I am in a situations that I found story below so ironic to me... Listening to "Ironic" - Alanis Morissette ---- Your founder, a brilliant technician, started the company years ago when he quit his day job to market his idea full time. He created a product that he just knew other people needed. And he was right. Pretty soon he delivered enough of the product and hired his best friend from college as VP of Sales. And the company grew. But before long, the VP of Sales complained, “We’re an engineering-led company. We need to become customer-driven.” And that sounded fine. Except… every new contract seemed to require custom work. You signed a dozen clients in a dozen market segments and the latest customer’s voice always dominated the product plans. You concluded that “customer-driven” meant “driven by the latest customer” and that couldn’t be right. When a board member declared, “We’ve become a sales-led company. We really need to start being marketing-driven,” you hired a brand specialist away from a consumer product company to be your VP of Marketing. As part of a re-branding initiative, she designed a new corporate logo with a new color scheme for the web site, new collateral, and an updated trade show booth. Everyone got new company icons on their clothing. Except… you spent millions without any change in revenue. Apparently, branding wasn’t the answer! Soon the CFO whispered to the founder, “Don’t you think it’s time we started controlling costs?” So the company became cost-driven and started cutting all the luxuries out of the business, like travel, technical support, bonuses, and award dinners. And Marketing! The CFO asked, “What do those marketing people do anyway?” And since no one had a good answer, the CFO deleted the marketing budget and fired all the marketing people. At this point, when Finance goes too far, the founder steps back in to focus on his roots—the technology— and the cycle begins again. The VP of Development says, “Customers don’t know what they want.” The VP of Sales says, “I can sell anything.” The VP of Marketing says, “We just have to establish a brand.” The VP of Finance says, “We have to control spending.” The focus goes from technology to revenue to branding to cost-containment, over and over again.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 13:34:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015