Turning Restructures into Strategic Opportunities for Marketing
Restructuring can seem like a necessary evil in times of financial crisis. But here’s a bold idea: instead of dreading these moments, we should seize them as golden opportunities. The truth is, a well-managed restructure can be a strategic advantage, especially for your marketing function.
Let’s explore how you can turn a cost-saving crisis into a chance to redefine and enhance your marketing strategy.
Why Restructuring Isn’t Always a Negative
When companies face financial challenges, restructuring is often on the table. While many see it as a disruptive hassle, it can also be a chance to reset and rethink. Restructuring shouldn’t be viewed merely as a way to cut costs; it’s an opportunity to reimagine your marketing function and its role in your organisation.
I often see parallels between Jackson Lamb, the dishevelled spy from the novels, and my own father, not because of their questionable habits but because of their craft. Jackson Lamb’s expertise in espionage and my father’s mastery as a craftsman both highlight a fundamental truth: skill and training matter. This same principle applies to marketing. Despite the rapid evolution of digital tools and strategies, the essence of marketing lies in understanding and applying core principles.
Step 1: Re-establish Marketing’s Role
The first step in transforming a restructure into a strategic advantage is to redefine the role of marketing within your organisation. Use this opportunity to reaffirm marketing’s value with your executive team.
Here’s how to approach it:
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Engage with the Executive Team: When cost reductions are on the table, grasp the opportunity to have a strategic discussion with the CFO and CEO. Ask questions like:
- How can we attract future customers with products that are not easily differentiated?
- What is our conversion rate from brand awareness to actual purchase compared to competitors?
- How can we increase our market share by targeting non-customers and infrequent buyers?
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Differentiate Brand Building from Sales Activation: Understanding and communicating the distinct roles of brand building and sales activation is crucial. Brand building focuses on long-term goals, enhancing brand salience, and emotional connection. Sales activation is more immediate, concentrating on features, channels, and pricing to drive short-term sales. Clearly articulating these roles to your executive team can ensure a balanced approach to marketing that aligns with both immediate and long-term business goals.
Step 2: Define Decision Rights with a RACI Matrix
Once you’ve established marketing’s strategic importance, the next step is to clarify decision rights. This can be a game-changer.
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Create a RACI Matrix: Develop a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI) to outline who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for various marketing activities. This will help clarify roles and streamline decision-making.
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Address Control Issues: If you’ve ever found yourself in a position where marketing decisions were made by other departments, use this restructuring phase to regain control. Engage in discussions to allocate clear responsibilities for marketing activities and push back against misaligned control structures.
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Embrace Courage and Tenacity: Reassigning responsibilities can be challenging. It requires intense stakeholder engagement, straightforward communication, and some degree of compromise. However, the result will be a marketing function with clearly defined decision rights and responsibilities.
Step 3: Redesign the Marketing Function
The final step in leveraging restructuring is to focus on redesigning the marketing function itself.
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Focus on Roles, Not People: Assess what roles are needed to achieve the agreed strategic goals. Don’t let personal relationships or existing team structures hinder this process. Instead, concentrate on the specific capabilities required to execute your marketing strategy effectively.
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Navigate Cost Pressures: Balancing cost pressures with the need for a robust marketing function can be tricky. Aim for a flatter structure to enhance accountability and decision-making speed, while keeping an eye on cost efficiency.
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Build for the Future: Use restructuring as an opportunity to align your marketing team with the broader brand strategy. This might involve significant changes, but if done correctly, it will position your function to better meet both current and future needs.
Marketing: Adapting Through Change
Over the past quarter-century, marketers have faced numerous challenges, from the financial crisis of 2008 to the pandemic. Despite these obstacles, marketing has evolved significantly, embracing new technologies and strategies to connect with global audiences.
By applying a strategic approach to restructuring, marketers can continue to build strong brands and adapt to changing environments.
When faced with restructuring, don’t just look for ways to cut costs. Embrace the opportunity to redefine your marketing function, clarify decision rights, and design a team that’s poised for future success. Be like Jackson Lamb: tackle the challenge head-on and emerge stronger.
Additional Resources:
- Restructuring Strategies: Harvard Business Review – Restructuring
- Marketing Function Design: McKinsey & Company – Marketing Operations
- Role of Brand Building: Forbes – Brand Building
- RACI Matrix Guide: Project Management Institute – RACI
- Decision Rights in Marketing: Marketing Week – Decision Rights
