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PM Forum - London
Multi-location marketing management
As organisations continue to expand across the globe, marketing teams have had to adapt to ever increasing demands on their time. Clients and fee earners alike expect high standards whether you are based in London or Luxembourg, posing a series of challenges when it comes to delivery of consistent service.
A panel of experts were on hand to share their insights and experiences:
Moderator: Sarah Reavley - Remark
Panel:Amy Kingdon - LECG
Maria Ivy - Covington & Burling
Graham Munday - WSP Environment and Energy
Amy highlighted the importance of forming relationships on the ground to help strengthen your position and influence, helping to ensure that marketing departments and plans are seen as a constructive and enabling resource rather than barriers to achieving goals. Identify 'marketing champions', outside the marketing team who have the capabilities to assist and promote marketing within their own offices (whether they are PAs or partners). Furthermore, Graeme recommended setting up a space within the IT network to keep templates and guides on everything from producing name badges to constructing invitation lists. This can enable 'champions' in more remote offices to deliver the same consistency of service without reliance on the central team.
When it comes to brand management, try to encourage engagement in all locations. Face to face time (even via videoconference) can be helpful in gaining support for new initiatives. It is also important to determine which locations are most important to the business on a higher strategic level so marketing time and efforts are correctly aligned with corporate goals.
Maria stressed the importance of keeping people informed when managing global PR campaigns. Circulating meeting notes to check that everyone is on the same page helps to ensure globally consistent messages. If you are travelling between offices, meeting as many people as possible (not just senior management) helps to spread and reinforce these messages. Managing expectations is also crucial to success; especially as the communications process and media environments can be vastly different between countries.
Following a wider group discussion everyone agreed on the importance of understanding cultural differences and the priorities of different offices/regions when it comes to internal communications. Take time to get to know people in these locations, as personal relationships are highly valued. Tips such as holding informal meetings away from the boardroom, understanding differences in culture and language, putting local initiatives into a global context and taking time to find common ground can be immensely helpful in gaining buy-in.
Above all, the panel emphasised the need to 'pick your battles'. Learning to strike a balance between maintaining a degree of control, whilst providing flexibility, creativity and support to all locations will help to maximise the chances of success.
Sophie Mitchell
Maples and Calder
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