| Marketing and the Outsourcers
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| Marketers were the pioneers of outsourcing. Ad. Agencies, media
buyers and fulfilment houses were all well established long before
anyone had even thought of CRM providers or the specialised outsource
contact centre.
Even in the early days, there were signs of what happens when
a brand fails to control its 3rd party suppliers. Stories of marketing
teams “disconnecting” with their above-the-line agencies
and the truly monumental events which then came to pass never
fail to lighten up even the dullest of business school courses.
However, did anyone really imagine that, as the outsourcing craze
spread through all other divisions of the organisation, the bug
would actually come back to bite those brave pioneers?
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Controlling the customer contact points
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| Essentially, as more business functions are outsourced, there
are huge ramifications for those whose job it is to maintain brand
control across all customer contact points.
In the extreme, everyone involved in the sales & distribution
process and the customer experience may not actually be directly
employed by the brand they are representing.
In the financial services, banking and insurance sectors, it’s
quite possible that the only real contact the customer has with
the brand is the logo which has been badged onto all 3rd party
materials!
And now those e-commerce guys have got in on the act –
gaining absolution from any attempts at brand consistency or control
with a quick fire “well of course it’s different on
the web”
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Key learnings
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| Can those much vaunted brand value posters which proudly adorn
the walls of any large corporate really be adopted by an organisation
that might also service another ten, twenty or even thirty other
clients?
Maybe the answer lies in looking at those brands that were designed
specifically to have elasticity?
In a sense Virgin outsources its entire organisation with series
of businesses that use the same name. Brand values are vigorously
protected with the signing of a brand charter a pre-requisite
of any business wishing to join or continue to trade under the
Virgin name.
If an organisation is going to continue to control what it has
spent years endeavouring to measure on its balance sheet, then
it is essential that the scoping of any outsourcing programme
and the assessment of potential suppliers really takes time to
focus on the end result as opposed to just the route.
Copyright AMG Ltd
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