April 16, 2019
Through the eyes of their client Sub-Zero, MERGE takes an in-depth look at the core ingredients needed for organizations looking to scale up.
MERGE
It's been often said that time is our most precious resource. And when you have a smaller MOPS team, time is even more critical—you simply don’t have enough resources to meet demand. Such is the case in our example today.
Sub-Zero’s issue wasn’t that they had too many cooks in the proverbial kitchen—it was that they needed to figure out a way to make more effective use of the resources they had.
How would Cyndi Marty, Digital Marketing Manager, CRM at Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove and her lean marketing team be able to break through bottlenecks and scale their marketing operations without a huge influx of budget? And how could they empower the company’s regional marketing managers to have the autonomy they needed to be successful while protecting the overall brand?
Good questions. The solution involved adopting specific decentralized marketing elements that are having a positive impact on the organization’s people and processes.
The Challenge: Scale Marketing Operations On a Budget
Like many organizations, Sub-Zero wanted to scale its business but faced a number of challenges. Limited corporate office staff resources meant that people had a hard time keeping up with work, and there wasn’t money in the budget to hire marketing assistance. Additionally, execution delays caused by conflicting priorities between the regional offices and the corporate marketing office were causing some local campaigns to be delayed and other campaigns to be skipped entirely.
Centralized Platform Bottlenecks Progress
Clearly, Sub-Zero had talented resources in its regional markets—subject matter experts with their fingers on the pulse of the local markets and direct connections to its customers. But with its fully centralized marketing platform and process, the organization was having difficulty moving quickly and maximizing the value of all of its capabilities without jeopardizing the brand or duplicating efforts.
Searching for a solution, Sub-Zero focused on transforming its marketing approach in three very important ways:
The Solution: Adopt the Best of Both Models
Sub-Zero opted for a hybrid model created by Jeto that combines the brand protection elements of the centralized marketing model with the marketer empowerment pieces of the decentralized approach in a completely new approach. This model was further supported by Scott Brinker’s democratization of technology and the new rules that go along with it, helping Sub-Zero to know they were on the right path.
The Result: Forecasted Execution Costs Slashed by 90%
For Sub-Zero, the Jeto app was the “aha” moment for the organization, the veritable lightbulb-over-the-head moment when everything clicked together and their minds started spinning with possibilities of all of the future citizen technologists who could be empowered with such a tool, from sales and customer care all the way to the HR office. Although Sub-Zero just launched the usage of Jeto, early forecasts project a 90% decrease in execution resources needed to support the regional marketing teams. With the possibilities expanding to other departments and teams, Sub-Zero has the potential to complete even more campaigns and focus more energy where they need it most.
Key Takeaways
So what can we learn from Sub-Zero’s scalability journey? Cyndi suggests the following tips for creating a successful transition, getting C-suite buy-in and avoiding common transformation pitfalls.
Create a Successful Transition
To help your organization implement elements of decentralization in a meaningful way, make sure you:
Get C-Suite Buy-In
When managing change, remember that C-Suite needs and concerns are different than those in other areas of the organization. Specifically:
Avoid Transformation Pitfalls
As your business is shifting to incorporate elements of decentralization, keep an eye out for these common issues that can throw your efforts off track:
Does your organization need help achieving ROI from Marketo? Learn how the Marketo experts at MERGE can help. Contact us today!
