Marketing Resource Management Benchmark Report 2012

Content
Part 1: Topic Overview
Part 2: Reasons to Implement
Part 3: Value Drivers
Part 4: Challenges
Part 5: Performance Metrics
Part 6: Success Story
Part 7: Vendor Landscape
Sidebars
Survey Stats
Benchmark KPIs
Core Technologies
Gleanster Numbers
Vendor Quick Reference Guide
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terms of use.
Q2 2013
Gleansight
Marketing Resource Management (MRM) provides the administrative
backbone of day-to-day marketing operations. These systems were
originally deployed at very large enterprises, which needed to coordinate
the activities of hundreds of marketers in offices around the globe. More
recently, they have been adopted by smaller organizations to manage
projects across channels, to track expenses more precisely, and to take
greater control of marketing planning. The development of vendor-hosted
Software as a Service (SaaS) systems let marketers get the benefits of
MRM without running the systems on their own company servers. SaaS
systems are also easily shared with suppliers and channel partners.
Like any software, MRM is only successful when deployed properly. As a system
designed to help manage operations, MRM is especially dependent on its users
having well-defined processes, well-maintained data, and disciplined execution.
Companies that meet these conditions can expect to reap substantial improvements
in costs, speed, and accuracy. Beyond the immediate benefits of greater efficiency,
these organizations position themselves to run more effective marketing programs
because they can measure results more accurately and take advantage of new
business opportunities more quickly.
With this Gleansight benchmark report, marketers at all levels will learn how to
best take advantage of MRM’s potential. It reveals how successful marketers are
using MRM systems, what challenges they faced, and and how they’re maximizing
the value of their investment. Marketers who are just considering their first MRM
system will find guidance into setting realistic goals, anticipating roadblocks, and
measuring success. Marketers already using MRM will be able to compare their
own results with their peers while identifying areas of excellence and opportunities
for improvement. All marketers will gain a richer understanding of how MRM can
support their entire marketing operation, providing a foundation for future success.
Marketing Resource Management

Gleansight: Marketing Resource Management
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Companies purchase MRM systems to
improve the efficiency of their marketing
operations. Without MRM, marketing
departments use disconnected systems
and spreadsheets to build plans,
set budgets, track projects, manage
approvals, record costs, and store
content. This fragmentation has always
made it difficult for marketers to share
updated data and current marketing
materials, to track and coordinate
activities, and to standardize processes.
The problems
are magnified
as companies
market through
more channels,
create more
content for
different
segments,
react more quickly to
market changes, work with staff and
vendors in more locations, and face
tighter regulatory requirements. Faced
with these new burdens, marketing
operations risk catastrophic collapse –
or, almost as bad, a slow drowning in a
rising tide of errors and inefficiencies.
A centralized MRM system reduces
the marketing operations workload
by eliminating duplicate data entry,
enabling collaboration within the
marketing department and with outside
resources, providing superior tools
for project and content management,
maintaining an integrated framework
that relates high-level marketing plans
to specific campaigns and projects,
producing a marketing calendar,
reconciling budgets with actual
expenses, and making data accessible
for more sophisticated analysis. These
features allow a company to define
standardized processes for regular
marketing tasks, to
track compliance
with those
processes, and
ultimately to identify
and implement
improvements.
The increasing
popularity of MRM
reflects both the greater need for the
operating efficiency and the wider
availability of solutions. It is also part of
a broader wave of technology adoption
among marketers, who are upgrading
their systems for media buying, email
campaigns, social media, website
management, customer data, and
analytics. Today nearly every marketing
department can benefit from some
version of MRM functionality.
Survey Stats
The research findings featured in this
Gleansight benchmark report are
derived from the Q2 2011 Gleanster
survey Agile Business Intelligence.
• Total survey responses: 246
• Qualified survey responses: 213
• Company size: <$1M (6%); $1
- 10M (31%); $10-100M (34%);
$100M - $1B (25%); >$1B (6%)
• Geography: North America (83%);
Europe (12%); Other (5%)
• Industries: Consumer Goods
(12%); Retail (8%); Software
(10%); Entertainment (6%);
Manufacturing (6%); Financial
Services (5%); Non-Profit (4%)
• Job levels: C-level (7%); SVP/
VP (23%); Director (32%);
Manager & Staff (38%)
Sample survey respondents:
Director, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Vice President, Four Seasons Resort
Director, Macy’s
Manager, Bank of America
Director, BP
Manager, Hain Celestial Group
Manager, Bayer AG
Director, Limited Brands
Vice President, Ford
Part 1: Topic Overview
Marketing Resource Management software supports the marketing
operations of an organization. Primary functions include marketing planning
and budgeting, marketing project management, and marketing content
management, including approval workflows. Systems may also manage
some procurement, such as purchase of printed materials and of marketing
services, but media buying is generally done separately. Other components
of marketing execution are also excluded, including customer and prospect
databases, mailing list segmentation and campaigns, content creation,
and website management. Reporting and analysis are largely limited to
supporting the system’s main functions, including production reporting,
predictive modeling, and return on investment calculations might draw
on some MRM data but would be performed outside of the system.
Companies
purchase MRM
systems to improve
the efficiency of
their marketing
operations.
“

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* According to Top Performers, based on 213 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q1 2013 Gleanster survey on MRM
89%87%77%
Most
Compelling
Reasons to
Implement*
Improve compliance Manage brand consistency Standardize marketing
processes
** According to Everyone Else, shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers
72%**
Standardize repetitive marketing
processes. MRM systems provide
a structure for the processes they
manage, including planning, budgeting,
project management, and approval
workflows. This structure makes it
easy to track compliance with standard
procedures. Many MRM products go
further to include detailed task lists for
each project, which lay out the specific
process steps for users to follow. Users
can generally create templates that
contain standard lists for different types
of projects. These are extended with
specific details, such as dates and staff
members, when the project is created.
Manage brand consistency. The MRM
content repository makes it easier for
dispersed marketers to share the same
marketing materials. Most systems give
administrators extensive control over
which materials and which functions are
available to individual users. This allows
wide distribution of materials without
risking unauthorized changes. Some
MRM systems also have sophisticated
distributed marketing functions that
let channel partners, such as sales
agents and dealers, download selected
materials and make tightly controlled
modifications. These features may
automatically customize the materials
with the information such as the channel
partner’s address and product lines
handled.
Part 2: Reasons to Implement
The overarching reason to implement marketing resource management
is to improve the efficiency of marketing operations. But this general goal
encompasses many specific improvements, which different companies
will assign different weights. One common objective is cost reduction,
achieved by reducing the staff time required for specific tasks, by reductions
in errors and rework, and by better managed procurement spending.
Another key objective is standardization of marketing processes, which
ensures more reliable execution, less reliance on individual workarounds,
and compliance with regulatory requirements. A third set of goals relates
to the need for greater visibility into marketing operations, gained by
replacing stand-alone systems and private spreadsheets with a shared
central system. This provides marketing management with greater
control over operations and a clearer picture of results, helping them
allocate resources to the most effective programs and channels.
Benchmark KPIs
Gleanster uses 2-3 key performance
indicators (KPIs) to distinguish “Top
Performers” from all other companies
(“Everyone Else”) within a given data
set, thereby establishing a basis
for benchmarking best practices.
By definition, Top Performers are
comprised of the top quartile of
qualified survey respondents (QSRs).
The KPIs used for distinguishing
Top Performers focus on
performance metrics that speak
to year-over-year improvement in
relevant, measurable areas. Not
all KPIs are weighted equally.
The KPIs used for this Gleansight are:
• Year-over-year revenue growth
• Marketing ROI
• Average cycle time on
marketing execution
To learn more about Gleanster’s
research methodology,
please click here or email
research@gleanster.com.

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MRM Leadership
The key executive sponsor for
MRM is the Chief Marketing Officer,
since MRM affects nearly everyone
within marketing and relatively few
people outside. Support may also
be needed from leaders in Finance
and Information Technology groups,
who will assess the business case
and technology implications. After
approval, the CMO must continue
to support the project to ensure that
workers within marketing work to
ensure a successful deployment.
A strong senior leadership team is a
core differentiator for Top Performing
organizations. The biggest risk to the
investment is not the technology, but
people. Executive champions should
take a vested interest in ongoing
communication about the benefits,
goals, and decisions made during the
project rollout. Inevitably, there are
always a handful of resistant resources
who may require some strong-arm
encouragement before divesting
of legacy processes or systems.
Interestingly, the stakeholders and
executives who initially resist the most,
often become some of the biggest
advocates of MRM years down the line.
Improve compliance with regulatory
requirements. Content management
features of MRM systems include
several capabilities that support
compliance. The most important is
ability for workflow features to route
new materials to compliance officers
for review. Many systems also provide
mark-up features that let reviewers add
comments to clarify any issues they
uncover. In addition, the system may be
able to enforce constraints on content
use, such as limiting it to specific
geographic areas (i.e., states where a
product is authorized), customer groups
(such as people over age 18), or date
ranges.
Decrease marketing costs. MRM
systems help to reduce costs in many
ways. Because the entire marketing
department can work on the same
system, less labor is spent copying
data from one source to another and
in updating colleagues about program
status. Comprehensive budget vs.
actual reporting makes it easier to
spot unexpected costs and anticipate
overruns. A clearer view of marketing
results lets management shift spending
towards more effective programs, either
reducing the cost of achieving the same
target or gaining additional results for
the same budget. The MRM system
provides comprehensive, consistent
information on marketing program costs
and results. This can be converted into
return on investment figures, which
allow marketers to compare returns for
different programs and shift spending
to the most productive use. Other
considerations also impact optimization
decisions, such as the role played
by different programs (acquisition,
retention, etc.) and revenue targets by
product line. The MRM system can
classify programs along those lines,
helping marketers understand the net
impact of any budget shift.
Optimize multi-channel content
production. The MRM system may
store marketing materials that are either
created within the system or loaded
from other sources. Having this shared,
central repository makes it easier to
later modify the original content for
reuse across different channels. A
central repository also helps marketers
to ensure that all versions of an item
are updated or removed from use when
appropriate. Companies also benefit
from having a single set of workflow
features for content creation, approval,
and distribution.
Coordinate mult-channel program
development and execution.
Multi-channel programs often require
coordination among separate groups
within the marketing organization. MRM
planning and program management
features simplify this by letting everyone
work from shared, integrated task
lists and schedules. Similarly, content
management features help coordinate
content development by providing all
groups with a single tool for review and
approvals.
61%56%54%
Compelling
Reasons to
Implement*
Coordinate multi-channel
program execution
Optimize multi-channel
content production
Decrease marketing costs

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Improve marketing cycle time. MRM
systems speed marketing production
by eliminating duplicate effort, enabling
workers to access materials from a
shared repository, and automatically
managing the review and approval
processes. The system may also
provide efficient content creation tools,
automated localization (such as versions
in different languages), and tools to
streamline procurement. Improved
reporting also yields shorter cycle times
by letting marketers view and react to
program results more quickly.
Gain a holistic view of marketing
events and campaigns. Marketing
programs for different channels or
products are often executed in separate
systems. The planning and budgeting
features of the MRM system may be one
of the few places to unify information
from these different sources. This
provides a comprehensive view
of spending across channels and,
depending on the data feeds, may
extend to results such as responses
and revenues. This can form the basis
for return on investment analysis and
marketing budget optimization.
Streamline workflow with internal
stakeholders (Finance, Legal,
Operations, etc.) Workflow features
in the MRM system can extend
beyond the marketing department to
include other groups who are involved
in program creation and approvals.
This includes legal and compliance
departments for regulatory sign-off on
contents; finance for budget control
on programs; and operations for
coordination on execution. Building
these communications into the standard
workflows ensures these stakeholders
are included automatically and with a
minimum of additional effort.
Gain visibility into marketing
spend. The planning and budgeting
features of the MRM system provide
a standard, shared framework for
tracking marketing expenses. This
framework helps marketers relate
expenses to larger categories such
customer segment, product line, and
program purpose (acquisition, retention,
cross-sell, etc.) Reporting features
in the MRM system present this data
in different ways to meet the needs
of different users. Analytical features
allow deeper exploration of spending
trends and results. As programs are
managed within the MRM system, it
builds history of costs and results. This
data is already tagged with attributes
such as program type, channel, product,
and target segment. This makes it easy
for marketers to look for patterns in
past projects, such as consistent cost
overruns in a particular type of program
or department. It also gives them a
basis for estimating future costs by
looking at actual results of comparable
projects already completed.
50%48%45%
Less
Compelling
Reasons to
Implement*
Streamline workflow with
internal stakeholders
Gain a holistic view of
marketing campaigns
Improve marketing
cycle time
23%**

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Part 3: Value Drivers
Deployment of MRM requires training on the new system, changes to
business processes, and integration with other systems. The scope of
change can be huge: it may involve nearly every marketing employee and
process, plus workers in related departments, at suppliers, and at channel
partners. Technical implementation tends to be relatively straightforward,
especially in SaaS systems where there is no software to run in-house.
However, there may be significant data to load from existing systems, often
accompanied by format conversions and added tagging to make the data
useful in its new environment. The deployment effort must be managed
effectively for the system to deliver its full value. Success begins with
selection of a suitable system, continues with careful planning of the scope
and sequence of changes, and relies on training and incentives to ensure
the new system is used as intended. Management support, organizational
adjustments, and adequate investment in external resources are essential.
System ease of use. Most MRM
systems have many users, who bring
varying degrees of involvement in the
system and technical skill. A system
that occasional users can learn with
minimum of instruction is critical; so is
a system that heavy users can operate
quickly and easily once they are trained.
While these goals do not necessarily
conflict, they must still be assessed
separately during the selection process.
Assessment must also focus on the
specific capabilities the company plans
to use: many MRM systems have a
much broader array of features than
any single company would require.
Determining in advance which features
you need is essential to acquiring a
system that meets your particular
needs.
Phase the implementation. MRM
systems may touch every process in a
marketing organization, but changing
everything at once is a recipe for
disaster. Implementation phases should
be carefully chosen so the scope of
each step is limited and still lays a
foundation for future change. One
strategy is to start with a small number
of heavy users, who will be thoroughly
trained on the system and then deploy
a sequence of changes fairly quickly.
Changes that involve a large number
of casual users, such as approval
workflows, can be deferred until the
core system is running smoothly and the
92%70%67%
Most
Important
Value
Drivers*
Process re-engineering Phase the implementation System ease of use
48%**
45%**

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heavy users are familiar enough to help
others as question arise. This minimizes
the time they must spend straddling the
old and new processes. Success also
allows project stakeholders to champion
a small win and aligns stakeholders that
will be impacted in future phases.
Process re-engineering. Many
marketing organizations deploy MRM
specifically as a way to improve their
existing business processes. However,
process change is difficult and changing
all processes at once is almost
guaranteed to fail. Marketers must
carefully design their new processes to
ensure they will fit with the organization,
which often requires extensive
study and assistance from outside
experts. They must then implement
those processes no faster than the
organization can effectively absorb
them, typically phasing them so new
processes build on earlier changes.
Ongoing training and development.
Companies often invest heavily in
training when a system is first deployed,
but then fail to continue training after
the initial push. This can cause a steady
decline in system effectiveness, as
new users are not taught the correct
procedures or system shortcuts. Even
experienced employees should get
regular retraining both to learn about
new features and to learn advanced
techniques that were not covered
in the initial training. Continuous
training also helps to ensure that
standard procedures remain consistent
throughout the organization, instead of
fragmenting into variations developed
by local groups.
Executive level champions.
Employees are often reluctant to
change their existing processes,
especially if they seem to work well.
Management support is needed to
make clear that change is not optional.
Senior-level support is particularly
important for MRM processes that
cross organizational lines, since
department leaders may not be willing
66%62%54%
Important
Value
Drivers*
Establish a center of excellence
for marketing operations
Executive level
champions
Ongoing training and
development
12%**
45%38%38%
Less
Important
Value
Drivers*
Integrate data and activities
across multiple systems
Integrate with digital asset
management system
Engage third-party experts /
consultants
15%**

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to cooperate unless their common boss
tells them to. But, while champions are
important, they cannot substitute for
well-considered plans and effective
execution: project managers must
ensure that they are asking employees
to make changes that will ultimately
work.
Establish a center of excellence
for marketing operations. In a very
large organization, the potential scope
of MRM deployment may be so large
that even a phased approach is still too
difficult. These and other organizations
might establish a center of excellence
as an internal resource to help different
groups of marketers with their own local
deployments. The center of excellence
provides expertise similar to outside
resources, but more familiar with the
company’s internal processes, needs
and culture. The center of excellence
also helps to create consistency
throughout the marketing organization,
making cooperation easier as marketing
operations become more integrated
over time.
Engage third-party experts /
consultants. Outside resources can
provide specialized expertise the
organization lacks, such as process
re-engineering or user training, or may
simply offer an extra set of hands to
workers who cannot both deploy the
new system and complete the regular
work. Because effective planning and
good initial results are so critical to
long-term success, companies should
ensure they deploy adequate resources,
including outside experts as necessary.
However, terms of engagement should
ensure that the necessary skills are
transferred to company employees so
the outside experts do not become
a permanent cost. A typical MRM
rollout from implementation through
configuration and training can take a
year or more depending on the level
of process re-engineering required.
Consultants can bring field-tested best
practices to the table.
Integrate with digital asset
mangement system. Digital Asset
Management (DAM) systems are
a specialized type of software that
handles music, video, photographs,
animations, and other types of
non-textual data. These take special
features to manipulate, distribute,
tag, and archive that are typically not
provided by the content management
functions in a standard MRM.
Exceptions may be MRM systems
specifically designed to distribute brand
assets. Other MRM systems must
integrate their content management
features with specialized DAM.
Avoiding creation of duplicate marketing
materials by making existing materials
more visible and easier to share can
provide substantial value, especially
in large, dispersed organizations
where each group has been working
separately. However, these savings are
on theoretical unless the organization
changes its processes to ensure that
the expected reuse actually takes place.
Integrate data and activities across
multiple systems. MRM gains value
from integration with other systems,
such as accounting, customer
relationship management, or marketing
automation. This happens when
MRM is controlling activities in those
systems, such as content delivery or
program deployment, or when those
systems are feeding MRM with critical
information about costs and results.
Such integration may require a more
technically complex deployment
than a typical MRM implementation.
Companies with this requirement need
to examine integration capabilities very
closely during their system selection
process. As a general rule, it’s a good
idea to minimize highly customized
integration with other systems by
re-engineering processes instead of
technical customization. Excessive
customization demands long-term
dependence on technical resources and
can impede future software updates.

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Part 4: Challenges
MRM projects often face significant obstacles to success. Some are common
to all system projects, such as lack of funding or management support.
Others are related to the nature of MRM, which relies on adequate marketing
processes, willingness to share data across departments, and deep
employee engagement. Another set reflects today’s marketing environment,
where systems must deal with an ever-expanding array of marketing
methods and marketers must face ever-increasing demands to prove the
value of their investments. Meeting these challenges takes planning and
perseverance. Some can be prevented altogether by adequate preparation,
such as developing a clear business case with a sound return on investment
projection. Others, such as support from IT or senior management
support, are outside of marketing’s control but can be influenced by
marketing actions. Environmental factors such as organizational culture,
existing corporate systems, and regulatory constraints, must be factored
into project plans even though marketing cannot change them.
Employee engagement. MRM
deployment is often accompanied by
job changes and loss of autonomy for
marketing staff. The primary system
users, in marketing operations, may be
more enthusiastic than casual users
who face new demands to work with
the system but see no personal benefit.
Overcoming this challenge requires a
mix of sensitive process design, phased
deployment, careful training, internal
marketing, and management support.
Fragmented legacy systems.
Marketing processes that were designed
before MRM may use existing corporate
systems such as email, reporting, and
Web content management. A new MRM
system may not provide all the same
functions, meaning that a process draws
on both MRM and the legacy system
to execute. Such processes are often
redesigned during MRM deployment
to separate the systems. When this is
not possible, the systems may either be
integrated or run side-by-side with only
manual data transfers.
Growth in channels and devices.
Rapid changes in marketing channels
and methods are a constant in today’s
marketing organizations. While the
changes are a reason to adopt MRM,
adjusting to them also consumes time
85%83%72%
Most
Challenging
Aspects*
Growth in channels
and devices
Fragmented legacy
systems
Employee engagement
* According All Companies, based on 213 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q1 2013 Gleanster survey on MRM

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and funds that are needed to manage a
MRM project. Proving that MRM should
take priority depends in part on showing
that it will be able to support programs
in old, new, and future channels. This
makes it a solution rather than part
of the problem. Additionally, content
proliferation has increasingly become
a reason to implement MRM systems.
MRM can deliver a centralized hub
for routing multi-channel campaign
activities allowing organizations to
produce copy and creative that can
be re-used in multiple channels and
centrally managed in MRM.
Organizational culture. Specific
problems such as poor processes, lack
of cooperation, and low management
support are often part of the broader
organizational culture. Companies
that are generally disorganized and
fragmented will have an especially
difficult time adapting to the more
rigorous, integrated approach required
by MRM. Leaders in those organizations
should move carefully to deploy MRM
in small groups whose culture can be
adjusted over time, and bring to bear as
many external resources as possible
when changes involving large groups
are unavoidable.
Poor marketing processes. MRM
is built around marketing processes.
Companies that start with poor
processes must add the burden of
designing new ones to the other
steps in MRM deployment. Since
those companies probably lack strong
process design skills, they should
carefully consider bringing in external
resources to help. They should also pay
extra attention to training and process
compliance during deployment. For
Top Performers, success is dictated by
careful planning and process alignment
long before a system is configured.
Some Top Performers indicated they
spent twice as much time documenting
and optimizing processes as they did
actually configuring these processes.
Remember, garbage in and garbage
out. If you rush the implementation and
implement sub-par processes in a new
system it amplifies and streamlines
mediocre results.
Adequate systems and technology.
Organizations with specialized
requirements may not be able to use
a commercial MRM system, but most
companies will find several existing
MRM systems that meet their needs.
Even special requirements can often
be accommodated through standard
interfaces (APIs) that integrate MRM
functions with external systems.
Marketers are more likely to face
challenges with their existing systems,
which may not be designed for easy
integration with MRM or anything
else. This problem can usually be
solved in some way, such as batch
file transfers, which is not perfect but
will suffice. As previously mentioned,
some customization will be inevitable
as each company has unique needs,
but if you are finding MRM tools
must be excessively customized it’s
better to re-think existing processes,
organizational structure, and legacy
systems. Excessive customization is
costly and demands long-term support
from vendors or implementation
70%67%46%
Challenging
Aspects*
Systems and technology Poor marketing processes Organizational culture

terms of use.
11
partners. Customization can also render
common features unusable. It’s best to
weigh the decision to customize MRM
by a real business case with a stated
justification.
Lack of IT support. Many MRM
systems are offered as a vendor-hosted
service, minimizing the IT effort required
for deployment. But, even in those
situations, the IT department may be
involved in project assessment and
vendor selection. IT assistance may
also be needed to integrate MRM with
other corporate systems, to manage
access across company firewalls, and
to ensure compliance with corporate
security policies. If internal IT resources
are not available, most MRM vendors
have service teams that can handle
much of the process. In these situations
it’s critical to document the data
governance decisions that were made
to protect the investment at a later
time. More often than not, when IT isn’t
involved initially, they soon find out the
project has a massive impact on the
organization and can slow the rollout
process. Nine out of ten Top Performers
engage IT stakeholders on the project
committee once the business case has
been created and the project gets a
green light.
Regulatory constraints. Government
regulations may specify that data is
treated in particular ways to ensure
privacy or create an audit trail. The
MRM system may play a key role in
meeting these requirements. If so, the
necessary capabilities will be part of
the selection criteria. Compliance will
also be part of deployment planning,
process design, configuration, and user
training. Meeting regulatory standards
can consume a large portion of the
implementation budget.
Lack of funding. MRM competes
for funding with other projects within
marketing, even as marketing competes
for funding with other departments. The
cost of MRM is generally significant but
not overwhelming, so whether it gets
funded is largely a matter of whether
it seems like a better investment
than alternative projects. The out
of pocket cost is often reduced by
using SaaS systems that are bought
through a relatively low-cost monthly
subscription rather than a single, large
license purchase. In some cases, the
SaaS payment can be funded out
of operational budgets, avoiding the
need for a formal capital appropriation.
Marketers should also consider the
added staff time and outside services
required for a successful deployment,
and plan to fund these as well. MRM
can usually be justified in terms of
cost savings. However, developing
specific, creditable estimates can
be hard, especially in organizations
that lack strong marketing operations
discipline. Marketers in this situation
can sometimes identify enough savings
to pay for the system by focusing on
particular benefits – such as reduced
revisions or greater materials reuse.
39%29%26%
Less
Challenging
Aspects*
Lack of funding Regulatory constraints Lack of IT support

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Part 5: Performance Metrics
Since the goal of MRM is greater operating efficiency, the most important
performance metrics are efficiency measures. But efficiency can be
measured at many levels, from return on marketing investment to cost per
standard task to marketing spend per staff member. Metrics for MRM should
report results that MRM affects directly, not those primarily determined by
other factors. Ideally, the metrics would also show where MRM is working
well and where it can be improved. No single metric can accomplish these
aims, but marketers can easily look at several. Another set of metrics
captures the accuracy of operational data, such as variance between actual
and budgeted costs and between planned and actual schedules. Although
not directly related to marketing efficiency, these are key factors in assessing
the performance of the operations group. Metrics can also report on use
of the MRM system itself. This includes the number of active users and
the percentage of projects or budget managed within the system. These
can help managers identify groups of users who have not fully adopted the
system and to find tasks where the system has not been working effectively.
Number of active users on the
system. Because MRM is a marketing-
wide system, the number of active users
is an important measure of adoption. It
does not directly measure the benefits
of the system, however. Annual revenue
growth: Revenue is the most basic
measure of business performance,
but it can rarely be attributed directly
to a MRM system. There may be
exceptions where MRM supports a key
function, such as distributing advertising
materials or supporting a specific media
channel. Even then, factors other than
the system itself are more likely to drive
results.
ROI on marketing spend. Return on
marketing spend is properly measured
using the incremental revenue or profit
created by marketing expenses. In
practice, it is often difficult to determine
how much incremental revenue can
be attributed directly to marketing.
The portion of this due specifically to
MRM is still harder to estimate. MRM
should give marketers better visibility
78%67%57%
Most
Common
Metrics*
ROI on marketing spend Annual revenue growth Number of active users on
the system

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13
into actual expenses, thereby helping to
predict future costs for similar projects.
Since better predictions are a primary
MRM benefit, prediction accuracy is an
important measure of system results.
Projects delivered on time / on
budget. The project management
features of MRM allow users to track
how well marketing projects meet their
schedules and budgets. Improved
management is a primary goal of MRM,
so this is a useful performance metric
for both the system and its users.
Marketing spend as percent of
revenue. The ratio of marketing spend
to total revenue is a general measure
of marketing effectiveness. Since MRM
is primarily a way to improve marketing
efficiency, benefits from MRM should be
reflected in a lower spend-to-revenue
ratio. However, as with revenue itself,
other factors are likely to have a greater
influence on results. Careful analysis
is needed to isolate the impact of MRM
itself.
Number of marketing assets
managed within the system. As
with other utilization metrics, number
of assets managed is not a direct
value measure. The growing number
of assets at most companies does
make it a useful measure of volume
and, combined with other data, of staff
productivity.
Cost per standard marketing task
(e.g. per email sent, per ad created,
etc.). MRM is intended to reduce the
cost of marketing tasks, so these are
appropriate measures. However, using
them requires detailed information about
activity volumes and costs, which are
not necessarily available. Companies
wishing to use these measures need to
ensure they have the appropriate data
capture processes in place.
55%48%36%
Common
Metrics*
Number of marketing assets
managed within system
Marketing spend as
percent of revenue
Projects delivered on
time / on budget
* According to Top Performers, based on 213 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q1 2013 Gleanster survey on MRM I
32%22%18%
Less
Common
Metrics*
Percentage of marketing
spend managed within
the system
Marketing spend per
marketing staff member
Cost per standard
marketing task
NUMBERS
83
Percentage of All
Companies that view the
existence of fragmented
legacy systems as a top
challenge with MRM
implementation
67
Percentage of Top Performers,
(compared to 45% of Everyone
Else), that regard process
reengineering as key to
maximizing the value of an
investment in an MRM solution
78
Percentage of companies
that track and measure
the number of active users
on the MRM system as
a performance metric
92
Percentage of Top
Performers that believe
that imaking the MRM
system easy to use is the
best way to maximize the
value of their investment
87
Percentage of Top Performers
Else) that cite the need to
manage brand consistency as
a reason to implement MRM
70
Percentage of Top Performers,
Else), that believe that their
organizations would benefit by
phasing MRM implementation

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14
Marketing spend per marketing staff
member. Staff productivity may be the
most important MRM benefit, and spend
per staff member is the most general
productivity metric. Trends may also be
affected by change in the media mix,
since some media are inherently more
labor intensive than others. If analysis
can control for these and other factors,
spend per staff member can be a critical
MRM metric.
Percentage of marketing spend
managed withing the system. Like
active users, percentage of spend is a
measure of system utilization that does
not directly measure benefits.

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Part 6: Success Stories
Established in 1825, Standard Life is a leading provider of long term savings
and investments to around ten million customers worldwide. Headquartered
in Edinburgh, Standard Life has around 8,500 employees internationally.
Standard Life is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has approximately
1.5 million individual shareholders in over 50 countries around the world.
The Challenge
Standard Life creates more than 1,500
different types of marketing pieces each
year and with 6,000 web pages across
400 different web sites. The company
faced major challenges in terms of
controlling such a large volume of output
and also in achieving consistency in
messaging.
Standard Life also faced the task of
having to update thematerials every
time there was a change to a product
(feature, price, tax rate, legislation etc.)
and subject them to a formal review
on a regular basis. This meant that in
reality, the marketing team was actually
working on a thousand or more pieces
of marketing communication every
quarter. Other challenges included the
fact that the company used of many
different marketing systems which were
inefficient, and had a heavy reliance on
manually operated systems and multi-
layered sign-off processes, resulting
was slow execution, increased spend
and greater risk of
human error.
Standard Life
needed a solution
that would
ensure marketing
compliance
through
improved control and
automation and would
also help reduce
costs by improving
efficiency through the
digitalization of marketing processes.
The Solution
Standard Life selected a leading
Marketing Resource Management
solution system that would integrate
with its other core systems. Key
components of the system included
a workflow manager, a marketing
calendar, a digital asset manager and
a collateral customizer. The solution
is designed to automate marketing
campaigns and it includes sophisticated
tracking and review capabilities.
The Results
The Marketing Resource Management
solution has enabled Standard Life
to make better use of its marketing
resources, increasing effectiveness
while reducing costly overruns
and project time consumption.
The marketing process has been
streamlined considerably with improved
automation resulting in significant time
and cost savings and greater accuracy
within and between documents.
The time taken to review and approve
marketing collateral has been reduced
by 80 percent.
The number
of documents
rejected
because of
inaccuracies has
been reduced
by 30 percent.
Standard Life
has been able to
create a unified,
consistent and
fully auditable
marketing process, making it easier
to train new members of staff, update
documents simultaneously and store
documents electronically.
“The marketing process
has been streamlined
considerably with
improved automation
resulting in significant time
and cost savings.
“

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16
Part 7: Vendor Landscape
MRM investments slowed over the last decade due to the economic
climate. Budget cuts placed greater emphasis on demand generation
and customer engagement, shifting expenditures towards initiatives
that directly accelerated top-line revenue growth. Many organizations
considered back-office efficiency of secondary concern amid tight
budgets. But the last two to three years have seen sharp increases in
marketing management initiatives that include investments in MRM. Manual
processes and legacy systems are reaching diminishing returns against
perpetual demand for more content in more channels. The underlying
value proposition of MRM is gaining significant attention as marketing
leaders wake up to the harsh reality of unsalable manual processes,
lack of visibility into marketing activities, and longer than average cycle
times on marketing execution. Looking to the future, organizations driven
by exceedingly high customer expectations and increased competition
for share of wallet are apt to embrace a roadmap that calls for investing
in infrastructure that supports a longer-term marketing success.
Traditional MRM systems – on-premise implementations offering
workflow, budgeting, digital asset management, and reporting – were
designed for large complex marketing functions. These systems provide
structure and scalability for aligning marketing objectives and execution
across many business units, functions, or product lines. About five
years ago, the industry saw significant consolidation. The largest MRM
players were acquired by industry leading organizations with the goal
of pulling them into a larger customer management solution stack.
Today, MRM capabilities are now available on-demand and are more
accessible to midsize organization that have a need for marketing
operations management capabilities. For midsize organizatons, seamless
integration between back-office activity and customer engagement is
critical. As a result, some MRM solution capabilities are blended into a
comprehensive solution that supports planning through physical multi-
channel execution. These on-demand solutions often lack the robust
features and security options of enterprise MRM solutions, but deliver
more than enough capabilities to align the marketing value chain.
Services have also become a major selling point for vendors who will
often include implementation services as part of the investment (a
potential point of negotiation) in the technology license. While solution
providers typically excel at configuring the technology, they may be
somewhat less exceptional when it comes to the non-technical aspects
of the implementation such as process re-engineering, organizational
alignment, phased implementations, and industry-specific best practices.
As a technology, MRM is an enabler of people and process. The speed of
deployment should be the least important component of the initiative. Do
it right or you will be doing it again. The most important best practice to
Vendor & Solution Showcases
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vendor and solution showcases for
this topic area, where you’ll find:
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Adnovate
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/adnovate
“Founded in early 2001, Adnovate is the largest
supplier of automated marketing communication
solutions in The Netherlands. The company
offers its clients an all-embracing package
of service and technology, enabling them to
gain optimum benefit from their marketing
communication efforts at much lower costs.
Working with advertising and media agencies on
a regular basis, Adnovate provides its services
to companies such as TomTom, Mitsubishi, Ford,
HEMA, Kia, Yamaha, Praxis, Hays, AEGON,
Valvoline, Manpower, Yacht, Philips, DAF and
PLUS Retail.”
Gleanster Skinny: Founded in 2002, adnovate
has established a good reputation in the MRM
space with a solid marketing solution that
boasts a particularly strong focus on enabling
multi-channel content management. Adnovate
supports both the on-demand, SaaS multi-tenant
model and the on-premise model. Perhaps the
only area where the solution is lacking compared
to other leading MRM solutions is in financial
management. In 2012. the company expanded
operations into a total of 6 countries and it now
reportedly serves a total of 9,000 customers.
Most of its clients are based in Europe.
Teradata Applications (formerly
Aprimo)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/aprimo
Teradata is a leading global provider of
marketing software and services that enhance
the productivity and performance of marketing
organizations. Teradata Marketing Operations
proves marketing works by connecting campaign
results with internal operations and spend.
With Teradata Applications marketers can
integrate their marketing execution, get control
of budget and spend, eliminate internal silos with
streamlined workflows, and execute innovative
multi-channel campaigns to drive measurable
return on investment. Hundreds of thousands
of marketers trust Aprimo to revolutionize their
marketing.”
Gleanster Skinny: Aprimo is widely regarded
as the most robust MRM solution on the
market, as evidenced by a client roster that
includes a who’s who of Fortune 500 and large
enterprise customers. In early 2011, Aprimo
was acquired by Teradata, a provider of data
warehousing and business analytics solutions.
The company re-branded Aprimo in 2013 to
Teradata Applicaionts: Marketing Operations.
The acquisition came as part of Teradata’s
stated strategy to leverage Aprimo’s marketing
management capabilities and expertise in
cloud and SaaS functionality. Aprimo MRM
Note: As with all Gleanster research
findings, vendor rankings on the
FLASH charts are determined by the
experiences of industry practitioners
and not by Gleanster’s own analyst
assessment or opinion. The omission
of a particular vendor name from one
or more of the FLASH charts may be
due to a lack of sufficient data about
that vendor and may be no indication
of its performance relative to other
solution providers. Using a 1-5 point
rating scale, survey respondents are
asked to assess the solution provider(s)
they are currently using, or have had
the experience of using within the past
two (2) years, across four (4) different
dimensions: Ease of Deployment, Ease
of Use, Features and Functionality, and
Overall Value. To qualify for possible
inclusion on one or more FLASH
charts, vendors with less than $10M
in annual revenue must be rated by a
minimum of five (5) qualified survey
responses and vendors with more than
$10M in annual revenue must be rated
by a minimum of eight (8) qualified
survey responses. A mean class
performance score is calculated for
each vendor. Top-scoring vendors are
then assigned to the FLASH charts on
a rank-order basis. Gleanster screens
all survey submissions that are used
as the basis for vendor rankings and
removes duplicate submissions from
the same client company (factoring
in only the highest scores). The final
rankings are not intended to provide
conclusive advice or recommendations
but to merely serve as a source of
directionally relevant data points. All
solution providers included in the
Vendor Landscape section are given
an opportunity to invite their customers
to participate in the survey at least six
(6) weeks in advance of publication.
Through no other means are solution
providers allowed to influence their
placement on these FLASH charts.
stress when evaluating MRM is to firmly understand your organization,
the processes, and exactly what you need the tool to support. Vendors
will answer all of your questions with “Yes, it can do that” or “We can
make it work.” Keep a list of prioritized benefits your organization needs
to accomplish to see value from the initiative and let vendors know how
you plan to measure success and hold the to this during the roll-out.
MRM systems are designed to provide structure and cadence to an
otherwise chaotic process. Marketing is part art and part science, and
many stakeholders will have a difficult time placing rigor around creative
process. Some users have even referred to MRM as the ERP of marketing.
While this is partly true, it’s important to reiterate the goals of the initiative
and drive organizational alignment across the company, long before turning
dials on configuration. Engage users, find out the source of their pain points
with respect to manual processes and aim to alleviate this pain within MRM.
A stubborn marketer may view MRM as more work, and that might be
true if they are unwilling to divest of legacy processes or systems. Change
management is critical when implementing MRM. Demonstrate why the
system is important, how it’s less risky, and communicate early (and often)
with all stakeholders – particularly in the technology selection process.

terms of use.
18
was primarily sold as an on-premise solution
until 2006 when Aprimo launched Marketing
Studio, a SaaS based marketing operations
platform for mid-to-large organizations over
$100M in revenue. Marketing Studio has been
gaining considerable traction, largely because
it provides a turnkey solution with a lower
risk profile than a full scale on-premise MRM
implementation. Aprimo’s Integrated Marketing
Management software suite, which includes an
MRM solution called Aprimo Marketing Studio,
allows marketers to integrate online and offline
channels, track budget and spend management,
streamline workflow and provides digital asset
management. The solution is offered on demand
or hosted on-premise or in a hybrid hosting
environment. Teradata’s emphasis on consulting
and getting the most long-term value out of its
solution ranks as a major client benefit. That
said, increasing pressure to meet revenue
targets after the acquisition is now resulting
in some implementations that have reportedly
fallen somewhat short of customer expectations.
Aprimo can be customized to meet the needs
of the most sophisticated marketing processes.
As a result, Aprimo MRM typically demands
expertise from consultants and systems
integrators that at times cost more than a license
Vendor & Solution Showcases
Visit the Marketing Resource
Management Topic Area on Gleanster
for free access to hundreds of vendor-
submitted white papers, success
stories, videos, presentations, solution
sheets and more along with updated
Gleanster analyst commentary.
Good
Best
Ease of Deployment
Better
Marketing Resource Management Solution Providers
Vendor ranking data is still being
calculated; charts will be updated soon
Ease of Deployment
Vendor Rankings FLASH chart © Gleanster, April 2013. Note: Vendor rankings are determined by the experiences of industry
practitioners, according to survey feedback, and not by the assessment or opinion of Gleanster analysts. The omission of a
particular vendor may be due to lack of sufficient data and may be no indication of that company’s performance relative to
other solution providers. Information on the research methodology used for vendor rankings is available elsewhere in this
Gleansight benchmark report and also in the FAQ section of the Gleanster website.

terms of use.
19
to the solution itself. But long-time customers like
Wells Fargo make it clear that they are getting
their money’s worth given the role MRM can
play in increasing ROI and reducing the chaos of
enterprise marketing execution.
Aptean (formerly, CDC Software
and Consona)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/aptean
“Aptean, a global leader in enterprise application
software (EAS), gives businesses of all sizes
a competitive edge. We empower people and
businesses with end-to-end, industry-specific
solutions to address complex business
challenges more effectively. Our software
applications and professional business services
enable more than 9,000 customers, in more than
100 countries, to more successfully manage their
business. Software built specifically for our target
markets, aligned with deep knowledge across
vertical industries, allow businesses to satisfy
their customers, operate most efficiently, and
stay at the forefront of their industry.”
Gleanster Skinny: In August 2012, Consona
and CDC Software, which had filed for
bankrupcy in 2011, announced that they had
merged to form a new corporate entity, called
Good
Best
Ease of Use
Better
Adnovate
Teradata Applications,
formerly Aprimo
Aptean
BrandMaker
BrandMaster
BrandWizard
Central Desktop
Code Worldwide
Direxxis
Elateral
Encode
IBM (Unica)
Kodak
MarketingPilot
MarcomCentral
Neolane
North Plains
Oracle (Siebel)
Infor Orbis
Relolute MRM
Saepio
SAS (Assetlink)
SAP
SproutLoud
Vertis
WEDIA CrossMedia
Quick Reference Guide
Ease of Use

terms of use.
20
Aptean. Consona and CDC had complementary
solutions in key application areas, including
customer relationship management (CRM),
enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply
chain management (SCM), do the merger made
sense in that respect. CDC’s Pivotal CRM
solution is now part of the Aptean portfolio of
offerings. There’s a version called Pivotal CRM
Marketing that is specifically focused on MRM,
giving marketing teams the ability to track and
manage all of their resources, processes and
projects from a centralized platform. Currently
in its sixth iteration and built on the Microsoft.
NET Framework, Pivotal CRM embeds Microsoft
Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint
and Microsoft Visual Studio. With a portfolio
of over 32 product lines and overlapping CRM
products (Pivotal, Onyx, and Saratoga), Aptean
can get a bit dicey to navigate. To date, the
“pivotal” product the company is mainly focusing
on is Pivotal CRM and all three CRM products
enjoy healthy penetration in three main verticals:
financial services, manufacturing, and high tech.
The company is looking at which product lines
(if any) to migrate into a consolidated stack, so
buyers may wish to gain more insight into the
future product roadmap plans before making an
investment decision.
BrandMaker
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/brandmaker
“BrandMaker is the leading provider of
Marketing Resource Management (MRM)
systems in Europe. Established in 1999 as
pi-consult GmbH, the company has operated
as BrandMaker GmbH since 2009; it focuses
exclusively on the development and marketing of
demanding software solutions for the marketing
communication of medium-sized and large
organizations. BrandMaker is headquartered
in Karlsruhe and employs approximately 185
people.”
Gleanster Skinny: Germany-based BrandMaker
offers a robust MRM solution that is used across
North America and Europe. The vendor is
differentiated by its broad set of MRM capabilities
and its focus on brand management. The latest
version (5.5) of its MRM suite offers tighter
incorporation of communicating applications
into marketing technologies and processes.
A new language center allows the localization
of marketing content and the expanded
Marketing Product Information Management
module enables the consolidation of product
information. BrandMaker has also integrated
high-performance business intelligence tools into
version 5.5. Also new is the release of a version
of BrandMaker’s marketing technology especially
for franchise systems. The vendor raised $2.5
million in 2012, bringing its total investment
funding to $11.8 million. It has been actively
growing its partner ecosystem, particularly in the
United States. It recently announced a strategic
partnership in the U.K. with Marketing Logic,
resulting in the creation of BrandMaker UK. The
vendor also opened its first offices in France and
Poland in 2012. Despite its continued growth, it
is still one of the smaller companies on the MRM
landscape. The solution is primarily implemented
for centralized brand and asset management.
It offers robust functionality and security
customization on par with competitive solutions,
but the interface and usability make it feel less
cumbersome and easier to adopt for mid-to-large
companies. While compelling for cost conscious
buyers, the modules do not necessarily integrate
as deeply as a more comprehensive MRM
solution. For example, the marketing calendar is
disconnected from workflow allowing marketers
to manually enter calendar elements, but there
is no automation with real-time workflow. In most
cases, this is more than sufficient for a mid-to-
large size enterprise and obviates the need to an
extremely robust MRM solution.
BrandMaster
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/brandmaster
“BrandMaster is one of Europe’s leading
marketing software and services companies.
We deliver high-performance online
technology to help deliver your brands and
marketing campaigns with speed, control and
cost-efficiency. Our customers range from
national to premium global brand leaders who
rely on our marketing software and services to
address the challenge of efficient and effective
multi-channel marketing, across 74 countries, 6
continents and 24 hours a day.”
Gleanster Skinny: The latest version of
BrandMaster’s online marketing platform,
BrandMaster 18, introduces support for
WYSIWYG Web Ads and includes some useful
enhancements to WYSIWYG print templates,
as well, including end-user cropping of
graphics and a new admin tool for color palette
management. The WYSIWYG InDesign module
introduced in the previous release helps simplify
brand consistency. Key features include video
Note: While Gleanster strives to
include all of the most relevant and
noteworthy solution providers in the
Vendor Landscape section, the list
is by no means comprehensive in
nature. Omissions may occur due to
lack of sufficient market presence,
as judged by the Gleanster research
analyst team. Space constraints may
necessitate some amount of paring
of even those vendors that do have
sufficient market presence. Simple
oversights may also happen on
occasion. To submit information about
a solution provider, please complete
the Solution Provider Information
Form. To schedule a vendor briefing,
please email research@gleanster.
com. Vendor descriptions are taken
verbatim from company websites
or from vendor-submitted profile
information. Gleanster Skinny (GS)
commentaries are based on vendor
briefings, customer interviews and
Gleansight research findings as well
as on company press releases and
various other information sources.

terms of use.
21
streaming and drag-and-drop functionality for
uploading content. The platform can be run
out-of-the-box or can be customized to a client’s
specific needs. BrandMaster’s customer base
ranges from smaller companies to global brands
in multiple countries.
BrandWizard
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/brandwizard
“Acting as the digital arm of Interbrand
Corporation since 1998, BrandWizard combines
branding and Digital Asset Management
(DAM) to bring technology solutions to brand
management challenges. While DAM is certainly
not a new concept, we believe it is evolving
from a basic storage space for brand guidelines
and elements to collaborative marketing
workspaces. As the leading provider if brand
management platforms, BrandWizard is on the
forefront of this shift in the market. For the past
15 years, BrandWizard has built customized
brand portal solutions for global and multi-brand
organizations. Our extensive experience
informs our best-in-class core offering: an
off-the-shelf Brand Center built with your primary
requirements in mind.”
Gleanster Skinny: BrandWizard is ideal for
Good
Best
Features & Functionality
Better
Features and Functionality

terms of use.
22
companies looking for a brand management
focused solution. Its parent company
Interbrand is a subsidiary of Omnicom Group.
BrandWizard’s close connection to the large
agency has helped fuel its growth (it added
14 new MRM clients in 2012), particularly
with companies that want creative production
management and marketing fulfillment
capabilities. A milestone of the company’s
growth in the past year has been the creation of
a new prepackaged solution designed to allow
for faster speed to market and cost savings, as
well as BrandWizard’s new Virtual Workspaces,
which allows creative teams to share works-in-
progress, comment, and collaborate in real-time.
Central Desktop
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/centraldesktop
“Central Desktop helps people work together
in ways they never imagined possible. Our
SocialBridge online collaboration platform
connects people and information in the cloud,
making it possible to share files, combine
knowledge, inspire ideas, manage projects
and more. Central Desktop serves more than
half a million users worldwide. Key Central
Desktop customers include CBS, MLB.com,
Harvard University, the Humane Society of
the United States, the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Javelin Marketing
Group, Upshot, Engauge, WD-40 and Workday.
Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-
held company with headquarters in Pasadena,
California.”
Gleanster Skinny: Central Desktop originally
made inroads as an on-demand enterprise
collaboration platform provider. Then, in 2011,
the company shifted focus to specifically address
the collaborative needs of marketers. Today
Central Desktop enables project collaboration
for marketers by providing “marketing-specific
workflows that connect people, content and
customers in the cloud” through its flagship
product SocialBridge. SocialBridge has
established a strong presence in agencies as a
collaborative platform for managing interactions
with clients but the product is increasingly being
used by brands, as well. The customizable
solution is a good alternative to a more rigid and
structured Marketing Resource Management
(MRM) platform. The company had a strong year
last year. Highlights include record year-over-
year growth for SocialBridge, key customer wins
and significant product enhancements to address
its growing base of enterprise customers.
Code Worldwide
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/code-worldwide
“We build platforms for brands and their
agencies to streamline their advertising – control
their content, automate production, build
engagement, harness data to continually improve
performance.”
Gleanster Skinny: A fully owned subsidiary of
Omnicom Group, Code Worldwide is focused
on automating the creative advertising and
branding process for major brands and agencies.
Code’s adZU platform is designed to automate
the production of digital display ads, building
hundreds of variants in seconds, allowing users
to target content to their audience. The solution
integrates with ad networks and social networks,
allowing users to control all their media from a
single console. There’s also a mobile component
which helps to build native apps, hybrid apps
and mobile web solutions. The vendor works
with media partners to connect audience and
performance data to optimize client campaigns.
Direxxis
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/direxxis
“Direxxis is a leading provider of integrated
marketing solutions designed to support
organizations with decentralized sales and
marketing needs. Organizations rely on Direxxis
to simplify marketing operations by improving
the effectiveness, relevance, efficiency and
accountability of custom programs targeted at
regional customer audiences. Direxxis delivers
the power and flexibility required to deliver
relevant, consistent and timely sales and
marketing communications across all channels,
including digital media, email, social media, text
messages, telephone, mail and traditional print
and display advertising mediums.”
Gleanster Skinny: Founded in 2003, Direxxis
offers an integrated marketing solution designed
to help manage the complexity associated with
creating, distributing and managing marketing
assets and content and maintaining brand
standards. The cloud-based platform enables
multi-channel fulfillment, performance tracking
and program administration. The platform is
highly configurable, easy to use and intuitive.
Direxxis has four solution options — Group
Edition, Professional Edition, Enterprise Edition

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and Unlimited Edition, all of which share the
same multi-tenant data architecture. The
company primarily serves the North American
market. Its growing client list includes Purina
Mills, Charles Schwab, American Family
Insurance, and FedEx Office.
Elateral
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/elateral
“Elateral, recognized global leader in Brand
Marketing Automation, sets the standard in
technology and services that enables the
localization and customization of integrated
marketing communications. Elateral streamlines
the delivery of complex global marketing
campaigns across media, borders and channels
for clients such as Autodesk, Coca Cola, Cisco,
New Balance, SAP and Toyota.”
Gleanster Skinny: Elateral offers three separate
but related marketing products that are strong
on marketing fulfillment and brand management.
There’s BrandHub, for managing marketing
collateral; DesignHub, for scaling one brand
story across several different types of shopping
experiences, and keeping that story fresh and
localized to allow retailers to win at point-of-
sale, on the display and in the packaging; and
Good
Best
Overall Value
Better
Overall Value

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CampaignHub, an offering targeted at high-tech
vendors looking to drive partner-led demand
generation that’s built on a platform dubbed
Channel Co-Creation by Elateral. Elateral
has been working to strengthen its leadership
team and is adding quality assurance tools to
its customization studio, which is designed for
creating print and digital marketing content.
Encode
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/encode
“Encode, Inc. works in partnership with major
technology vendors to enable people, leverage
technology and solve business problems.
Encode is an Information Technology Consulting
and Solutions firm for large enterprise and small
to mid-size businesses. Encode’s strength is
our ability to understand a client’s business
challenge and provide a technical solution that
integrates seamlessly into current operating
environments. With an average of over ten (10)
years of experience, our team members are the
“Best-of-Breed” in their respective disciplines.
Our extraordinary depth of knowledge and
mastery of multiple technical platforms enable
us to handle even the most complex integration
issues.”
Gleanster Skinny: Encode offers a solid
solution for digital brand management. Called
Encode Marketing, it’s designed to give
companies the power to control and manage
their brand’s identity, logos, guidelines, marketing
workflows and production management. Encode
Marketing is ideal for use in a local or global
marketing department. Encode has partnerships
with IBM, SecurIT and Aveska.
IBM Enterprise Marketing
Management (formerly, IBM
Unica)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/ibm-unica
“Customer expectations — whether consumers,
citizens or business customers – for relevant,
personalized and consistent interactions are
soaring. Catalysts like social media, real-time
access to information and the growth of mobile
devices are redefining what customers expect.
According to an IBM study of over 1,700 Chief
Marketing Officers, strong consensus exists
among senior marketers across the world
that these trends are fundamentally changing
how marketing must work in order to drive
business success. With end-to-end enterprise
marketing management solutions from IBM,
you can transform all aspects of marketing to
engage customers in highly relevant, interactive
dialogues across digital, social, mobile and
traditional marketing channels.”
Gleanster Skinny: Software giant IBM
acquired Unica in October 2010 to help
customers streamline and automate marketing
processes and understand and predict customer
preferences. Unica has a robust platform
designed to provide web and customer analytics
and offline and online demand generation,
in addition to MRM. The solution, IBM Unica
Marketing Operations, is currently in its 9th major
release. IBM offers IBM Marketing Operations
as an on-premises solution and as a hosted
solution through third-party vendors (Accenture,
Acxiom, Merkle and Epsilon, to name a few).
IBM Marketing Operations OnDemand is its
on-demand, multi-tenant SaaS solution. The
vendor’s recent marketing partnership with
Quark is aimed at helping IBM bolster its
marketing asset management and fulfillment
capabilities. The deal adds marketing publishing
and distributed marketing capabilities to its MRM
product, specifically.
Kodak
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/kodak
“Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group is a
unit of Eastman Kodak Company, the world’s
foremost imaging innovator. The Graphic
Communications Group provides commercial
printers, packaging printers, publishers, data
printers, and enterprises with one of the broadest
portfolios of technologies, products, and services
in the graphic communications and document
capture industries.”
Gleanster Skinny: While perhaps better
known for its consumer-facing cameras
and printing solutions, Kodak has a digital
communications division that offers enterprise-
class tools for marketing. Their flagship product,
DESIGN2LAUNCH Brand Manager, is a
centralized, web-based solution for managing
brand assets and content creation. The offering
is targeted at both marketing and packaging
teams. In 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11
Bankruptcy leading to a tough year for the digital
communications division. In January 2013, the
District of New York approved Kodak’s $844M
financing led by Centerbridge Partners LP.
DESIGN2LAUNCH provides a solid platform
for enterprise CPG clients, but the risk of the
bankruptcy softened the pipeline in 2012. Buyers
should be weary of the future plans for Kodak’s

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MRM roadmap before making an investment.
MarcomCentral
http://whttp://www.gleanster.com/solutions/
marcomcentral
“MarcomCentral® is an online, on demand
marketing assets management (MAM)
solution. Integrating marketing communications
systems and marketing resource management
software (MRM) through the customizable
MarcomCentral® online marketing portal.
MarcomCentral enables strategic marketing
communication, marketing collateral
management and marketing collateral
distribution. This enterprise marketing
management system is a marketing automation
solution, brand management tool and marketing
campaign management solution. And as a
marketing operations management (MOM)
tool, MarcomCentral® allows for marketing
content management, distributed marketing and
franchise marketing.”
Gleanster Skinny: MarcomCentral includes
core Marketing Asset Management (MAM)
capabilities including dynamic content templates,
universal search, and asset management. It
came out of the woodwork over the last six years,
with roots in on-demand print fulfillment and a
strong grasp of the creative-to-print lifecycle.
Parent company PTI Marketing Technologies,
(which rebranded from Printable Technologies
in 2011) has the financial foundation, industry
expertise, and brand to establish MarcomCentral
as a shortlisted MRM player. At $20,000 to
$40,000 a year, its capabilities are affordable
when compared to alternative marketing
operations solutions. In May 2012, PTI expanded
its international capabilities, adding new
language localization capabilities for both its
MarcomCentral and FusionPro products.
MarketingPilot (acquired by
Microsoft)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/marketingpilot
“MarketingPilot is a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Microsoft Corporation that operates within the
rapidly growing $2.5 billion marketing automation
software sector where we’ve been developing
integrated software for marketing departments
and ad agencies since 2001. Our goal is to
provide our clients with an integrated suite of
tools to help them manage and execute all their
marketing campaigns and activities. Marketers
choose MarketingPilot to improve their execution,
customer insights, time-to-market, operational
efficiency and marketing performance.”
Gleanster Skinny: MarketingPilot began life
as an operations management tool for mid-size
direct marketers, with features for project
management, list and media buying, source
code tracking, expense capture, and vendor
management. It still offers a midmarket solution
but has since expanded to encompass an
extremely broad range of marketing capabilities,
including lead prioritization and scoring, and
may offer the most extensive list of MRM
capabilities of any vendor under the sun. In
October 2012 the company was acquired by
software giant Microsoft. MarketingPilot has a
comprehensive vision for Integrated Marketing
solutions that aligns closely to Microsoft’s vision.
Not surprisingly, MarketingPilot’s product suite,
available both in the cloud and on-premises,
is built on Microsoft technologies. The vendor
is one of the few solution providers in this
space with a product designed specifically for
agencies,and is in continuous development
mode, releasing frequent platform updates.
The latest major release, MarketingPilot 14.0,
was introduced in August 2012 and brings a
significant enhancement to MarketingPilot’s
media planning functions.
Neolane
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/neolane
“Neolane provides the only conversational
marketing technology that empowers
organizations to build and sustain one-to-one
lifetime dialogues, dramatically increasing
revenue and marketing efficiency. Born digital,
with best-in-class email and inbound-outbound
channel fusion capabilities architected into a
single code-based platform, marketers achieve
results in record time. Neolane is easy to use
for both power and casual users, but powerful
enough to drive the most sophisticated marketing
strategies.”
Gleanster Skinny: Neolane, which targets
large enterprise organizations with a platform of
marketing operations and marketing execution
tools, delivers exceptionally strong marketing
analytics. Its MRM solution is robust, designed to
give companies the visibility needed to optimize
internal and external resources, control costs,
and lift overall ROI. In early 2012, the Neolane
secured a $27 million financing round led by

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Battery Ventures, to bolster its sales, marketing
and product development efforts, while
increasing its presence in new geographies.
(Neolane was based in Europe, but started
moving aggressively into the United States in
2007.) The company had another year of strong
growth, closing 2012 with a reported $58 million
in revenue and a 40 percent increase in global
consolidated growth. 2012 marks the fifth year
that Neolane has benefited from profitable
growth – an impressive feat, especially in the
marketing automation space. There’s no doubt
Neolane has a bright future. In early 2013, it
was listed at No. 64 on Forbes Magazine’s
annual ranking of America’s Most Promising
Companies – a list of one-hundred privately held,
high-growth companies.
North Plains
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/vyre
“North Plains create out of the box and
enterprise level integrated marketing resource
management software. Developed over the last
10 years our cloud based solutions are used by
over 400 global brands. We enable marketers to
take complete control of marketing operations
and campaign management, eliminate silos with
streamlined workflows, and execute innovative
multi-channel campaigns to drive measurable
ROI. North Plains MRM solutions include: Brand
Asset Management, Digital Asset Management,
Campaign Management, Digital Marketing and
Marketing Operations.”
Gleanster Skinny: At the end of last year North
Plains, which has been creating integrated
marketing resource management software
for around a decade now, acquired Vyre,
a UK-based leading provider of marketing
resource management (MRM) and brand
asset management (BAM) software. The deal
is reportedly aimed at enabling North Plains’
customers to better connect and engage with
their target audience by tapping into the power
of their visual media. Vyre’s flagship product,
Unify, is a collection of multi-channel content
management and marketing automation
capabilities (in the form of tightly integrated
modules) for creating, sharing, publishing and
managing digital information and projects. Unify
is the platform behind both the tailored and
out-of-the-box suite of digital asset management
solutions, called On Brand. The acquisition
follows North Plains’ April 2012 purchase of
Xinet, one of the most robust work-in-progress
digital asset management solutions on the
market.
Oracle (Siebel)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/oracle
“Oracle provides the world’s most complete,
open, and integrated business software and
hardware systems, with more than 370,000
customers—including 100 of the Fortune 100—
representing a variety of sizes and industries
in more than 145 countries around the globe.
Oracle’s product strategy provides flexibility
and choice to our customers across their IT
infrastructure.”
Gleanster Skinny: Oracle’s Siebel Marketing
Resource Management solution was recognized
by Gartner as a leader in this space. The solution
comes with tools for planning, budgeting,
executing, and measuring the impact of global
marketing efforts. Its analytics are particularly
robust. Oracle’s Siebel MRM is one of many
applications within Oracle’s Siebel Enterprise
Marketing product, a comprehensive solution
designed to serve the needs of business and
consumer marketers across more than 20
industries. In addition to its expertise in MRM,
the software giant is recognized for its prowess in
a wide range of areas including CRM, Customer
Experience, Business Intelligence, Application
Management, and a slew of other tangentially
related spaces.
Infor Orbis (previously, Orbis
Global)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/orbis-global
“Orbis Global is a leading global provider of
Marketing Management software. The company’s
flagship product, Orbis MRM™ delivers higher
levels of efficiency, productivity and control to
the marketing departments of mid to large-sized
companies, ultimately leading to higher ROI on
marketing investments. Orbis MRM™ empowers
marketers at many of the world’s leading brands
in financial services, pharmaceuticals, consumer
goods, telecommunications, retail, oil and gas,
manufacturing and utilities.”
Gleanster Skinny: Orbis Global was acquired
by Infor in December 2012 and was subsequently
rebranded as Infor Orbis. A pure-play MRM
vendor, Orbis Global reportedly achieved record
customer acquisition and revenue growth in
its North American operation in 2012. The
company moved its headquarters from Sydney,
Australia to San Francisco in September 2011

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and has progressively expanded its footprint in
North America since then. Its flagship solution,
Orbis MRM, was selected by such marketers
as Dell, GE Capital and Barnes & Noble. It
was also recently selected by Sony Computer
Entertainment to help manage their European
marketing operations efforts.
Resolut MRM
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/resolut-mrm
“Resolut provides services to over 80 well-known
brands and companies throughout Europe
use our products. We have grown from 2 to 20
people. 2006 Resolut became company of the
year, appointed by Almi Stockholm…It is our
clients who built Resolut and it is our clients’
requirements, desires and ideas that have helped
us develop and refine our tools.”
Gleanster Skinny: Founded in 2000, Sweden-
based Resolut offers over 100 global brands and
their marketing departments a strong set of MRM
tools for creating and planning activities and
local and personalized marketing campaigns,
and storing and accessing media and campaign
materials. Resolut MRM is used worldwide
and supports localization for approximately
60 languages. In addition to technology, the
pure-play MRM vendor offers related services.
Clients include BMW, Audi and Snickers.
Saepio
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/saepio
“Saepio empowers marketers to plan and
execute meaningful and engaging marketing
campaigns across distributed networks and
around the globe – ensuring local relevance,
brand consistency, speed to market and
significant cost savings. The world’s best known
brands turn to Saepio’s powerful software
platform and extensive portfolio of support
services to automate the marketing process,
eliminate redundancy and ensure that all
marketers connected to the brand – whether
global, distributed, franchise, VAR or chain store
marketers – have the assets and tools they need
to quickly customize and execute campaigns.”
Gleanster Skinny: Saepio is known for its
superior MAM technology, designed to address
the challenges of a distributed marketing
function. MarketPort, Saepio’s new digital
marketing platform, allows marketers to run their
corporate marketing campaigns and distributed
marketing network. Built with collaboration and
simplicity in mind, MarketPort is designed to
handle the complexities of building and running
a cross-channel campaign, from a corporate
marketing level or in partnership with the
company’s local marketing network. It comes
with tools for coordinating enterprise-level
campaigns, for digital asset management and
workflow approvals and intuitive analytics – to
name a few. Saepio has been praised for
its mobile capabilities. The vendor has an
impressive list of clients in CPG, Retail,
Hospitality, Financial Services, Automotive, and
other industries. It boasts partnerships with SAS
(to tap into customer intelligence to allow users
to create and deliver localized and targeted
messages) and Unica (to deliver interactive
marketing capabilities), among other technology
leaders.
SAS (Assetlink)
http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/sas
“As the world’s largest independent business
analytics company with consistent revenue
growth and profitability since it was founded
more than 34 years ago, SAS provides an
integrated set of software products and services
to more than 45,000 customer sites in 118
countries. SAS leads the pack with its general
and industry-specific business solutions, and
integrated technologies for data management,
advanced analytics and reporting. Across
the globe, both the public and private sector
use SAS® software to assist in their efforts to
compete and excel in a climate of unprecedented
economic uncertainty and globalization. Since
1976 SAS has been giving customers around the
world THE POWER TO KNOW®.”
Gleanster Skinny: In early 2011, Assetlink
was acquired by business analytics giant SAS,
which used the technology as the basis for an
integrated marketing management platform.
The two companies have been partners for over
four years, but you might be more familiar with
Assetlink if you’ve used Teradata MRM (that’s
right, Assetlink was the white label backend;
oddly enough, Teradata kicked Assetlink to the
curb and acquired Aprimo in 2010). Assetlink
has come a long way over the past 5 years, and
represents a compelling fully integrated MRM
solution with digital asset capacities optimized for
marketers. Assetlink excels over traditional DAM
solutions because the solution is designed to
manage the front-end of the marketing creation

Marketing Resource Management Benchmark Report 2012

Marketing Resource Management Benchmark Report 2012

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Marketing Resource Management Benchmark Report 2012