Marketers as Supply Chain Mangers? You Bet!
A marketing research group is trying to wake marketers up to the idea that supply chain management principles can help them do their jobs better, too.
Sean Murphy -- Supply Chain Management Review, 11/24/2009
If you're in marketing, should you think about supply chain management?According to a report issued by a research group, you should. Donovan Neale-May, founder and Executive director of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is trying to get out the message that supply chain management practices can benefit marketing executives, too.
"Marketers have a lot to learn from the supply chain community," he told SCMR.
Neale-May said that marketers often deal with warehouses full of literature and materials, along with the buying, sourcing, logistics and transportation of those marketing materials to and from events and potential customers.
"In some respects, they're operating a supply chain-a big supply chain," he said.
The council has already released the results of a new study of over 300 marketing executives. The study's report, titled "Define Where to Streamline," shows that marketers don't think of themselves as having their own supply chain to run.
Among the results of the survey, Neale-May said, only 25 percent of respondents have actually done a comprehensive audit of their own supply chain. In addition, according to the council, most respondents acknowledge "their resources and suppliers are poorly integrated across global networks."
At the same time, however, 50 percent of the respondents agreed that an optimized marketing supply chain could generate ROI. If marketers do decide to see if supply chain management can help them, many they will have to start from scratch. According to the report, one third of the respondents said they have no in-house supply chain management expertise.
A summary of the report indicates the results show a lot of waste in marketing at most companies. "These numbers reflect a lack of visibility into marketing supply chain operations and poor tracking and accountability of marketing materials and merchandise inventory, which often involve millions of printed items, including product packaging, corporate brochures, sales literature, premiums and point-of-sale display units."
The council has opened a new "think tank," called the Marketing Supply Chain Institute, which Neale-May said will be producing further study in hopes of helping marketers become better supply chain managers.
"We're going to focus on the study of this," he said.
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