Describes how the different parts of the Marketing roles and functions serve a company and names what leaders must expect from each part of the whole. Talk originally done for a High-Tech Seminar course at Santa Clara Uinversity MBA program.

1. The Big “M”
What, why and ways to manage
Prepared for SCU | May 06, 2009

2. About Rubicon
• Serving high tech firms to win markets through
business and market strategy
– Since 1999
– Practices: define, deliver, defend, optimize
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 2

3. Re: Nilofer Merchant, CEO
• Started at Apple
– As admin. Worked thru undergrad
– Had 23 managers in 7 years
• VP Sales & Marketing, GoLive (bought by
Adobe)
• Chief of Staff, Americas, Autodesk
• Started Rubicon in ‘99 as sole proprietor
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 3

4. Our Journey
Agenda/
• The Myth
• The Many Parts
• Discussion
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 4

5. Marketing: what is it?
• Adds no value / lots of value
•Product
• This is the coolest widget
Management
• We’ll do logos and fonts later
• Let’s make a t-shirt!
• Let’s price same as the competition
•Product Marketing
• Brand can elevate stock price
• … but it has no real meaning
• A slick, a brochure, a website,
•Field Marketing
that’s all we need
• “the product will sell itself”
Brand Management
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 5

6. The Parts of Marketing: Overview
Brand Management
Customer
Product Product Field
Product
Management Marketing Marketing
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 6

7. Product Management
Brand Management
Customer
Product Product Field
Product
Management Marketing Marketing
1. Who, specifically, is the customer for this product? (Note: “young people” does not
count as a target market, neither does “professionals.” Be specific about their lives
and needs.)
2. What compelling problem does your product solve for them? (We’re talking about a
problem that actually causes pain, not a mild annoyance.)
3. Do they know they have the problem, and do they care? (The tech industry is
wonderful at retrofitting imaginary problems to features that engineers wanted to
build anyway.)
4. Seriously, do customers really care? Enough to spend money on a solution?
5. Does your product, need an ecosystem to, solve that problem?
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 7

8. Product Marketing
Brand Management
Customer
Product Product Field
Product
Management Marketing Marketing
1. What is the competitive situation and how is this
product differentiated?
2. What is the unique price or value we can derive?
3. Do we have the right value proposition in mind on
what problem it solves?
4. Is this a new market, an existing market, and so what do
are the requirements of investment in awareness,
consideration, purchase
5. What’s the right channel partners for this product?
6. Do you have the go-to-market in alignment that will
cause the flow of product to the market easily?
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 8

9. The Field Marketing Function
Brand Management
Customer
Product Product Field
Product
Management Marketing Marketing
1. What are campaigns, strategies, tactics that will
generate interest and leads?
2. Have I got a motivated channel? If not, what do I
need to do to fix it?
3. Am I doing effective (high ROI) campaigns? What’s
my cost per lead?
4. Am I generating enough leads for sales? How long is
the sales cycle to support the pipeline?
5. Do we have a right share of voice in the market?
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 9

10. The Value Chain
Brand Management
Customer
Product Product Field
Product
Management Marketing Marketing
1. Have I created enough “air cover”
for the business so that the buyer
knows what we do and find us
relevant in that space?
2. Are we positioned correctly?
3. Are we competitively positioned
4. Are we evolving our image?
5. Do we create emotional
connection?
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 10

11. Perspective on 3 Challenges
Product Mngmt Prod Mktg Field Marketing Brand
Focus What Market What Position How generate Drive consistent
What Business Model interest experience of
What Customer What Value company,
How support the product,
How Differentiate business pipeline solution.
Challenge Reading the tea leaves Things change Budget Lack of
outside control involvement in
Almost always product the core business
changes from ideation Must support
to ship regional view
Skills Technical + Business Business + Marketing + Sales Business +
Marketing Marketing
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 11

12. The “Big M” challenge
• No one owns the full value chain
– Each piece reports into different functional focus
– The vision for the market is often not owned by the CEO*
• Differences & Organizations
– Communication / hand off points between the organization can be spotty
– People don’t often understand or share vocabulary
– People, retention, morale & turnover all impact this
• The “must wins” are unclear
– The highest leverage points are pricing related
– The cost inefficiencies of doing duplicate research, and guesswork is not
captured
– The customer losses / risks are not typically measured
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 12

13. Key Ideas for Today
• Marketing has many interdependent parts to take the
product and create value in the market
• However, without seeing it in it’s full glory, the
Marketing Value Chain is inefficient
• Senior, cross-functional leadership will be required to
drive the necessary changes
– Who owns it
– Agree on the metrics need to be managed
– Creating accountability within the organization
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 13

14. Next Steps:
• Get Fed:
– www.rubiconconsulting.com
Get informed (and possibly entertained) via Rubicon Insight, or get the RSS feed. Find out
•
where we’re published or speaking next. No charge; no brainer
• Get Connected.
– www.twitter.com/nilofer
• My personal obsession talking on strategy for the modern era.
• Refer.
– We welcome referrals as long we get to work with kick-ass people
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 14

15. Win Markets
Trusted Advisors to high-tech firms seeking
to transform their visions into strategies,
strategies into plans, and plans into results.
Practices:
Define / Design / Defend / Optimize
Big M Value Chain ©2009 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential Page 15