Are you having problem meeting customer needs or implementing a marketing plan? Perhaps it’s time you constitute a strategy team within the marketing unit or ensure that the organization’s strategy team has representatives from the marketing unit. Whichever you decide will depend on available resources.
The strategy team is responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of the marketing plan. The persons who make up this team must be committed to developing and refining tactics and strategies for marketing the company’s products and services.
It is the duty of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to select a strategy team and to ensure that this team has the necessary resources to develop/refine strategies. The strategy team then meets, decides and develops the various inputs that will make up the marketing plan (e.g., analyses, strategies). The team will need an advisor, a champion, a facilitator, a spokesperson, and perhaps a sponsor.
The strategy team must set strategic management in action, map out a clear and sincere statement of vision, set goals to realize SMART objectives, align strategies and tactics. It’s important that the marketing objectives fit into the overall company vision; the strategy team helps see to this. Also, goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relative and time-based. They must provide the basis for carrying out evaluation.
The strategy team can be constituted by the CEO every year, with each new team formed early in the second quarter (preferably) of the current year for the purpose of developing strategies and plans for the coming year. Members of the team must be employees whose affiliations and interests differ to some degree, whose minds are open to change, who have a record of innovating, who are capable of collaborating and who are passionate about the organization’s future.
Developing a good strategy for the company or the marketing unit is like an architect drawing up a good design for a building project. A good strategy team drives the company to its desired destination by developing strategies and plans that enable it compete effectively in the marketplace, ensuring that the company continues to meet or exceed desired requirements.
