Forrester Research asked ~100 marketers which skills were most important to the success of a marketing executive, and how critical those skills are relative to five years ago.
So what’s wrong with this picture? The marketers got it completely wrong. The order should have been reversed.
Marketers earn the right to be “strategic” by the efficient and effective delivery of the processes they manage, and by demonstrating an ability to tie the results of their processes to the financial performance of their firm.
All too often, the word strategy is thrown around too casually. I bet the marketers surveyed by Forrester used the term “strategic thinking” to mean “large scale, disruptive, competitive-advantage gaining” thinking.
But often, strategy simply means “fix a problem” — which requires more creativity and process/financial management than it does pie-in-the-sky rumination.
Get your skill priorities straight, marketers.
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