Initial Situation
The GP+S customer, an IT infrastructure vendor, does an annual marketing planning for his strategic alliance partners. The intention is to set up with the alliance partner integrated initiatives and offerings which better meet the customer requirements and enable “one-stop-shopping”.
The partner marketing team, which is responsible for the global alliance with a software vendor, wanted to take a more efficient and effective planning approach. Other than the typically sequenced and therefore exhausting planning- and coordination procedures with all internal product lines involved, the new approach should speed up the process by a priori synchronizing and external moderating of the planning process, in order to deliver an effective result and to increase efficiency.
The broad set of competences in IT topics and the marketing expertise of GP+S were the reasons why GP+S was chosen as external partner for the set up and facilitation of the planning process.
GP+S Service
- As-is analysis of all existing marketing planning approaches including multiple business areas, as well as the planning status in the different sales regions
- Analysis of the marketing plans of the alliance partner
- Consolidation and structuring of information to assess all marketing approaches and solutions at a glance
- Multi-day workshop with the planning team, including all global decision makers of the partner marketing organization
- Moderation of the workshop by GP+S helping to adjust the plans of the individual organizations and ensuring a balance of interests
- Formation and coordination of sub teams to develop action plans for each business area with the help of checklists and other instruments for marketing planning provided by GP+S
- Coordination of interdisciplinary teams to develop comprehensive actions and solutions
- Synchronization of the downstream coordination and budget planning processes for individual business areas
- Consolidation of all sub plans into one overall marketing plan. Final preparation and handover of the marketing plan to the partner management team
Results
- The period for the development of a coordinated partner marketing plan was reduced from three months to four weeks
- The intense and transparent coordination process led to new approaches for the partner marketing actions and enabled a coordinated and for all stakeholders traceable definition of priorities
- The sound and synchronized plan was the basis for successful negotiations for funding of joint solutions and joint marketing programs with the alliance partner
- Savings in marketing expenses by identifying and leveraging synergies as well as the joint utilization of resources
- By using a clear and focused style of communication with the regional and local marketing and sales managers, the premise for a smooth implementation of marketing programs and lead generating actions, was set
- Higher level of motivation of the partner marketing managers by establishing clear and fair principles and planning measures for the distribution of marketing budgets
