Three words – implementation, implementation, implementation!

A few weeks ago, away on one of my Senior Marketer weekends with the Levitt Group, I heard a presentation from Dr Brian Smith entitled “Why we don't, and how we can, implement our strategic marketing plans” – full of insight into the reasons why, so often, implementation never seems to happen!

It was a follow on from Brian’s 2005 book “Making Marketing Happen – How Great Companies Make Strategic Planning Work”. I strongly recommend it (http://books.elsevier.com). For those serious about planning business strategy, there is no greater frustration than seeing the things grind to a halt for reasons, which once explained, can be so easily overcome.

Implementation is at the heart of my work. A long time ago, in the days of big corporate world, we seemed to lurch from one planning cycle to the next, with no real direction as to why we were pointing the way we were, no input from the market and little thought about implementation – unless the sales figures, which was what it was really about, started to drift.

How interesting that in those times I never met anyone with a single qualification in marketing or any real formal training – just glorified salesmen, pretending they were marketers! Fortunately times have changed a little.