Insurance & Investments

Context

A very successful international insurance, savings and investments business identified marketing excellence as strategic differentiator in financial services. They had already built over many years a highly regarded brand and now looked to improve marketing operations and capability to meet the significant business and marketing challenges of modern financial services.

Insight

Building globally competitive marketing capability today is a challenge that goes far beyond training and coaching. It often requires significant change and transformation, new skills, processes, unique culture, new relationships, better insight and adoption of 'fast moving' and emerging technologies.

For marketing to earn its rightful place at the 'top table' it has to demonstrate the disciplines necessary to meet these challenges. It needs to be able to offer operational and market benefits and provide the organisation with a sustainable corporate legacy.

Transforming marketing in many financial services organisations is much more than delivering most cost effective campaigns. It's about recovery of trust and delivery of promises at scale to customers. This requires a different way of doing things, a way that maintains the integrity of brand, builds on creative energy but maintains highly disciplined execution of strategy over the long term.

Solution

We worked with business executives, senior marketing staff and thought leaders from marketing and other functions including finance, IT and HR to determine the strengths and weaknesses, barriers and enablers in key marketing disciplines.

Through a series of 'face to face' meetings, diagnostics and workshops we developed a new 'Marketing Way'. We embedded new strategies and processes to deliver integrated insight and innovation, improved strategic planning, better 'activation in market' and learning and renewal processes tightly aligned to design and delivery of Academy based training for staff.

We designed 'balanced scorecards' to align marketing objectives across different business units and integrated measurements within the new 'Marketing Way' aligned with the requirements of finance. Destination roles and responsibilities were aligned to new processes and embedded in HR strategy for marketing setting out a clear direction for staff development and progression.

Workbooks, 'self assessment' tools, best practice templates and example outputs were used to illustrate how the 'Marketing Way' could be used to construct better strategies, operating models and deliver better marketing propositions.

Emerging regulatory requirements, behavioural economics and other compliance strategies were aligned and embedded in 'Marketing Way' processes. Where appropriate digital and social technology opportunities were highlighted that could accelerate change or drive more immediate benefits for marketing operations and our clients customers.

A cultural transformation model was developed to illustrate key initiatives that would help change the perception of marketing and help establish marketing as a valuable discipline and a strategic asset.

Benefits

We continue to help our client refine and improve marketing strategy and processes and work with them to embed benefits in their business planing and operations.

More recently we have worked with our client to identify operational efficiencies and capacity benefits as we develop social business strategies and new target operating models for marketing.

Other benefits delivered include:

• Focus on customer value, access and choice.
• Connected strategic processes: Insight, innovation, strategic planning, brand building, activation in market and learning and renewal.
• Clear, aligned marketing strategies and marketing processes across multiple business units.
• Comprehensive framework for effective mearuerement, continued performance improvement and delivery of efficiencies.
• A roadmap for capability and best practice development and knowledge sharing.