by the current economy.
”Don’t let a good crisis go to waste…”
Quite a few ISBM member firms are putting that into action.
“Segmentation is an investment, whose return is higher efficiency, greater marketing effectiveness, lower marketing costs, better prices. It’s finding the right customers for your firm — and focusing on them…”
“Never name your segments. They become “pets”. You’ll fall in love with them, and won’t be able to kill or abandon them when you need to…”
Interesting food for thought.
Interesting to watch the VMA awards and see how much time they spend on the tweet stream — a way for people to particiapte as well as critique and vote at the same time. Could change event marketing in some interesting ways.
Guest Blog – My Top Ten Small Business Predictions for 2011 & Marine Parasites
Here’s a guest blog from ISBM Member Peter Auditore of SAP on our March Members meeting in Dallas. Peter shares his insights on customer behavior and SME trends, as well as his usual fish story from his days as a marine biologist. You can follow Peter’s blog at: http://marketinginfluence.typepad.com/ or contact him at: peter.auditore@sap.com
Two years ago I blogged about a new type of customer emerging from the economic storm, the lean consumer, and now they have arrived. According to Gallup research, this is the year of what they are calling “the new normal.” What this means is that small business customers have changed dramatically from the free spending credit friendly consumer of 2007, to a new frugal cost conscious schizophrenic customer that expects more value from products and services, but on the other hand are also likely to accept less in product and services value if they can spend less. The global economic restructuring has sent financial shock waves that have fundamentally changed consumer and small business owner behavior.
I attended this year’s Penn State University’s Institute for Study of Business Markets’ (ISBM) meeting in Irving Texas March 1, 2011 and at the beginning of the meeting Gallup presented the following insights from their polls and research:
Deliotte Consulting also presented some research findings that supported the Gallup findings and focused on B2B manufacturing companies. Although they had a small sample size, their recommendations were to focus on only those services that some customers value and know who those customers are, and what services they value. Sell solutions not services. Business velocity will get faster and faster over the next five years as the global economic restructuring continues to march ahead, other Insights related to manufacturing companies included:
My Top Ten Predictions for Small Business in 2011
Net/Net
What this means for small business is that you need to know your customers now better than ever especially your most loyal customers, and enhance their loyalty by delivering value during the course of the customer experience with you. Deliver value that they want and need, not what you think they need. More importantly look closely at how you differentiate your products and services in the market you compete in, and how you might enhance your brand through product innovation and/or partnership.
For example if you are running a sun tanning salon, you can enhance your customer’s experience by providing great creams and lotions for tanning and offer insights into their origins on your Facebook page. What you don’t want to do in the new economy is increase prices around specific holidays and take advantage of customers. We have a flower shop here where I live that sold roses for as low as $5 during the recession, now they are up to $8 and when Valentine’s Day hit they went to $10. Want my business, respect me. And if you are not a social business you are out of business.
Marine Parasites
Welcome to the “Personality of Fish” section of my blog, last year we covered everything from sharks, to marine micro fauna and hurricanes. For those of you who are new to this blog I spent ten years as a marine scientist and I share experiences at sea. I thought I would start out this year with a discussion on parasites, which is actually a form of symbiosis, not all symbiosis is good. I had the pleasure of participating on a twenty two day parasitology cruise back in the 1980’s along the eastern seaboard of the US. Our objective, drag Yankee otter trawls and catch everything and examine all species of fish, crabs, lobsters, snails etc, for parasites of all types.
All I can remember about this cruise was the unbelievable diversity of parasites, worms, lice, and everything imaginable living everywhere. They were everywhere, on the skin, in the liver, in the gills of fish, in the mouth, it was just incredible. It seemed like every where we looked we found some kind of parasite sharing the hosts body. Most parasites don’t kill the host and some like the famous Remora that live on the outside of large predators like the shark above. We found more parasites in some of the larger fishes such as whale cod which are very rare now and the Cobia found off of the southeastern states was often full of seething masses of worms.
The good news for us sushi eaters is that most marine parasites and their eggs (ova) can’t live in a human body and usually quickly die. There is one parasite that is not often found in sushi, called the hick up worm, it can live in the throat for a day but you eventually spit it out. The good news is that sushi has higher inspection standards than any food in the world. This was a long hot cruise that entered the Gulf Stream’s steamy 80 degree water and at night I would often sleep on a hammock slung because it was just too hot below decks. I hope you have enjoyed another tale of the marine biologist at sea and I wish you great selling and marketing in the millennium.