Marketing Resource Management (MRM)

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Content

Part 1: Topic Overview Part 2: Reasons to Implement Part 3: Value Drivers

Part 4: Challenges

Part 5: Performance Metrics Part 6: Success Story Part 7: Vendor Landscape

Sidebars

Survey Stats Benchmark KPIs Core Technologies Gleanster Numbers

Vendor Quick Reference Guide

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Gleansight Benchmark Report

Marketing resource management (MRM) technology is the

administrative backbone for day-to-day marketing operations. These

systems were originally deployed at very large enterprises that

needed to coordinate back-office marketing activities for hundreds

of marketers in offices around the globe. Today, a variety of delivery

options and features make MRM accessible to companies of all

sizes. MRM is often synonymous with marketing operations, although

the term marketing operations encompasses both process and

technology considerations. Marketing operations is the lifeblood of

campaign execution – it’s the people, processes, and technologies

that plan, create, execute, and measure how customers and prospects

engage with the brand. We call this the marketing value chain, and it

embodies the business planning, creative development, execution, and

measurement that supports multi-channel marketing communications

with customers. The capabilities in MRM systems make the marketing

value chain more efficient and effective.

Marketing Resource

Management (MRM)

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What we know to be true, even in 2015, is most large bands do a very poor job of optimizing marketing operations processes. Repetitive and cumbersome tasks in marketing are often supported manually with shared drives, dozens of niche or legacy internal applications, email

communications, spreadsheets, and the wisdom of internal resources. How do you know there is an opportunity to improve marketing operations at your organization? If, god forbid, something happened to one or two of your best brand marketing resources, would it cripple your marketing processes? If the answer is yes, it’s time to consider MRM as a way to make operational

processes more efficient, standardized, and scalable. MRM is a technology

infrastructure designed to centralize and align marketing operations more

efficiently and give executive leadership better visibility into execution and

marketing effectiveness. Three factors have slowed adoption of MRM.

1. Given the average tenure of a CMO (3 years) and the scale of MRM investments, executive leaders often shy away from sponsoring MRM initiatives that require process re-engineering in brand marketing, divestments in legacy systems, and often impact hundreds of internal stakeholders.

2. A misconception that “the way we are doing things” is working – despite inefficiencies and less than ideal processes marketing gets things done. When MRM is one of many potential technology investments for an organization it may end up low on the funding totem pole.

3. Confusion about the available technologies and a lack of knowledge about how to justify investments, manage change, and mitigate risk.

Common reasons to invest in MRM

That said, every CEO and CMO would agree that marketing operations is essential to top line growth. Nevertheless, marketing operations technology investments remain one of the most ignored (and potentially most profitable) investments in day-to-day operational execution. More often than not, investments in MRM are championed by a single catalyst or business need.

• The CMO asks how many events the brand was involved in last year, and it takes brand marketers three months of manual efforts and digging through Excel to come up with an estimate (which may or may not be accurate).

• The CMO wants holistic visibility of campaign execution and measurement across all business units or regions – but it doesn’t exist.

• The CMO wants to know how much money is being spent with marketing vendors and where there are opportunities for consolidation or cost savings – but the information is not available.

• Legacy systems are breaking down under the weight of channel proliferation, campaign execution, or changes in the business model.

• A new CMO came from an organization that had MRM; they know MRM is essential to supporting the complexity of multi-channel offline and online execution.

• The competition somehow reacts to market events 2-3x faster, creating a competitive advantage that is causing you to lose market share.

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What features do marketing resource management solutions offer?

MRM systems typically include two or more of the following capabilities:

• Strategic attribution: The ability to create a hierarchy of strategic imperatives and goals from within the system and link every activity to one or more goals. This gives executive marketers visibility into how spend is being allocated to meet strategic targets and objectives on a periodic basis.

• Budgeting & planning: MRM solutions typically integrate with the financial system of record so

marketing budget can be allocated and tracked from within MRM at a more granular level. Budgets can be approved, moved, re-allocated, and canceled from within MRM for a holistic view of spending and forecasted spend.

• Co-op and MDF fund management: In a distributed marketing environment where a national or

global brand is managed by a network of affiliates or local entities some MRM systems provide a more efficient way to manage shared investments in marketing.

• Workflow: Role-based security allows business rules to be customized for different users. Marketing projects, production processes, and activities can be systematically mapped within

MRM to assign tasks and timelines to specific roles. Business rules can be configured to route tasks through approval workflows and ensure timely delivery of projects. Workflow gives marketing

executives visibility into the marketing cycle time and granular drill-down into bottlenecks or resource constraint issues before they manifest themselves in lost revenue.

• Offer management: Offers can be configured within MRM and systematically optimized based on business rules and an offer optimization engine. This allows offers to be associated with specific

campaigns to close the loop on ROI from production to execution.

• Asset management: Most MRM systems have a rudimentary form of digital asset management (DAM) built into the system. This allows assets that are in progress, production ready, or archive ready to be routed appropriately during the production process and can provide an effective means of capturing meta-data from users who have context about the asset use or intended use.

• Project management: MRM assigns specific roles to specific tasks and can be configured to

govern the cycle-time on various tasks. Marketing projects can then be aggregated on a marketing

calendar and flagged as on-time or late for further action.

• Marketing calendar: Marketers struggle with managing global calendars, especially in enterprise environments. Instead of managing dozens of Excel calendars or separate tools for each department, MRM users can add all activities automatically to a central marketing calendar, with role-based views of marketing activities.

• Marketing taxonomy: Configure standardized views of products, geography, the marketing

organizational hierarchy, campaigns, and customer segments from within MRM.

• Partner and supplier access: MRM provides portal based access to fulfillment, agencies, and

marketing services partners who play an ongoing role in marketing operations.

This Gleansight benchmark helps marketers at all levels understand how they can best take advantage of MRM’s potential. Based on the experience of active MRM users, it shows how the most successful marketers are using their systems, what challenges they faced, and which solutions they found most effective. Marketers who are just considering their first MRM system will find valuable insights into setting realistic goals, anticipating roadblocks, and measuring success. Marketers already using MRM will be able to compare their own results with their peers, identifying areas of excellence and opportunities for improvement. All marketers will gain a richer understanding of how MRM can support their entire marketing operation, providing a foundation for future success.

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Companies purchase MRM systems to improve the efficiency of their marketing

operations. Without MRM, marketing departments use disconnected systems and spreadsheets to build plans, set budgets, track projects, manage approvals,

record costs, and store content. This fragmentation has always made it difficult

for marketers to share updated data and current marketing materials, to track and

coordinate activities, and to standardize processes. The problems are magnified

as companies market through more channels, create more content for different segments, react more quickly to market changes, work with staff and vendors in more locations, and face tighter regulatory requirements. Faced with these new burdens, marketing operations risk catastrophic collapse – or, almost as bad, slow

drowning in a rising tide of small errors and inefficiencies.

A central MRM system reduces the marketing operations workload by eliminating duplicate data entry, enabling collaboration within the marketing department and with outside resources, providing superior tools for project and content

management, maintaining an integrated framework that relates high-level marketing

plans to specific campaigns and projects, producing a marketing calendar,

reconciling budgets with actual expenses, and making data accessible for more

sophisticated analysis. These features allow a company to define standardized

processes for regular marketing tasks, to track compliance with those processes, and ultimately to identify and implement improvements. By streamlining internal operations, the MRM system frees marketing resources for more productive use in customer-facing promotions.

The increasing popularity of MRM systems reflects both the greater need for the operating efficiency and the wider availability of solutions as early MRM systems mature and the software-as-a-service model simplifies deployment. It is also

part of a broader wave of technology adoption among marketers, who are also upgrading their systems for media buying, email campaigns, social media, Web site management, customer data, and analytics. Many organizations cannot upgrade all these systems simultaneously, due to limits in capital budgets and, more important, in the amount of technical and business change they can support. This competition

Survey Stats

The research findings featured in this Gleansight benchmark report are derived from the Q4 2014 Gleanster survey on marketing resource management.

• Total survey responses: 366

• Qualified survey responses: 298

• Company size: <$1M (11%); $1 - 10M (7%); $10-250M (19%); $250M - $1B (20%); >$1B (43%)

• Geography: North America (93%); Europe (7%)

• Industries: Retail (27%); Technology & Media (15%); Financial Services (19%); Manufacturing (4%); Healthcare (3%); Restaurant (3%); Life Sciences (3%); Other (21%)

• Job levels: C-level (4%); SVP/ VP (20%); Director (11%); Manager & Staff (65%)

Sample survey respondents:

Out of 366 respondents only 2 were willing to share name, title, and company affiliation. That’s a first for us. We can however list a few brands represented in the data:

Whirlpool Wells Fargo

Sports Clips Haircuts Textron Aviation Bank of America ProBuilder Mattel

Part 1: Topic Overview

Marketing resource management software supports the marketing

operations of an organization. Primary functions include marketing planning and budgeting, marketing project management, and marketing content

management including approval workflows. Systems may also manage

some procurement, such as purchase of printed materials and of marketing services, but media buying is generally done separately. Other components of marketing execution are also excluded, including customer and prospect databases, mailing list segmentation and campaigns, content creation, and website management. Reporting and analysis are largely limited to supporting the system’s main functions. Functions such as production reporting, predictive modeling, and return on investment calculations might draw on some MRM data but would be performed outside of the system.

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with other projects poses an additional barrier to MRM deployment and encourages marketers to use MRM features built into comprehensive marketing suites. Although the most suitable approach will depend on each company’s particular situation,

nearly every marketing department can benefit from some version of MRM

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Part 2: Reasons to Implement

The overarching reason to implement marketing resource management

is to improve the efficiency of marketing operations. But this general goal encompasses many specific improvements, and different companies will

assign different weights. One common objective is cost reduction, achieved

by reducing the staff time required for specific tasks, by reductions in errors

and rework, and by better managed procurement spending. Another key objective is standardization of marketing processes, which ensures more reliable execution, less reliance on individual workarounds, and compliance with regulatory requirements. A third set of goals relates to the greater visibility into marketing operations gained by replacing stand-alone systems and private spreadsheets with a shared central system. This provides marketing management with greater control over operations and a clearer picture of results, helping them allocate resources to the most effective

programs and channels. Many other, specific goals fall within these general

categories.

Benchmark KPIs

Gleanster uses 2-3 key performance indicators (KPIs) to distinguish “Top Performers” from all other companies (“Everyone Else”) within a given data set, thereby establishing a basis for benchmarking best practices. By definition, Top Performers are comprised of the top quartile of qualified survey respondents (QSRs).

The KPIs used for distinguishing Top Performers focus on performance metrics that speak to year-over-year improvement in relevant, measurable areas. Not all KPIs are weighted equally.

The KPIs used for this Gleansight are:

• Year-over-year increase in revenue

To learn more about Gleanster’s research methodology, please click here or email research@gleanster. com.

Reasons to Implement are the

reasons Top Performers invested,

or plan to invest, in a technology.

These also represent the most

common ways to justify the

investment.

What are Reasons to

Implement?

Six out of ten Top Performers have deployed MRM technologies. (Top Performers are 2x more likely to invest in MRM than Everyone Else.) It’s good to see companies get back to the basics with respect to the reasons to implement MRM. Top

Performers stated that the top two reasons they invested in MRM were productivity (cost savings) and multi-channel marketing optimization. The data suggests that

Top Performers have an affinity for using MRM to make multi-channel customer

engagement scalable for the brand. Average organizations cited the top two reason to implement was standardization of repetitive marketing tasks (followed

by streamlined internal workflow). This data highlights a sad reality for average performing firms – Top Performers have cracked the nut on multi-channel marketing

and are therefore more likely to deliver exceptional customer experiences while average marketers struggle to make legacy processes in legacy channels more

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Decrease marketing costs. MRM systems help to reduce costs in many ways. Because the entire marketing department can work on the same system, less labor is spent copying data from one source to another and in updating colleagues about program status. Tangible cost savings can be calculated by taking an average marketing salary and calculating the cost of current processes (without MRM) – by number of resources, frequency of the task, and over a period of 3-5 years. For most marketers it’s shocking to realize that time savings on process

efficiency can justify a seven-figure

budget for consulting and licensing on an MRM investment. Comprehensive budget vs. actual reporting inside MRM also makes it easier to spot unexpected costs and anticipate overruns. A clearer view of marketing results lets management shift spending toward more effective programs, either reducing the cost of achieving the same target or

gaining additional results for the same budget

Optimize marketing spend across channels. The MRM system provides comprehensive, consistent information on marketing program costs and results. As the complexity of digital channels

continues to multiply, managing offline

and online marketing spend, campaigns, and brand consistency will require a standardized process that can be replicated, audited, and referenced over time. Today, many enterprises support multi-channel efforts in separate departments, leading to redundant processes, creative, copy, and spend. MRM helps align multi-channel efforts to a central system where leadership can gain holistic visibility over the brand and the customer experience. This insight can be converted into return

on investment figures, which allows

marketers to compare returns for different programs and shift spending to the most productive use. Other * According to Top Performers, based on 298 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2014 survey on MRM. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers

** versus 53% of Everyone Else

95%

Say:

Decrease marketing costs.

86%

Say:

Optimize marketing spend across channels.

82%

Say:

Manage brand consistency.

MOST COMPELLING

REASONS TO IMPLEMENT

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considerations also impact optimization decisions, such as the role played by different programs (acquisition, retention, etc.) and revenue targets by product line. The MRM system can classify programs along those lines, helping marketers understand the net impact of any budget shift and the campaigns that were designed to address marketing strategy objectives. Manage brand consistency. The MRM content repository makes it easier for dispersed marketers to share the same marketing materials. Most systems give administrators extensive control over which materials and which functions are available to individual users. This allows wide distribution of materials without risking unauthorized changes. Some MRM systems also have sophisticated distributed marketing functions that let channel partners, such as sales agents and dealers, download selected materials and make tightly controlled

modifications. These features may

automatically customize the materials with information such as the channel partner’s address and product lines handled.

Improve marketing cycle time. MRM helps eliminate cumbersome email approval processes that frequently result in lengthy delays due to vacation time and attrition in marketing (and can’t be audited to determine where the breakdown in communication took place). MRM systems speed marketing production by eliminating duplicate effort, enabling workers to access materials from a shared repository, and automatically managing the review and approval processes. The system may

also provide efficient content creation

tools, automated localization (such as versions in different languages), and tools to streamline procurement. Improved reporting also yields shorter cycle times by letting marketers view and react to program results more quickly.

75%

Say:

Improve marketing cycle time.

65%

Say:

Standardize repetitive marketing processes.

60%

Say:

Streamline workflow with internal stakeholders (Finance, Legal,

COMPELLING

REASONS TO IMPLEMENT MRM

FOR TOP PERFORMERS*

* According to Top Performers, based on 298 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2014 survey on MRM. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers

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59%

Say:

Optimize multi-channel content production.

56%

Say:

Gain visibility into marketing spend.

52%

Say:

Improve the accuracy of budgeting and planning.

LEAST COMPELLING

REASONS TO IMPLEMENT

MRM FOR TOP PERFORMERS*

* According to Top Performers, based on 298 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2014 survey on MRM. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers Standardize repetitive marketing

processes. MRM systems provide a structure for the processes they manage, including planning, budgeting, project management, and approval

workflows. This structure makes it

easy to track compliance with standard procedures. Many MRM products go further to include detailed task lists for

each project, which lay out the specific

process steps for users to follow. Users can generally create templates that contain standard lists for different types of projects. These are extended with

specific details, such as dates and staff

members, when the project is created. Projects can then be centralized on a marketing calendar supported by role-based security. Line of business workers can manage the calendar, which only shows relevant projects for that group, while executive leadership

can view all activities classified by

group, division, or business initiative.

Streamline workflow with internal stakeholders (Finance, Legal, Operations). Workflow features in

the MRM system can extend beyond the marketing department to include other groups that are involved in program creation and approvals. This includes legal and compliance departments for regulatory sign-off on

contents, finance for budget control

on programs, and operations for coordination on execution. Building these communications into the

standard workflows ensures that these

stakeholders are included automatically and with a minimum of additional effort. Optimize multi-channel content production. MRM can be used like a hub to connect ancillary processes like copy creation, creative, and translation to marketing projects. That means the same copy or creative can easily be re-used for projects that support different channels. This helps maintain

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brand consistency across the web, print collateral, email, and mobile communications.

Gain visibility into marketing spend. The planning and budgeting features of the MRM system provide a standard, shared framework for tracking marketing expenses. This framework helps

marketers relate expenses to larger categories such as customer segment, product line, and program purpose (acquisition, retention, cross-sell, etc.). Reporting features in the MRM system present this data in different ways to meet the needs of different users. Analytical features allow deeper exploration of spending trends and results.

Improve the accuracy of budgeting and planning. As programs are managed within the MRM system, it builds a history of costs and results. This data is already tagged with attributes such as program type, channel, product, and target segment. This makes it easy for marketers to look for patterns in past projects, such as consistent cost overruns in a particular type of program or department. It also gives them a basis for estimating future costs by looking at actual results of comparable projects already completed. Improve compliance with regulatory requirements. Content management features of MRM systems include several capabilities that support compliance. The most important is the

ability for workflow features to route new materials to compliance officers

for review. Many systems also provide mark-up features that let reviewers add comments to clarify any issues they uncover. In addition, the system may be able to enforce constraints on content

use, such as limiting it to specific

geographic areas (i.e., states where a product is authorized), customer groups (such as people over age 18), or date ranges.

Gain a holistic view of marketing

events and campaigns. Marketing programs for different channels or products are often executed in separate systems. The planning and budgeting features of the MRM system may be one of the few places to unify information from these different sources. This provides a comprehensive view of spending across channels and, depending on the data feeds, may extend to results such as responses and revenues. This can form the basis for return on investment analysis and marketing budget optimization. Coordinate multi-channel program development and execution. The MRM system may store marketing materials that are either created within the system or loaded from other sources. Having this shared, central repository makes it easier to later modify the original content for reuse across different channels. A central repository also helps marketers to ensure that all versions of an item are updated or removed from use when

appropriate. Companies also benefit from having a single set of workflow

features for content creation, approval, and distribution.

Multi-channel programs often require coordination among separate groups within the marketing organization. MRM planning and program management features simplify this by letting everyone work from shared, integrated task lists and schedules. Similarly, content management features help coordinate content development by providing all groups with a single tool for review and approvals.

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Part 3: Value Drivers

Deployment of MRM requires training on the new system, changes to business processes, and integration with other systems. The scope of change can be huge: it may involve nearly every marketing employee and process, plus workers in related departments, at suppliers, and at channel partners. Technical implementation tends to be relatively straightforward, especially in SaaS systems where there is no software to run in-house.

However, there may be significant data to load from existing systems, often

accompanied by format conversions and added tagging to make the data useful in its new environment.

The deployment effort must be managed effectively for the system to deliver its full value. Success begins with selection of a suitable system, continues with careful planning of the scope and sequence of changes, and relies on training and incentives to ensure the new system is used as intended. Management support, organizational adjustments, and adequate investment in external resources are essential

Value Drivers represent the

processes, organizational

considerations, and tactics that

help Top Performers maximize

the return on investment in a

technology initiative.

These are the things Top Performers

would attribute to the successful

implementation and use of a

technology.

What are Value Drivers?

Integration with other systems. Marketing operations processes demand interactions with a variety

of stakeholders including finance, IT,

sales, channel sales, and suppliers. As such, you should look for MRM systems that will integrate seamlessly with other

back-office systems like CRM, ERP,

and campaign management. Integration is a huge challenge for MRM and frequently requires custom consulting and support from partners. Make sure you have a very strong business case for integration and customizations, as these changes may impact the future support for the new MRM system, the more rigid the customization the more it costs to support in the future. That said, integration with ERP may be critical for aligning budgeting and

forecasting with the financial system

of record. Integration with WCM could help feed creative or copy to the

website or make offline documents

available for display online. It’s also very common to see product information management systems and translation

services integrated with MRM for a

seamless project flow, even when

work effort takes place outside of MRM. Bottom line, there’s no reason to duplicate data, so if information resides on other systems (CRM, DAM, video management, etc.), use available APIs to pull that information into MRM as needed.

Ongoing training and development. Companies often invest heavily in

training when a system is first deployed,

but then fail to continue training after the initial push. This can cause a steady decline in system effectiveness, as new users are not taught the correct procedures or system shortcuts. Even experienced employees should get regular retraining both to learn about new features and to learn advanced techniques that were not covered in the initial training. Continuous training also helps to ensure that standard procedures remain consistent throughout the organization, instead of fragmenting into variations developed by local groups.

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MAX

ROI!

100%

Destination...

50%

Ongoing training and development.

78%

Integration with other systems.

96%

Integrate data and activities across multiple systems.

73%

MOST IMPORTANT

VALUE DRIVERS FOR MRM

ROI ACCORDING TO TOP PERFORMERS*

* According to Top Performers, based on 298 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2014 survey on MRM. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers Integrate data and activities across

multiple systems. In some cases, MRM gains much of its value from integration with other systems, such as accounting, customer relationship management, or marketing automation. This happens when MRM is controlling activities in those systems, such as content delivery or program deployment, or when those systems are feeding MRM with critical information about costs and results. Such integration may require a more technically complex deployment than a typical MRM implementation. Companies with this requirement need to examine integration capabilities very closely during their system selection process. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to minimize highly customized integration with other systems by re-engineering processes instead of technical customization. Excessive customization demands long-term dependence consultants and technical resources and can impede software updates or system changes down the line.

System ease of use. Most MRM systems have many users, who bring varying degrees of involvement in the system and technical skill. A system that occasional users can learn with a minimum of instruction is critical; so is a system that heavy users can operate quickly and easily once they are trained. While these goals do not necessarily

conflict, they must still be assessed

separately during the selection process. Assessment must also focus on the

specific capabilities the company plans

to use: many MRM systems have a much broader array of features than any single company would require. Determining in advance which features you need is essential to acquiring a system that meets your particular needs.

Establish a center of excellence for marketing operations. In a very large organization, the potential scope of MRM deployment may be so large that even a phased approach is still too

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might establish a center of excellence as an internal resource to help different groups of marketers with their own local deployments. The center of excellence provides expertise similar to outside resources, but more familiar with the company’s internal processes, needs and culture. The center of excellence also helps to create consistency throughout the marketing organization, making cooperation easier as marketing operations become more integrated over time.

Cross-departmental roll-out:

marketing, finance, legal, etc. Highly regulated industries or highly dispersed organizations may focus on cross-departmental deployment as a key value driver for MRM. These deployments require special care because the key users are not within marketing and may not be initially committed to MRM’s success. Executive sponsorship, extensive training, and ease of use are likely to play especially important roles in this situation. Tight integration with

whatever external systems the other departments rely on may also be critical. Executive level champions.

Employees are often reluctant to change their existing processes, especially if they seem to work well. Management support is needed to make clear that change is not optional. Senior-level support is particularly important for MRM processes that cross organizational lines, since department leaders may not be willing to cooperate unless their common boss tells them to. But, while champions are important, they cannot substitute for well-considered plans and effective execution: project managers must ensure that they are asking employees to make changes that will ultimately work.

Engage third-party experts/ consultants. Outside resources can provide specialized expertise the organization lacks, such as process re-engineering or user training, or may

MAX

ROI!

100% Destination... 50% Establish a center of excellence for marketing operations.

55%

System ease of use.

68%

Cross-departmental

roll-out: marketing, finance, legal, etc..

50%

IMPORTANT

VALUE DRIVERS FOR MRM

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simply offer an extra set of hands to workers who cannot both deploy the new system and complete the regular work. Because effective planning and good initial results are so critical to long-term success, companies should ensure that they deploy adequate resources, including outside experts as necessary. However, terms of engagement should ensure that the necessary skills are transferred to company employees so the outside experts do not become a permanent cost. A typical MRM rollout from

implementation through configuration

and training could take anywhere from a year to a year and a half depending on the level of process re-engineering

required. Consultants can bring field

tested best practices to the table to manage a successful investment with

long-term benefits.

Phase the implementation. MRM systems may touch every process in a marketing organization, but changing everything at once is a recipe for

disaster. Implementation phases should be carefully chosen so the scope of each step is limited and still lays a foundation for future change. One strategy is to start with a small number of heavy users, who will be thoroughly trained on the system and then deploy a sequence of changes fairly quickly. Changes that involve a large number of casual users, such as approval

workflows, can be deferred until the

core system is running smoothly and the heavy users are familiar enough to help others as question arise. This minimizes the time they must spend straddling the old and new processes. Success also allows project stakeholders to champion a small win and aligns stakeholders that will be impacted in future phases.

MAX

ROI!

100% Destination... 50% Engage third-party experts / consultants.

27%

Executive level champions.

46%

Integration with digital asset

manage-ment system(s).

25%

LEAST IMPORTANT

VALUE DRIVERS FOR

MRM ROI ACCORDING TO TOP PERFORMERS*

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Part 4: Challenges

MRM projects often face significant obstacles to success. Some are

common to all system projects, such as lack of funding or management support. Others are related to the nature of MRM, which relies on adequate marketing processes, willingness to share data across departments,

and deep employee engagement. Another set reflects today’s marketing

environment, where systems must deal with an ever-expanding array of marketing methods and marketers must face ever-increasing demands to prove the value of their investments.

Meeting these challenges takes planning and perseverance. Some can be

prevented altogether by adequate preparation, such as developing a clear business case with a sound return on investment projection. Others, such as support from IT or senior management support, are outside of marketing’s control but can be

influenced by marketing actions. Environmental factors such as organizational

culture, existing corporate systems, and regulatory constraints, must be factored into project plans even though marketing cannot change them.

Challenges represent the various

roadblocks to watch out for before,

during and after a technology

implementation. These are the

things that prevent Top Performers

from maximizing the return on

technology investments.

Challenges

Organizational culture. Specific

problems such as poor processes, lack of cooperation, and low management support are often part of the broader organizational culture. Companies that are generally disorganized and fragmented will have an especially

difficult time adapting to the more

rigorous, integrated approach required by MRM. Leaders in those organizations should move carefully to deploy MRM in small groups whose culture can be adjusted over time, and bring to bear as many external resources as possible when changes involving large groups are unavoidable.

Employee training. Training remains

a significant hurdle for Top Performers,

who are two times more likely than Everyone Else to already use MRM technologies. Change management must be managed and therefore ongoing training for new employees must be a consideration. MRM

technology can be a little overwhelming for non-technical marketers. The biggest challenge facing MRM adoption is continuous support and ongoing optimization. The minute MRM becomes an administrative task rather than a value added enabler, users may resort to processes outside of MRM, and you can toss any return on investment out the window.

Lack of funding. MRM competes for funding with other projects within marketing, even as marketing competes for funding with other departments. The

cost of MRM is generally significant but

not overwhelming, so whether it gets funded is largely a matter of whether it seems like a better investment than alternative projects. The out of pocket cost is often reduced by using SaaS systems that are bought through a relatively low-cost monthly subscription rather than a single, large license purchase. In some cases,

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100% 50% Lack of funding. Employee training. Organizational culture.

91%

73%

67%

MOST CHALLENGING

ASPECTS OF

* According to Top Performers, based on 298 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2014 survey on MRM. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers the SaaS payment can be funded out

of operational budgets, avoiding the need for a formal capital appropriation. Marketers should also consider the added staff time and outside services required for a successful deployment, and plan to fund these as well.

Prioritizing against other initiatives MRM initiatives (or any productivity/

efficiency initiative for that matter) can be difficult to justify when the

organization is laser focused on top line growth. Usually marketers know processes stink and they could be a lot better with support from the right technologies. But you need tangible metrics for justifying MRM. Look for catalysts and constraints in the business that frustrate senior leaders – long cycle times, lack of visibility, redundant processes, legacy tools that blow up, etc. MRM initiatives are ONLY funded if you can demonstrate why the current

state of the business is inefficient and

how the future state of the business

will be more efficient using MRM. That

means marketers need to take the time to document the processes and point out the constraints and issues for

financial decision makers. If you can

show that spending $1M will save $6M over three years, that’s an initiative everyone can fund. Think of it his way, every initiative that is funded has a risk and a reward, as the project champion for MRM you need to demonstrate that the reward is tangible AND more importantly the risk of failure is negligible. Safe investments get funding. That said, you should also approach MRM from a milestone standpoint, you fund Phase 1, and measure the success. We have never heard of a successful big bang investment in MRM. Dependence on legacy systems. Marketing processes that were designed before MRM may use existing corporate systems such as email, reporting, and web content management. A new MRM system may not provide all the same functions, meaning that a process draws on both MRM and the legacy system to execute. Such processes are often redesigned during MRM deployment to separate the systems. As a general rule of thumb you don’t want to automate

inefficient legacy processes in the new

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results. Really kick the tires on why a process exists, and if it’s not a value add to the business, kill it. Use MRM initiatives to trim the fat on marketing processes. Your old legacy system shouldn’t be replicated 1:1 in a new

system. That’s difficult for marketers to

understand sometimes.

Cross function alignment. Marketers are by nature creative, and they will

find very creative ways to manage the

most complex problems. But marketers can also be very resistant to change, and the thought of uprooting existing processes in lieu of a centralized system can be very unsettling for marketers. But MRM initiative also frequently interface with IT, Finance, and Sales. While marketers know how bad things are, other departments may not value initiative. Top Performers gain support by eliciting early feedback from outside departments in an effort to improve visibility, data capture, and process alignment. MRM isn’t just an opportunity to improve marketing; it should simplify how other departments interface with marketing.

Poor marketing processes. MRM

is built around marketing processes. Companies that start with poor processes must add the burden of designing new ones to the other steps in MRM deployment. Since those companies probably lack strong process design skills, they should carefully consider bringing in external resources to help. They should also pay extra attention to training and process compliance during deployment. For Top Performers, success is dictated by careful planning and process alignment

long before a system is configured.

Some Top Performers indicated they spent twice as much time documenting and optimizing processes as they did

actually configuring these processes.

Remember: garbage in, garbage out. If you rush the implementation and implement sub-par processes in a new

system it amplifies and streamlines

mediocre results.

Lack of senior management support. The key executive sponsor

for MRM is the Chief Marketing Officer,

since MRM affects nearly everyone within marketing and relatively few people outside. Support may also be

100%

50%

CHALLENGING

ASPECTS OF MRM FOR

TOP PERFORMERS*

Cross function alignment. Dependence on legacy systems. Prioritizing against other initiatives.

55%

49%

43%

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100%

50%

Lack of ROI / Unable to justify investment. Lack of senior management support. Poor marketing processes.

36%

31%

LEAST CHALLENGING

ASPECTS OF

* According to Top Performers, based on 298 Qualified Survey Responses to the Q4 2014 survey on MRM. **According to Everyone Else shown only when a notable disparity occurs relative to Top Performers needed from leaders in Finance and

Information Technology groups, who will assess the business case and technology implications. After approval, the CMO must continue to support the project to ensure that workers within marketing work to ensure a successful deployment. A strong senior leadership team is a core differentiator for Top Performing organizations. The biggest risk to the investment is not the technology, but people. Executive champions should take a vested interest in ongoing communication about the

benefits, goals, and decisions made

during the project rollout. Inevitably, there are always a handful of resistant resources who may require some strong-arm encouragement before divesting of legacy processes or systems. Interestingly, the stakeholders and executives who initially resist the most often become some of the biggest advocates of MRM years down the line. Regulatory constraints. Government regulations may specify that data is treated in particular ways to ensure privacy or create an audit trail. The MRM system may play a key role in

meeting these requirements. If so, the necessary capabilities will be part of the selection criteria. Compliance will also be part of deployment planning,

process design, configuration, and user

training. Meeting regulatory standards can consume a large portion of the implementation budget.

Lack of IT support. Many MRM systems are offered as a vendor-hosted service, minimizing the IT effort required for deployment. But even in those situations, the IT department may be involved in project assessment and vendor selection. IT assistance may also be needed to integrate MRM with other corporate systems, to manage

access across company firewalls, and

to ensure compliance with corporate security policies. If internal IT resources are not available, most MRM vendors have service teams that can handle much of the process. In these situations it’s critical to document the data

governance decisions that were made to protect the investment at a later time. More often than not, when IT isn’t

involved initially, they soon find out the

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organization and can slow the rollout process.

Lack of ROI/Unable to justify investment. MRM can usually be

justified in terms of cost savings.

However, developing specific, creditable

estimates can be hard, especially in organizations that lack strong marketing operations discipline. Marketers in this situation can sometimes identify enough savings to pay for the system by

focusing on particular benefits such as

reduced revisions or greater materials reuse. In other cases, marketers may be able to justify the system by assuming a small percentage savings across broad categories, such as support staff or production costs.

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Part 5: Performance Metrics

Since the goal of MRM is greater operating efficiency, the most important performance metrics are efficiency measures. But efficiency can be

measured at many levels, from return on marketing investment to cost per standard task to marketing spend per staff member. Metrics for MRM should report results that MRM affects directly, not those primarily determined by other factors. Ideally, the metrics would also show where MRM is working well and where it can be improved. No single metric can accomplish these aims, but marketers can easily look at several.

Another set of metrics captures the accuracy of operational data, such as variance between actual and budgeted costs and between planned and actual schedules.

Although not directly related to marketing efficiency, these are key factors in

assessing the performance of the operations group.

Metrics can also report on use of the MRM system itself. This includes the number of active users and the percentage of projects or budget managed within the system. These can help managers identify groups of users who have not

fully adopted the system and find tasks where the system has not been working

effectively.

These represent the most common

metrics Top Performers use to

physically measure the success of a

technology initiative before and/or

after the implementation.

Performance Metrics

98%

82%

67%

Marketing spend as % of revenue Revenue growth Projects delivered

on time / on budget

MOST COMMON

METRICS FOR MEASURING

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Revenue. Revenue is the most basic measure of business performance, but it can rarely be attributed directly to a MRM system. There may be exceptions where MRM supports a key function, such as distributing advertising

materials or supporting a specific media

channel. Even then, factors other than the system itself are more likely to drive results.

Projects delivered on time/on budget. The project management features of MRM allow users to track how well marketing projects meet their schedules and budgets. Improved management is a primary goal of MRM, so this is a useful performance metric for both the system and its users. Variance of actual to estimated project costs. MRM should give marketers better visibility into actual expenses, thereby helping to predict future costs for similar projects. Since better predictions are a primary MRM

benefit, prediction accuracy is an

important measure of system results. Marketing spend as % of revenue. The ratio of marketing spend to total revenue is a general measure of marketing effectiveness. Since MRM

is primarily a way to improve marketing

efficiency, benefits from MRM should be reflected in a lower spend-to-revenue

ratio. However, as with revenue itself, other factors are likely to have a greater

influence on results. Careful analysis

is needed to isolate the impact of MRM itself.

ROI on marketing spend. Return on marketing spend is properly measured

using the incremental revenue or profit

created by marketing expenses. In

practice, it is often difficult to determine

how much incremental revenue can be attributed directly to marketing. The

portion of this due specifically to MRM

is still harder to estimate.

Variance of actual to estimated program results. In a fully deployed MRM system, the planning features include estimates of program results, and actual results are posted from execution systems. Marketers should

be able to use this information to refine

their estimates of future results. Cost per standard marketing task (e.g. per email sent, per ad created, etc.). MRM is intended to reduce the cost of marketing tasks, so these are appropriate measures. However, using

59%

51%

47%

Percentage of marketing spend managed within the

system ROI on marketing

spend Variance of actual to estimated project costs

COMMON

METRICS FOR MEASURING MRM

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them requires detailed information about activity volumes and costs, which are not necessarily available. Companies wishing to use these measures need to ensure they have the appropriate data capture processes in place.

Number of marketing assets

managed within system. As with other utilization metrics, number of assets managed is not a direct value measure. The growing number of assets at most companies does make it a useful measure of volume and, combined with other data, of staff productivity.

Marketing spend per marketing staff

member. Staff productivity may be the

most important MRM benefit, and spend

per staff member is the most general productivity metric. Trends may also be affected by change in the media mix, since some media are inherently more labor intensive than others. If analysis can control for these and other factors, spend per staff member can be a critical MRM metric.

Number of active users on the system. Because MRM is a marketing-wide system, the number of active users is an important measure of adoption. It

does not directly measure the benefits

of the system, however.

NUMBERS

63

63% of Top Performing organizations use MRM technology versus 35% of Everyone Else who reports the same.

61

Percentage of Top Performers who ranked social media monitoring as a key “new” and desired feature that comes to mind when thinking about marketing operaitons.

90

90% of Everyone Else ranked lack of funding as a top challenge with marketing operations.

42

Percentage of firms planning

on investing in marketing operations in the next 12-24 months.

75

Percentage of CMOs who rank “visibility into marketing processes” as a top 2 reason to invest in MRM.

45%

39%

28%

Variance of actual to estimated program results Number of active users on the system

LEAST COMMON

METRICS FOR MEASURING

Marketing spend per marketing staff

member

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Part 6: Success Stories

With the nation’s largest financial services network, Bank of America delivers

quality services and products to more than 30 million customers. At Bank of America, measuring process improvement is an imperative, as evidenced by its adoption of the Six Sigma methodology as a means to achieve company-wide goals consistently.

The Challenge

As part of an initiative to improve

process efficiency and track

marketing effectiveness, Bank of America’s Corporate Marketing and Communications team reevaluated the way it plans, executes and measures its marketing efforts. “Previously, each communications manager handled projects differently,” said the Communications Manager, Bank of America Brand nd Advertising. “For example, wo campaigns would be managed using different methods, while performance measurement tracking for each project was inconsistent. As a result, nearly

10 percent of marketing projects required some level of rework. “We therefore needed a standard project management approach for marketing the company, its products and services and to decrease cost and cycle time. This would also allow us to track results across projects so we could measure process improvements. We needed visibility across all marketing projects to ensure each one was aligned with

Corporate objectives,” stated the Communications Manager.

The Solution

Bank of America invested in an on-demand MRM solution designed to support plan, spend, and project management. Bank of America’s Brand and Advertising team conducted the pilot implementation of the Project Management solution. To address its processes comprehensively, 330 Bank of America marketing team members, including 100 from Brand

and Advertising and 12 external advertising agencies, were trained on the applications. Using the modeling capability, the planning and approval phase quickly produced improvements.

The Results

This increased the accuracy of

financial data, reduced the time spent

researching invoices and made it easier

to leverage current financial information

for decisions. Invoice processing cycles

were significantly shortened. “In the first

year of operation we actually processed 33 percent more invoices,” said the Strategic Market Manager.

Note: The original version of this Success Story may have been prepared—and previously published—by an enabling solution provider. If so, it is edited and reproduced here by permission. While reasonable efforts have been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein through independent fact-checking, Gleanster disclaims liability for any content that was developed and submitted by third parties. Success Stories are selected based solely on the merits of the content as judged by Gleanster’s Research Oversight Committee. Vendors are not charged a fee for inclusion and no preference is given to vendors based on their ability to purchase other Gleanster products or services. Any questions or concerns regarding this particular Success Story–or Gleanster’s selection criteria or policies, in general– should be directed to successstories@ gleanster.com. Case studies may be submitted for publishing consideration using the Success Stories Submission Form.

Establishing a consistent

process throughout our

marketing organization

has helped us closely

align projects to

corporate objectives.”

“

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Part 7: Vendor Landscape

The economic climate over the last decade slowed investments in MRM – but certainly didn’t eliminate the need. Budget cuts placed greater emphasis on demand generation and customer engagement, shifting spending toward technologies and initiatives that directly accelerated top line growth. Many

organizations considered back-office efficiency a secondary concerns amid

tight budgets. But the last two to three years have seen a sharp increases in marketing management initiatives that include investments in MRM. Manual processes and legacy systems are reaching diminishing returns against a perpetual demand for more content in more channels. In a fortuitous turn

of events, the underlying value proposition of MRM is gaining significant

attention as marketing leaders wake up to the harsh reality of unsalable manual processes, lack of visibility into marketing activities, and longer than average cycle time on marketing execution. More and more organizations are looking to the future and a roadmap for a longer-term infrastructure that supports marketing success (driven by exceedingly high customer expectations and increased competition for share of wallet).

Vendor & Solution Showcases

Visit www.gleanster.com to access vendor and solution showcases for this topic area, where you’ll find:

• Vendor Descriptions

• Analyst Commentary

• Related White Papers

• Videos & Presentations

• Solution Demos

• Other Related Research

• And much more...

It’s everything you need to make smart technology decisions. All in one place.

Browse the MRM

Research Portal

Traditional MRM systems were on-premise implementations offering

workflow, budgeting, digital asset

management, and reporting – designed for large complex marketing functions. These systems provide structure and scalability for aligning marketing objectives and execution across many business units, functions, or product lines. They are expensive, robust, and really the only option for very large complex marketing operations

environments. About five years ago, the industry saw significant consolidation.

The largest MRM players were acquired by industry leading organizations with the goal of pulling them into a larger customer management solution stack. Unfortunately, consolidation led to a diminished focus on traditional MRM capabilities for the acquiring companies – likely because licenses to MRM software account for a tiny fraction of a

ten figure deals on hardware solutions;

sales reps just aren’t motivated to drive investments in MRM. Ironically the

very organizations that championed the term have all but disappeared from spearheading thought leadership and rarely show up on short-lists.

Today, MRM capabilities are available on-demand and more accessible to midsize organization that have a need for marketing operations management capabilities. Interestingly, the very capabilities that make them more accessible to mid-size companies are just as relevant for enterprises where departments or business units are looking for turnkey and easy to support MRM capabilities. For midsize organizations, seamless integration

between back-office activity and

customer engagement is critical. As a result, some MRM solution capabilities are blended into a comprehensive solution that supports planning to multi-channel execution. These on-demand solutions often lack the robust features and security options of enterprise MRM solutions, but deliver more than enough

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capabilities to align the marketing value chain.

Services have also become a major selling point for vendors who will often include implementation services as part of the investment (a potential point of negotiation) in the technology license. It’s important to keep in mind that vendors are typically REALLY

good at configuring the technology,

and not as good about non-technical aspects of the implementation such as process re-engineering, organizational alignment, phased implementations,

and industry specific best practices.

As a technology, MRM is an enabler of people and process. The speed of deployment should be the least important component of the initiative. Do it right, or you will be doing it again. The most important best practice to stress when evaluating MRM is to

firmly understand your organization,

the processes, and exactly what you need the tool to support. Vendors will answer all of your questions with “Yes it can do that” or “We can make it work.”

Keep a list of prioritized benefits your

organization needs to accomplish to see value from the initiative and let vendors know how you plan to measure success and hold them to these considerations during the roll-out.

MRM systems are designed to provide structure and cadence to an otherwise chaotic process. Marketing is part art and part science, and many

stakeholders will have a difficult time

placing rigor around creative process. Some users have even referred to MRM as the ERP of marketing. While this is partly true, it’s important to re-iterate the goals of the initiative and drive organizational alignment across the company, long before turning

dials on configuration. Engage users, find out where their pain is in manual

processes and attempt to alleviate this pain within MRM. A stubborn marketer may view MRM as more work, and that might be true if they are unwilling to

divest of legacy processes or systems. Change management is critical when implementing MRM. Demonstrate why the system is important, how it’s less risky, and communicate early (and often) with all stakeholders – particularly in the technology selection process.

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ADAM Software

http://www.gleanster.com/vendors/adam-software “ADAM Software develops media intelligent software for marketing/media creation, management and distribution. Our software delivers automation and optimization of these processes, which means faster cycle times, more consistent quality and branding, and high ROI.”

Gleanster Skinny: ADAM Software is specifically designed for marketers and media companies. The solution is marketed under a unique acronym MEP (Marketing Execution Platform) which ADAM uses to frame the evolution of DAM requirements within the

marketing function. ADAM Software is probably more appropriate for the DAM topic area than MRM. But they have a robust set of workflow and collaboration capabilities that would make them an ideal fit for marketing operations initiatives that demand digital asset heavy requirements (also the core focus on marketing makes them a natural candidate for the MRM landscape). ADAM is a great fit for national or global enterprise manufacturers who struggle with

aligning product information management and

digital asset management.

FAQs About Gleanster

Vendor Rankings

What is Gleanster’s

methodology for capturing

vendor rankings data?

Vendor rankings are crowd-sourced by end users in Gleanster surveys. Respondents are asked to rank their current or past experience with relevant vendors on a scale of 1-5. A minimum of 8 user reviews are required to show up on the chart. This is not a statistically valid sample size, but it’s quite difficult to get in front of actual users. Gleanster promotes this survey independently AND allows vendors to promote the survey link prior to publication to drive customer participation. The top 8 highest survey responses are taken into account on the rankings. All vendors have equal ability to be covered on the rankings charts. Vendors do not pay Gleanster to be covered and cannot influence placement with an analyst relationship.

How do I interpret the data

on this chart?

Eight users with current or past experience with one or more solutions from this vendor gave them an average score of “x” based on the criteria of this chart. This information should (1) be taken with a grain of salt given the sample size and (2) be married with other sources of rankings data available in the market research industry.

If a vendor isn’t ranked as

“Best,” what does that mean?

The Good, Better, Best rankings are a way to segment user feedback in easy to digest buckets. Any vendor with more than one customer has a technology offering that is successfully addressing the needs of a satisfied customer base. Regardless of the score, placement on the vendor rankings charts is a good thing. It means you get insight into user perception from...

GOOD

BETTER

BEST

INFOR, ORBIS

ORACLE

SAS

TERADATA

MICROSOFT

IBM, UNICA

ATTASK

DOCUSTAR

ADOBE

MARCOMCENTRAL

SAEPIO

MRM VENDORS RANKED BY EASE OF

DEPLOYMENT

BASED ON EXPERIENCE FROM USERS

3.5 out of 5 3.5 out of 5 2.9 out of 5 2.3 4.3 out of 5 4.0 out of 5 3.7 out of 5 4.9 out of 5 4.8 out of 5 4.7 out of 5 4.6 out of 5

* Gleanster Research 2014 MRM Gleansight Benchmark Report

Vendor Rankings FLASH chart © Gleanster, November 2014 Note: Vendor rankings are determined by the experiences of industry practitioners, according to survey feedback, and not by the assessment or opinion of Gleanster analysts. The omission of a particular vendor may be due to lack of sufficient data and may be no indication of that company’s performance relative to other solution providers. Information on the research methodology used for vendor rankings is available elsewhere in this Gleansight