Spanning Silos: The New CMO Imperative

by David A. Aaker

Powerful product, country, and functional silos are jeopardizing companies' marketing efforts. Because of silos, firms misallocate resources, send inconsistent messages to the marketplace, and fail to leverage scale economies and successes--all of which can threaten a company's survival.

As David Aaker shows in Spanning Silos , the unfettered decentralization that produces silos is no longer feasible in today's marketplace. It's up to chief marketing officers to break down silo walls to foster cooperation and synergy.

This isn't silo teams guard their autonomy vigorously. As proof of their power, consider the fact that the average CMO tenure is just twenty-three months. How to proceed? Drawing on interviews with CMOs, Aaker explains how

Strength your credibility with silo teams and your CEO
Use cross-functional teams and other strategic linking devices
Foster communication across silos
Select the right CMO role-- from facilitator to strategic captain
Develop common planning processes
Adapt your brand strategy to silo units
Allocate marketing dollars strategically across silos
Develop silo-spanning marketing programs

In this age of dynamic markets, new media, and globalization, getting the different parts of your organization to collaborate is more critical--and more difficult--than ever. This book gives you the road map you need to accomplish that feat.

Genres: Business

217 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2008

Reviews

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cooperative guide to making corporate marketing work

Chief marketing officers often face two serious corporate problems: first, trying to market and promote a company’s brands when its internal units or departments are not working well together and, second, building credibility in such a contentious atmosphere. David Aaker’s marketing book brings considerable analysis to bear on these issues, perhaps even too much. It may be that the cure he seeks resides in organizational change, not marketing. Nonetheless, his information on fostering cooperation and communication, drawn from more than 40 interviews with chief marketing officers, will help senior marketers. getAbstract suggests it to those who represent multibrand, multinational corporations. You can market your company, if you can get its fragmented silos to work well together for the greater good of powerful marketing.

[Jordan Galeles · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent handbook for marketing professionals in centralized & silo marketing teams. Challenged some of my views on standardization, and gained many other applicable takeaways and ideas.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this his latest book, Aaker examines a subject of special interest to me: organizational "silos." I agree with Aaker that there are situations in which they can have substantial value. Aaker uses a silo as a metaphor for "organizational units that contain their own management team and talent and lack the motivation or desire to work with or even communicate with other organizational units." The largest organizations are collections of silos that can be classified according to the country in which they are located, the product(s) for whose marketing they are primary responsible, or their operational (non-marketing) function such as IT and HR. As companies such as P&G, GM, HP, and Unilever demonstrate, there can also be silos within silos. Up to a point, a decentralized structure that not only allows but indeed supports silos is desirable.

But there can also be problems with silos, especially in a world that Thomas Friedman has characterized as "hot, flat, and crowded." According to Aaker, "relying on unfettered decentralized organizations with highly autonomous silo units is no longer competitively viable. The world has changed...Silo-spanning brands increasingly require consistency and synergies. There is a drive for marketing accountability that is inhibited by the silo structure. The need for deep expertise in cutting-edge marketing disciplines, difficult to achieve in a fragmented organization, is emerging at a rapid pace. There is also an increasing intolerance of inefficient and ineffective marketing that is coupled with an increasing ability to discern when they are around and about. Marketing is called on to do more with less and the inherent inefficiency of silos has become a significant burden...There is just too much at stake to allow silo interests to inhibit or prevent the effort toward achieving strong brands and effective marketing. That does not mean that the answer is to disband silos." Rather, organizations must determine how to eliminate the problems caused by silos without losing the benefits they can provide. Aaker advocates the need for a chief marketing officer (CMO) who concentrates on achieving that worthy objective.

Throughout his narrative, Aaker responds to questions such as these:

1. What are the major silo issues?
2. How have various global organizations done about them?
3. What has worked? Why? What hasn't? Why not?
4. What are the best-practice approaches?
5. What insights has his extensive research revealed, including interviews of dozens executives revealed?

What Aaker provides in this book is a "road map to success" for CMOs and their associates. He identifies the major silo structure-driven problems, the most important action items and the key barriers facing CMOs. He also identifies indicators that decentralization is out of control and recommends corrective initiatives that encourage more and better allocation of marketing resources, clarity and linkage in silo-spanning brand strategy, silo-spanning marketing offerings and programs, marketing management competence, leveraging success, and communication and cooperation.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The guru of brand management gives a general introduction to the office politics involved in managing marketing efforts across huge and unwieldy corporations. Some interesting insights into notorious marketing strategies (e.g. MasterCard's "priceless" campaign).

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

just the book i needed in order to figure our a problem at work

[Marcy]

Excellent.