Subject: Re: Branding the Web
Sun Jul 12 17:08:59 1998



>> you need to look at the differences between commodity markets
>> and specialty markets.
>
>Great, Michael. I immediately printed it out and stored it in my
>"Michaels Marketing Lessons" folder..... really.


good heavens..

"business-type ravings" would probably be a better title.   with
deepest respect to the marketers on this list (who represent
some of the best of their breed), i'm an operations and
implementation kinda guy.. i tend to view marketers as my
natural enemies.

it's a resource allocation thing.   marketers are experts at,
among other things, converting productivity into revenue.  
operations people are (hopefully) experts at converting
resources into increased productivity.   both jobs are
necessary, but the way most businesses are structured, the
marketers don't see any direct payoff in increased
productivity.. only from the productivity they actually convert
into revenue.

that leads to a state of conflict, because both sides need
resources to do their thing.   the marketers want to spend time,
labor, and money pushing the existing productivity into the
market, while the operations people want to spend the same time,
labor, and money buying new machines and training the staff to
use them efficently.   an operations person will trim output
back by 20% for six months if it buys a 200% increase in
productivity at the end of that time and call it a no-brainer.  
a marketer will increase output 20% for six months, even if
production capacity drops to 50% at the end of that time, and
depending on the state of their market projections, they'd call
*that* a no-brainer.

neither side in inherently right.   if you lose the first six
months of sales, there may be no point in doubling your
production.   by the same token, the 20% additional revenue
gained in the first six months may not cover the cost of
rebuilding your production processes to the point that you can
stay in the market.   to make a business healthy, both sides
have to compare notes and find the solution that work out best
for the company as a whole.


now, i admit that i'm biased, but i've run across a lot more
operations people who realize "we have to sell this stuff
eventually" than marketers who realize "we have to make stuff
before we can sell it".   it's not that operations people are
inherently smarter, it's just that "getting the stuff out the
door" is part of any sane operational plan.   OTOH, i've seen
'way too many marketing plans that begin by saying, in effect,
"the product appears, as if by magic, on this date ..."




mike

** who's trying to migrate 160+ domains (250,000+ undocumented
files) to a new network, with a team of four fledgling geeks at
his disposal, and is just a tad grumpy these days. **