Manufacturing Talk

There’s been a lot of talk about social media. A Q3 Forrester report showed inquiries about Web 2.0 and social media on the rise among B2B marketers, with a sharp spike in interest in the last 6 months of the report (January to July 2008). Many marketers are still finding their way around utilizing tools such as blogs and social networks in their marketing efforts, let alone making these efforts payoff with real business benefit. Now, the economy has put social media on the back burner for many B2B companies. Yet, this is just the time to take a more serious look at social media in marketing. Why? Social media lets marketers double-dip.

Marketers are the “voice of the customer” to the business, and accomplish this through market research, analysis and insights to guide product / service development (inbound). And, of course, they plan and execute activities to get customers to buy or influence other customers (outbound). The beauty of social media in B2B marketers’ kitty is that it does a bit of both, a compelling proposition in these times. For cash strapped B2B companies, effective use of social media can be more than an inexpensive alternative… it can provide a window into particularly un-expressed customer needs and preferences, yield higher returns with more effective marketing, and increase intimacy with customers. Realizing the full potential of social media in marketing involves a lot more than inserting a blog into a website. It requires re-thinking the marketing processes to engage customers vs. transactional relationships, implementing technology platforms and tools to analyze customer behavior and offer a positive interaction experience, and putting in place governance mechanisms to sustain this and reduce the risk of alienating customers, etc.

Here’s a real life example from a high-tech company.

Posted by VJ Bala at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Got your attention, huh - before you dismiss the pursuit of the myth, at least admit that we are in a tornado or a perfect storm or your favorite metaphor for the mess the U.S. economy is in, in general, and manufacturing in particular. Hi tech OEMs are suffering with cut backs in Enterprise and Consumer spending hurting the whole value chain, Discrete mfrs are caught between high local manufacturing costs in the face of slumping demand vs high cost (of hedging) fuel costs if they choose to manufacture elsewhere, auto manufacturers ..well .. There's plenty to talk about gloom and doom, but the U.S. Manufacturing sector will recover sooner than we brave to predict - a combination of federal spending, fiscal policies, lower material costs, potentially lower labor costs all work in its favor. So, if you are still with me past this second step of seeing beyond the tornado, I am bit closer to have you take a peek at the rainbow of opportunity - by all anecdotal accounts, there's a massive flushing of inventory in the supply chain in progress - withering demand has led to production shutdowns, and the cash flow issues for the entire mfg supply chain is flushing out inventory. So, rest assured that in several sub-industry categories, just as the rainbow appears, the entire supply chain is going to look like a candy store left open on Halloween eve. In some industry segments, it is imperative today to plan for seizing the opportunity - I want to hear from you what the top 3 industry sub-segments are in U.S. Manufacturing where planning now will yield compounded returns once the sector pcks up -If I were a betting man, I'd look to making the beaten down consumer more productive but enough with my Kool-aid .....I'll submit a shortlist in my next post.

Posted by Badri Devalla at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)