Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 9, Issue 4, Year 2019

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“ Mar k et i ngSc i enceandI ns pi r at i ons ” ,Al way sPr ov i di ngHi ghQual i t yCont ent onKeyChal l engesFacedbyMar k et er sToday Cos t el I l i uț ăNEGRI CEA

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Editorial Board of “Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Editor-in-Chief Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA

Bernd HALLIER

John SAEE

John L. STANTON

Léon F. WEGNEZ

William PERTTULA Levent ALTINAY

Andrew KILNER Dana ZADRAZILOVA Riccardo BELTRAMO Sinisa ZARIC Gabriela SABĂU Hélène NIKOLOPOULOU Vasa LÁSZLÓ Peter STARCHON John MURRAY Kamil PÍCHA

Holistic Marketing Management

President of European Retail Academy; President of EuCVoT, Member of the Astana Economic Scientists Club; Former Managing Director EHI Retail Institute, Germany, Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroShop, Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent, Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P. President - Association of Global Management Studies (USA); Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues & Former Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Management Systems, USA; Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology; Member of France’s National Academy of Scientific Research (CNRS); Director - ESB International Teaching and Research Exchanges, Reutlingen University, Germany Professor of Food Marketing, Erivan K. Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, USA; Director, Institute of Food Products Marketing, Editor, Journal of Food Products Marketing; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2016 Secretary General, International Association of the Distributive Trade, AIDA Brussels; Member of France’s Academy of Commercial Sciences; Doctor Honoris Causa of NUPSPA (SNSPA) Bucharest; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2015; Administrator Secretary General of the Diplomatic Club of Belgium Internet Marketing Professor, College of Business, San Francisco State University, USA Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Research Area Leader, Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business, Oxford Brookes University, UK First MBA Director at the Rennes Graduate School of Business in France; Director of RAFME Research into Management Excellence; PhD (Cambridge), MBA (City, London) Faculty of International Economic Relations, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic University of Turin, Italy University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia Memorial University, Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook, Canada University of Lille 3, France Szent Istvan University, Hungary Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice 1

Irena JINDRICHOVSKA Norbert HAYDAM Constantin ROŞCA Hans ZWAGA Roxana CODITA Dumitru MIRON Valeriu IOAN-FRANC Iacob CĂTOIU Virgil BALAURE Gheorghe ORZAN Luigi DUMITRESCU Marius D. POP Petru FILIP

Ion VOICU SUCALA Virgil POPA Alexandru NEDELEA Olguța Anca ORZAN Ana-Maria PREDA Ovidiu FOLCUȚ Doinița CIOCÎRLAN Marius Dan DALOTĂ Mihai PAPUC Gheorghe ILIESCU Costel NEGRICEA Alexandru IONESCU Tudor EDU Olga POTECEA Oana PREDA Nicoleta DUMITRU Monica Paula RAȚIU Elisabeta Andreea BUDACIA

Deputy Head of Department of Business Economics, University of Economics and Management, Prague, Czech Republic Faculty of Business, Marketing Department, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa President of Romanian Scientific Society of Management - SSMAR Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences, Finland Technische Universität München, TUM School of Management Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy; Romanian Marketing Association; Romanian Distribution Committee Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Management and Economic Engineering Department; University of Glasgow, UK, College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences; Managing Editor, Review of Management and Economic Engineering Valahia University of Târgovişte Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University

Associate Editors Diana SOCA Irina PURCĂREA Dan SMEDESCU Art Designer Director Alexandru BEJAN

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“Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University)

Volume 9, Issue 4, Year 2019

Contents

Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA - Romanian Nation Branding New Moment of Reference, the Challenge of Creating Social and Economic Value, and Improving Social Constructs and Paradigms……………....4

Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA – “Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Always Providing HighQuality Content on Key Challenges Faced by Marketers Today……………………………………………………..............8 Ioan Matei PURCĂREA - The Ongoing Digital Revolution, Mobile Transformation, MarTech Applications, and Retraining……………………………………...12

Bernd HALLIER (by courtesy of) - Forum Art Business (FAB): Bloom Award, Art Duesseldorf, Dico Zograf, Heritage Craft, and Heritage Fashion…………………………………………………...22 Theodor PURCĂREA - Aligning Marketing and Sales within the Evolving CMO Responsibilities: Ensuring Greater CX, Customer Success, and Value…………………………………………………………………28

The responsibility for the contents of the scientific and the authenticity of the published materials and opinions expressed rests with the author.

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Editorial: Romanian Nation Branding New Moment of Reference, the Challenge of Creating Social and Economic Value, and Improving Social Constructs and Paradigms Continuing to “devworking” – considering Deloitte’s Human Capital professionals’ future perspective view on learning and work as two constantly connected sides of every job (we referred to in our last HMM Journal issue) – it is our honor and pleasure (being well-known – by the practitioners – the need to deploy and coordinate nation-branding efforts, knowing who a nation is and where it wants to get to, on the basis of an inspiring and attainable strategic goal, increasing understanding between nations, engaging and doing culture and history together, giving an added value coming from a new general perception, using soft power by attraction and agenda setting and so on) to highlight the significant Romanian Nation branding new moment of reference generated by the Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis as the designated recipient of The International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, April 2020 (https://holisticmarketingmanagement.ro/romanian-president-klaus-werner-iohannis-the-designated-recipient-of-the-

On December 17, 2019, our Friend Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier (Member of the Editorial Board of our HMM Journal) congratulated us on the designation of our President Klaus Werner Iohannis as recipient of the Karlspreis of the City of Aachen. international-charlemagne-prize-of-aachen-april-2020/).

It is worth to remembering that on June 1st, 2011, Romanian American University (RAU) awarded the prestigious “Diploma of Special Academic Merit” to Professor Bernd Hallier in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the promotion of the international transfer of know-how between business and universities, bringing more transparency on retail-research and retail-education, his successful involvement in the Social Dialogue project “Establishing a European Network for Anticipating skill needs in the commerce sector”, the attention paid to the evaluation of philosophies offered by the steady upgrade of retail-technologies, and his active involvement in developing cooperation between Germany and Eastern markets. Diploma was handed over to Professor Bernd Hallier by RAU Rector Ovidiu Folcut.

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier and RAU Rector Ovidiu Folcuţ

Well-known as the oldest and best-known prize awarded for the work done in the service of the European unification, this reputed Prize of Aachen is named for Charlemagne, the Frankish king revered by his contemporaries as the “Father of Europe” (https://www.karlspreis.de/en/).

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Fifty years ago this reputed Prize of Aachen was awarded to the Commission of the European Community, a European institution for the first time, rather than to a person (https://www.karlspreis.de/en/charlemagne-prize/who-is-awarded-the-prize). The Statement of the Board of Directors of the Society for the Awarding of the International Charlemagne Prize to our President Klaus Werner Iohannis is suggestive and impressive at the same time (https://www.karlspreis.de/en/news/charlemagne-prize-2020).

And being at the end of 2019 and looking globally at companies’ challenges while facing 2020s, our first thought did go to what the reputed Boston Consulting Group (BCG) highlighted: “Companies will thrive in the 2020s – and beyond – only if they have sustainable relationships with the social, political, and environmental systems they participate in”. According to BCG, by creating social as well as economic value, companies must be part of the solution, competing on their ability to learn and adapting to constant change (survival depending on this ability), imagining totally new possibilities, and collaborating in business ecosystems, helped by technology to gain insight from data, adequately combining both artificial and human intelligence, decoding what works and what doesn’t thanks to data and analytics, increasing the diversity of the workforce and creating an environment welcoming and encouraging new perspectives. (BCG, winning-the-20s, 2019) BCG is also attracting our attention on the fact that in this era of uncertainty and volatility in which is growing the gap between winners and losers, and talent is a scarce commodity, traditional managerial capabilities are challenged by fundamentally new competitive imperatives (for instance, to focus more on nurturing the organizational capabilities necessary to evolve and grow sustainably over time), being a true need for a reinvented enterprise by adopting technologies for seamless learning, integrating machines and humans, embracing new ways of working, committing to “always-on” transformation, making diversity a business requirement, and combining business and social value. (BCG, how-to/thrive-in-the-2020s, 2019) And as we are witnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancement, we fully agree with the opinion expressed at the end of November 2019 in the prestigious “European Business Review” with regard to the need for better frameworks to understand “how to create value from changing human-AI relationships”. (Esposito et all., 2019) In fact, the authors’ conclusive thoughts are speaking for themselves, they pledging for truly understanding that “the real power of this technology is not for the sake of technology, but for the improvement of social constructs and paradigms, currently so needy of a true reset button”. According to their well-documented approach the expectation from AI is very clear, shaping the way in which people’s needs are expressed, understood, and changed, being the organizations’ demand and responsibility to understand both how to address those problems, and how any methods might create unintended consequences in turn.

In other words, this is the current context, and context always matters. Three years ago, the American Marketing Association (AMA) CEO, Russ Klein, showed that “Context is the last frontier for marketers who know that mobile ubiquity and wearables powered by the Internet of Holistic Marketing Management

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Things are closing in on the holy grail of contextual understanding”. And as “Marketing has problems”, within that “context” underlined by AMA CEO, there were reviewed seven big problems in the Marketing Industry, Bernard Jaworski (the Peter F. Drucker Chair at the Drucker School of Management, and winner of all three major awards from the Journal of Marketing), Rob Malcolm and Neil Morgan, who were starting from the fact that identifying the highest value source/sources of growth for a brand, product or service, remains the proven and reproven foundational issue as having a disproportionate impact on the created value for a business.

(Jaworski, Malcolm and Morgan, 2019) Many years ago, the father of modern marketing, Philip Kotler (Drucker’s disciple) shortly defined marketing as the art of brand building. In August 2019, in The Marketing Journal, Donald Fomby was diving into several predictions and marketing trends CMOs should expect in 2020 concluding that “The Future is in Marketing”. (Fomby, 2019) While in November 2019, in the same Journal, Emmanuel Probst approached the topics of “Brand Hacks and the Search for Meaning”, recommending to make difference between a “fad” (which is meaningless), a “trend” (which is lasting longer than a fad and can potentially influence a market), and a “meaning” (personal, social, cultural, having a deeper impact on us, being consistent overtime, and driving us to do the things we do and buy), underlining that “all brands can benefit from understanding meaning”. (Probst, 2019) Only six days later, also in The Marketing Journal, in an article entitled “Competing on Stories: Marketing and Cultural Narratives” (a cultural narrative being seen as creating meaning for our place in the world, and providing a map for the journey; see the structure of a cultural narrative in the figure below), Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler recommended brands to become more authentic, more human, more believable, the receiver’s worldview being influenced by myth, ideology, history, and identity. (Sarkar and Kotler, 2019)

Figure no. 1: Structure of a Cultural Narrative Source: Sarkar, C. and Kotler, P. (2019). “Competing on Stories: Marketing and Cultural Narratives”, The Marketing Journal, November 19 (work cited) Holistic Marketing Management

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And allow us to end by coming back to the above mentioned last dimension influencing the receiver’s worldview, identity (which being the most personal is considered the most important), and recalling that on the cover of our book entitled “Sustainable Development: Principles and Action” (Beniamin Cotigaru, Theodor Purcarea, coordinators, Millenium Publishing House, May 2000; an interdisciplinary research representing a turning point in developing a national strategy for sustainable development) there is an image with the earth globe encircled by five words: Bucharest – Romania, National Identity, Integration, Globalization.

Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor-in-Chief References Esposito, M., Tse, T., Jean, A. and Entsminger, J. (2019). What Every Manager Should Know About HumanCentered AI, European Business Review, November 26. Retrieved from https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/what-every-manager-should-know-about-human-centered-ai/ Fomby, D. (2019). “What should Marketers expect in 2020?” The Marketing Journal, August 28. Retrieved from http://www.marketingjournal.org/what-should-marketers-expect-in-2020/ Jaworski, B., Malcolm, R. and Morgan, N. (2019). 7 Big Problems in the Marketing Industry, AMA, 4.1.2016.

Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/7-big-problems-in-the-marketing-industry/ Probst, E. (2019). “Brand Hacks and the Search for Meaning”, The Marketing Journal, November 13. Retrieved from http://www.marketingjournal.org/brand-hacks-and-the-search-for-meaning-an-interview-with-emmanuelprobst/ Sarkar, C. and Kotler, P. (2019). “Competing on Stories: Marketing and Cultural Narratives”, The Marketing Journal, November 19. Retrieved from http://www.marketingjournal.org/competing-on-stories-marketing-andcultural-narratives-christian-sarkar-and-philip-kotler/ *** What will it take to win in the 2020s? Retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/featured-insights/winning-the20s/overview.aspx *** How to Thrive in the 2020s. Retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/featured-insights/how-to/thrive-in-the2020s.aspx?

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“Marketing Science and Inspirations”, always providing high-quality content on key challenges faced by marketers today Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA Dean of the RAU School of Management-Marketing

JEL Classification: Y30 The “Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal – this true brand of the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia – is reconfirming its vocation of giving its competent readers a holistic perspective on marketing issues, maintaining the memorable connection with them, treating them like savvy customers, and ensuring the desired experience.

We are witnessing again our partners’ hard work to ensure that this Journal is a good match for current and new readers too, by always providing high-quality content on actual business situations and key challenges faced by marketers today.

We were again happy to receive by post the new Issue 3, Volume XIV, 2019 of our Partner Journal “Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. The new issue of this well-known academic journal addressing to academics and practitioners covered as usual a wide range of interesting topics in the marketing research field: Holistic Marketing Management

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• “Industrial service excellence in manufacturing companies: a neo-configurational perspective”. The authors Margarethe Überwimmer, Anna Biedersberger, Doris Ehrlinger, Stefan Mang, Christian Stadlmann, and David Tempelmayr started from the trend among manufacturing companies to augment their product offering with services (due to competitive and economic reasons as well as changing customer demand), showing that offering services is however often a challenging task for manufacturing companies, and identifying which aspects are important to offer excellent industrial services (constituting therefore industrial service excellence). On the basis of their research (based on literature and interviews with 26 managers from manufacturing companies in Austria and Bavaria) they underlined five dimensions (high service quality, competitiveness of the services, economic efficiency, flexibility and internal service involvement), and analyzed (with the help of the fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis within a sample of 242 manufacturing companies in Austria and Bavaria) the configurations of the interdependent dimensions of industrial service excellence and sales force capabilities, highlighting both the equational configurations leading to performance (these configurations depending on the contingency factors of firm size and importance of services), and the fact that – given the different configurations leading to the three performance dimensions – in order to find the configuration supporting their aim companies have to decide what their aim of servitization is.

• “Communication trends in formation of institutional business environment in tourism of St. Petersburg”. The authors Olga Vasileva and Tamara Tarakanova researched the communication trends in formation of institutional business environment in tourism of St. Petersburg, revealing that these trends are due to the tourism multiplier effect and the account changes in the institutional tourism environment within the framework of new ICT (such as online booking services, tourist information centers etc.). They showed how communication part of institutional business environment in tourism combines such ICT as automatic information system (“Unified Federal Register of tour operators“, “Safety treats information for tourists“, official website of Federal Tourism agency, online booking systems etc.). They also presented the stable communication trends in formation of institutional business environment in tourism of St. Petersburg: the growth of the number of information tourist centers and mobile services, that make an access to tourism services of every level easier; different forms of collaboration (bloggers, online events etc.); improvement in quality, speed and safety of tourist services.

• “The effect of company guest speakers on perceived employer attractiveness”. The authors Stephan Weinert, Elmar Günther, Edith Rüger-Muck, Gerhard Raab showed that: employer branding plays a vital role in attracting and retaining skilled and motivated employees for the organization, a significant amount of companies addressing students as one of their focal target groups when conducting employer branding activities; a wide variety of methods is applied within this context to communicate the employer brand (such as company career websites, social media or job fairs), a common method in Germany, for instance, being to send guest speakers to universities and business schools (where they have the chance to give a company presentation and to talk about practical aspects of their business as part of lectures or Holistic Marketing Management

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seminars), trying this way to positively affect the perceived employer attractiveness of business students. Their exploratory study (made in the context in which little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of guest speakers on employer attractiveness) is based on data collected from 416 business students who participated in eight guest lecture sessions, results obtained showing that guest speakers’ performance significantly affects perceived employer attractiveness, the magnitude of this effect being moderated by the degree of students’ company awareness. There were also: analyzed to what extent guest speakers’ enthusiasm, communication and presentations skills, and expertise affect the overall rating of the guest speakers’ performance, being revealed that while expertise has virtually none, enthusiasm has the greatest influence; discussed practical implications which can support companies in utilizing more efficiently their employees or managers as guest speakers.

• “CRM in a telecommunication company. Part I”. The authors Miloš Hitka, Andrej Piňák and Silvia Lorincová showed that due to new technologies and technological trends, telecommunication companies must take into consideration a downward trend in revenues and customer base. They underlined that companies have begun to streamlined, new product lines being created. Within this framework of Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) being a key to success (as it allows to identify a particular client, respond adequately to customer needs, and positively impact business performance), the authors aimed to identify the change in customers’ approaches as a result of implementing CRM in 2014 and subsequently in 2018 (depending on respondents’ gender). Their research results revealed positive changes in approach thanks to the implementation of CRM, responses differing depending on respondents’ gender.

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This issue of the „Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal also includes other sections such as: “Marketing Briefs” (Pavel Štrach – “Why political correctness and affirmative action do not work in marketing”); “Captured us” (“The second year of the Young Marketer competition strats”); “Reviews” (Dušan Pavlů – “Nešpor, Zdeněk, R.: Dictionary of institutional background of Czech sociology”; Peter Štarchoň – “Šlosár, Robert, Majtán, Štefan, Štetka, Peter a Grisáková, Nora: Visual incentives and responsive consumer behavior”); “Dictionary of Useful Marketing Terms” (Dagmar Weberová).

We always remember with pleasure that the Editor-in-Chief of the “Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal is Professor Peter Štarchoň, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, is also a Member of the Editorial Board of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal and of the “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”. It is our honor and pleasure to remember both the significant meeting in Koln, Germany, in 2011, on the occasion of the working meeting of the European Retail Academy (ERA), and the different significant moments when the ERA President, Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier (also a Member of both above mentioned Editorial Boards), visited the Romanian-American University.

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The Ongoing Digital Revolution, Mobile Transformation, MarTech Applications, and Retraining

Ioan Matei PURCĂREA Abstract Facing the current mix of consumer trends, marketers really need a more holistic view of the customer journey, thinking and operating differently with the help of new technology, better understanding that mobile is already the main channel for consumers, and also taking into account the potential guest-posting content generated by them, and the next big thing in consumer technology. Going on this way, marketers must consider critical priorities within the new born world of digital ecosystems and make digital transformation the first priority, not forgetting consumers’ preference for a blend of digital and physical. And while facing the most common and concrete change in martech, martech applications, marketers constantly need retraining.

Keywords: Digital Revolution, Mobile Transformation, MarTech Applications, Retraining JEL Classification: D83; L86; M15; M31; M37; O33

Facing the mix of consumer trends, a more holistic view of the customer journey In our last issue we showed that digital marketing is more important now than ever in this era of digital transformation in which organizations’ multi-disciplinary teams within are integrating technology stack so as to deliver a more immersive CX, deploying digital marketing Holistic Marketing Management

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talent with agility. (Purcarea, 2019) By keeping pace with the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google (as underlined by MarketingProfs), for example, organizations can anticipate – as demonstrated recently by the ChannelAdvisor’s e-commerce experts –what it will take to survive and thrive in the field of e-commerce, better understanding gradually developing trends and adequately prioritizing essential tools and technologies. (ChannelAdvisor, 2019) On the other hand, beyond the necessary technology to approach the Big Data phenomenon organizations really need vision and great management, as it was shown also recently by Jonathan Byrnes, a senior lecturer at MIT, and the founding partner and chairman of Profit Isle, a profit-acceleration solutions company. (Byrnes, 2019) Within this context it was not surprising to witness in November 2019 a McKinsey’s “BLINK” conference (gathering in London more than 1,000 CEOs and senior executives) on the digital revolution that creates both opportunities and challenges in the blink of an eye. Of the many aspects highlighted within that framework, allow us to remember a few showing how: the winners will be the ones having the smartest engineers (not the most data); to catch up to new tech; to think and operate differently with the help of new tech; to learn what customers truly value, and so on. (McKinsey, 2019) Also in November 2019: McKinsey’s representatives underlined that in an economy where digital savvy is at a premium greater success can be obtained by CEOs who actively influence and shape their companies’ technology functions so as to fit for the digital age; (Hjartar, et al., 2019) the leading low-code, process automation and CRM company Creatio, formerly bpm’online, underlined that digital leaders will need in 2020 to shift their strategies to both serve rapidly changing customer preferences and enhance operational efficiency. (Creatio, 2019) Very recently, in December this year, the EVP of marketing at Digital Remedy attracted the attention on the mix of consumer trends (such as consistently shifting interests, short attention spans, demand for convenience and ultra-personalization, and sheer laziness) impacting for instance the subscription and direct-to-consumer (DTC) market, the social-driven economy, consumer demand for convenience, and the culture of instant gratification (“I want it now”) fueling the booming of e-commerce on this market. (Coletti Kaiser, 2019) On the other hand, with regard to e-tailers (retail businesses which sell goods online over the Internet from a website), it is interesting to note that in spite of the fact that consumers spend more time accessing the internet on smartphones (compared to any other device), this type of retail business, as shown by Business Insider Intelligence, isn’t able to maximize that value. And this within the context in which according to their Mobile Checkout Benchmark Report, (Business Insider, 2019) more and more e-commerce it is absorbed by mobile commerce (which will account for nearly 40% of US online sales by 2023, totaling $447 billion, according to Business Insider Intelligence projects).

At the beginning of December this year, a senior market insights manager at App Annie (a global provider of mobile data and analytics) underlined the need for mobile transformation, key to marketing success being today a holistic mobile strategy (consisting of Web and app), Holistic Marketing Management

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mobile being truly the first screen. (Sydow, 2019) If in 2018 on average consumers already spent nearly three hours daily on their mobile devices, in 2020 the first digitally native populations (Millennials and Gen Z, set to account for 40% of consumers) will increase their impact on the relevant market, with mobile already being the main channel for consumers (accordingly, the effective mobile strategy involving the working together of mobile app and mobile Web, so as to ensure the proper connected experiences, thanks to the marketers’ more holistic view of the user experience, of his customer journey and meeting him where he is in that journey).

And while approaching this more holistic view of their mobile customers, marketers could not allow themselves to ignore the potential guest-posting content generated by such customers, taking into account that this type of posting was revealed by recent research from SEMrush (report based on data from a survey of 850 SEO and digital marketing specialists) as the most effective way to grow a website’s backlink portfolio (see the figure below): (Nanji, 2019)

Figure no. 1: The most effective link building strategies, SEMrush Source: Nanji, A. (2019). The Most Effective Link-Building Strategies According to SEO Experts, MarketingProfs, December 4 (work cited)

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Taking a look at the next big thing in consumer technology The next big thing in consumer technology according to a Juniper Research forecast will be mixed reality apps (mapping interactive digital content over the physical world on a device screen, such as a smartphone, smart glasses or a headset), which at this point were installed by users an estimated 3 billion times, Juniper’s prediction indicating an increase to 10 billion by 2024. Beyond Pokemon Go-mania in Summer 2016, and some commitments next year to the idea that smart glasses or headsets etc. will replace the smartphone entirely (AR and related technologies becoming present everywhere), the free desktop app Snapchat Lens Studio launched in December 2017, the 2.0 version announced by Snapchat this year, the on June 20, 2019 launched Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (a location-based augmented reality game inspired by the Wizarding World and the Harry Potter franchise) etc., there are opinions according to which it may be reached that moment of user’s immersion in mixed reality thanks to the adoption of smart glasses and/or other devices in the next few years, considering the spectacular evolutions at the level of notorious brands such as Apple, Nike, 7-Eleven, Sephora, L’Oreal, Ulta Beauty and so on. (Stern, 2019) It is worth remembering that eMarketer report entitled “Mobile App Installs 2019: Marketers Innovate to Land Coveted Home Screen Placement” showed from the very beginning that as consumer demand for apps is rising (app experiences being preferred, and most apps being downloaded organically; according to App Annie there were 1.8 million apps in the Apple App Store and 3.1 million apps in the Google Play Store in June 2019), app install advertisers are now taking post-install actions into account (i.e., in-app purchases or registrations), not only the number of installs produced. (Wurmser, 2019) According to this report as more apps are fighting for a relatively fixed set of users in the developed world, app install marketing is gaining importance (the supply of apps increasing more quickly than the consumer demand for apps), also very important remaining app store optimization, while app install fraud continuing to a be a problem.

Considering critical priorities within the new born world of digital ecosystems and making digital transformation the first priority, not forgetting the preference for a blend of digital and physical Two years and half ago, McKinsey’s representatives showed how customer expectations are reshaped and sectors’ borders are redrawn by combining forces (such as increases in electronic data, the ubiquity of mobile interfaces, and the growing power of artificial intelligence), and within this acceleration of the ongoing digital revolution they expressed their belief with regard to the new born world of digital ecosystems comprising diverse players who provide digitally accessed multi-industry solutions and are making it possible to better meet Holistic Marketing Management

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rising customer expectations, offering a truly integrated end-to-end digital experience. (Atluri, et al., 2017) And in this borderless economy McKinsey’s representatives underline some critical priorities such as: to adopt an ecosystem mind-set (refining your “self-vision” concerning where and how your company needs to compete on an expanding field); to follow the data (collecting, storing, processing, and translating them into actionable business insights); to build emotional ties to customers (by adequately using: data, to customize offerings; content, to capture the attention of customers; digital engagement models, to create seamless customer journeys solving customer pain points); to change your partnership paradigm (more and different kinds of partners considering the opportunities for specialization).

This year we find out also thanks to McKinsey that successful digital transformations are confirmed by embedding advanced digital technologies (Cloud-based services, Mobile internet technologies, Internet of Things, Artificial intelligence tools) in organizations’ operations and modifying standard operating procedures to do so: (McKinsey, 2019)

Figure no. 2: Digital technologies currently used by organizations, % of respondents (McKinsey) Source: How top companies excel with digital and analytics. Six key areas to help senior executives manage a tech-enabled transformation, McKinsey, November 2019 (work cited)

According to McKinsey research, by creating the necessary many digital solutions to both boost efficiency and improve CX across the organization, and redesigning organization’s processes to capture the value of advanced technologies, while guiding workers toward these new patterns of operating, substantial value from technology can be realized, to this value adding that value created with analytics by embedding it across the organization (on the basis of not only defining strategic opportunities and increasing investment, but also of strengthening datamanagement practices and authorizing more people to make analytics-guided decisions).

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There is no doubt that for companies in all industries digital transformation is already the first priority, a recent example being McDonald’s which isn’t just talking up digital and technology on its earnings calls (as shown by CB Insights in the figure below), but it has acquired this year 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies – the AI-driven personalization company Dynamic Yield for $300M (making possible drive-thru menus changing based on the weather, current trending menu items, wait times at the location etc.); the conversational AI company Apprente (which can reportedly handle orders via voice) – making also a minority investment in another personalization company that can be seen in the investments section of its profile. (CB Insights, 2019)

Figure no. 3: McDonald’s talking up digital and technology on its earnings calls, CB Insights earnings transcript search engine Source: Mickey D’s goes all in on AI, CB Insights, anand.sanwal@cbinsights.com, November 13, 2019 (work cited)

On November 13, this year, European Supermarket Magazine made reference to the partnership – to re-invent in-store personalization through the introduction of AI-driven retail recommendations – announced by Intouch.com (whose award winning patented technology is the leading Retail Personalization Platform) and Re-Vision (global leader in self-scanning solutions for retail), seen as an exciting opportunity for retailers to personalize the shopping experience in the grocery retail sector, allowing retailers to use AI to inspire their customers with relevant products and promotions in real-time as they shop in-store (up to now this real-time personalization platform was only available to online players). (Das, 2019) The system has the capability of self-improvement based on successful recommendations (being equipped with selflearning capabilities), the right products, to the right customer, at the right time being showed Holistic Marketing Management

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thanks to real-time behavioral data and other factors (demographics, weather, store location, time of day, day of week).

We are witnessing the rise of AI in the fields of experience management (XM) and marketing research, the use of AI allowing: to analyze secondary research rapidly and identify key trends and themes in the data; to unlock and process ignored operational data and combine it with more recent experience data; to remove subconscious human bias both from respondents and from study design etc. (Haney, 2019) At the same time, one has to take into account consumers’ preference for a blend of digital and physical regardless of age, as revealed by the findings from the CMO Council study The study surveyed 2,000 consumers across five generations (as shown in the figure below): (Pellow, 2019)

Figure no. 4: Regardless of Age: A Preference for a Blend of Digital and Physical Source: Pellow, A.B. (2019). Omnichannel Marketing Is Preferred by 85% of Consumers, Target Marketing, October 22 (work cited)

Conclusions: Facing the most common and concrete change in martech – martech applications, there is a real need of retraining A year and half ago, BCG’s representatives argued that in order to create digital solutions that work companies need to treat employee-users like customers, digital transformation being no longer an option, but such transformation needing to be understood as about both people and processes, one hand and about technologies, on the other hand, businesses needing applications which are “just right” for users. (Lyon and Ruaud, 2018) Also in October last year, the reputed Scott Brinker, the president & CTO of ion interactive, showed that in order to bring tremendous leverage to the modern marketing organization it is necessary to effectively cover the grid of five forces (the new rules of marketing technology and operations): centralize everything you can, automate everything you can, decentralize everything you can, humanize everything you can, embrace continuous change.

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As demonstrated recently by McKinsey’s representatives, there is clear evidence on successful digital transformations thanks (beyond laying out clear priorities revisited and rearranged, having highly talented people and with strong digital and analytics capabilities, having sufficient time and funds) to clear roles and responsibilities for organization’s people, people hold accountable for meeting their individual given goals, and to the necessary balance between individuals’ set expectations one hand, and larger groups’ and organization’s as a whole set expectations, on the other hand. (Bughin, et al., 2019) Of course, there are continuous challenges, the ascent of voice technology, for example, being recognized as one of the important market disruptions taking place today, as highlighted by the European Business Review. (Minsky, et al., 2019) The competition for making voice a competitive advantage for business is already fierce, business leaders being under the pressure of taking key steps (understanding voice, identifying the right uses for their employees, studying up on the latest available technologies for business, developing a compelling pilot-able business case, determining how they want their company to sound to their employees, leveraging experienced voice design talent, assigning a cross-functional team to champion voice, keeping abreast of the changes) regarding voice technology.

Figure no. 5: Upgrading’s cause of homegrown and commercial applications and if new people were hired in conjunction with the upgrade Source: Adaptation from Brinker, S. (2019). 83% of marketers rip-and-replace a martech app each year — here’s why, Chief Marketing Technologist, December 9 (work cited)

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Coming back to the opinions expressed by Scott Brinker, it is worth considering his recent focus on the most common and concrete change in martech – martech applications – a well-known yet not well-quantified phenomenon. He started from the research study of Chris Elwell and Jennifer Cannon of MarTech Today entitled “Martech Replacement Survey 2020: What Motivates Marketers to Change Applications & Vendors”, (Brinker, 2019) stating that he was surprised (see the above figure) by: how often homegrown systems were being replaced, the top three most likely applications to get replaced, commercial or homegrown, being: Marketing automation (21%); CRM (18%); Analytics/BI (18%); the fact that there is not greater investment in retraining (making here reference to the Gartner report he shared in November and which identified “investing in training and upskilling existing martech talent” as the #1 impediment to marketers achieving their business goals).

All these above mentioned aspects made us also recall: the recent Deloitte’s article entitled “Expected skills needs for the future of work” (underlining that the challenges of upskilling and reskilling could be imminent, and that given the existing digital gap and the consequent risks, increasing preparedness for digital revolution should continue to be a priority in the new Commission); (Moueddene, et al., 2019) the opinion recently expressed by Kristy Bloxham, associate professor and L&D thought leader, with regard to: a list of must-have features for a smart learning system (which has to be, for instance, not only mobile compatible but mobile preferred); the future of work – the top three predictions for 2030 (a significant rise in skill-based certificate programs being accepted within the job market; eLearning will overtake traditional forms of learning; the widespread use of apprenticeship and journeyman programs).

(Rallyware, 2019)

References Atluri, V., Dietz, M. and Henke, N. (2017). Competing in a world of sectors without borders, McKinsey Quarterly, July. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/competing-ina-world-of-sectors-without-borders Brinker, S. (2019). 83% of marketers rip-and-replace a martech app each year — here’s why, Chief Marketing Technologist, December 9. Retrieved from https://chiefmartec.com/2019/12/marketers-rip-replace-martech-apps/?

Bughin, J., Deakin, J. and O'Beirne, B. (2019). Digital transformation: Improving the odds of success, McKinsey, October. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/digitaltransformation-improving-the-odds-of-success?

Byrnes, J. (2019). Big Data: Big Opportunity or Big Headache? MarketingProfs, December 19. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/42258/big-data-big-opportunity-or-big-headache?

Coletti Kaiser, T. (2019). Capitalize on the Culture of Laziness: Five Subscription and DTC E-Commerce Trends for 2020, MarketingProfs, December 19. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/42257/capitalize-on-the-culture-of-laziness-five-subscription-anddtc-e-commerce-trends-for-2020 Das, D. (2019). Re-Vision Partners With Intouch.com To Accelerate Digital Evolution In Retail, European Supermarket Magazine, Nov 13. Retrieved from https://www.esmmagazine.com/technology/re-vision-partners-withintouch-com-to-accelerate-digital-evolution-in-retail

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Haney, C. (2019). Five Ways AI Is Changing the Future of Marketing Research for the Better, MarketingProfs, September 25. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/41865/five-ways-ai-is-changing-thefuture-of-marketing-research-for-the-better?

Hjartar, K., Krishnakanthan, K., Prieto-Munoz, P., Shenai, G. and Van Kuiken, S. (2019). The CEO’s new technology agenda, McKinsey, November. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/businessfunctions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-ceos-new-technology-agenda?

Lyon, V. and Anne-Françoise Ruaud, A.-F. (2018). Take Control of Your Digital Future, Boston Consulting Group, May 2. Retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/take-control-digital-future.aspx Minsky, L., Turkington, E., Fahey, C. and Hall, W. (2019). The Sleeping Giant: Voice in the Enterprise, European Business Review, September 23. Retrieved from https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/the-sleeping-giantvoice-in-the-enterprise/ Moueddene, K., Coppola, M., Wauters, P. (2019). Expected skills needs for the future of work. Understanding the expectations of the European workforce, Deloitte, December 2. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/upskilling-the-workforce-ineuropean-union-for-the-future-of-work.html Nanji, A. (2019). The Most Effective Link-Building Strategies According to SEO Experts, MarketingProfs, December 4. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2019/42143/the-most-effective-link-buildingstrategies-according-to-seo-experts?

Pellow, A.B. (2019). Omnichannel Marketing Is Preferred by 85% of Consumers, Target Marketing, October 22.

Retrieved from https://www.targetmarketingmag.com/post/omnichannel-marketing-is-preferred-by-85-ofconsumers/#ne Purcarea, I.M. (2019). Marketers’ Reskilling within the Digital Transformation, a Today’s Essential Task for Approaching New Digital Roles, Holistic Marketing Management, September 2019, Volume 9, Issue 3, pp. 11-22 Stern, M. (2019). Are mixed reality apps set to skyrocket? RetailWire, Nov 14. Retrieved from https://www.retailwire.com/discussion/are-mixed-reality-apps-set-to-skyrocket/ Sydow, L. (2019). The Mobile Opportunity: Recognizing the Power of Apps and the Mobile Web, MarketingProfs, December 5. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/42181/the-mobile-opportunityrecognizing-the-power-of-apps-and-the-mobile-web?

Wurmser, Y. (2019). Mobile App Installs 2019: Marketers Innovate to Land Coveted Home Screen Placement, eMarketer, Jul 8. Retrieved from https://www.emarketer.com/content/mobile-app-installs-2019 *** 20/20 E-Commerce Vision for the Year 2020 – ChannelAdvisor, 20 forces that will shape e-commerce in 2020, MarketingProfs Update, December 17, 2019, Retrieved from https://www.channeladvisor.com/resources/librarywebinars/20-20-e-commerce-vision-for-the-year-2020/ *** BLINK—and we’ll help you see the future, McKinsey, December 6, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/new-at-mckinsey-blog/blink-and-we-will-help-you-see-the-future? *** 8 Top Tech Trends of 2020, “Creatio" newsletter@bpmonline.com, Thu, November 21, 2019 10:27 am *** The Mobile Checkout Benchmark Report, retrieved from https://store.businessinsider.com/products/the-mobilecheckout-benchmark-report *** How top companies excel with digital and analytics. Six key areas to help senior executives manage a techenabled transformation, McKinsey, November 2019. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/businessfunctions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-top-companies-excel-with-digital-and-analytics? *** Mickey D’s goes all in on AI, CB Insights, anand.sanwal@cbinsights.com, November 13, 2019, 02:55 *** Training Leaders of 2020: Kristy Bloxham on Getting Ready for the Future of Work, , 03 December 2019.

Retrieved from Rallyware https://www.rallyware.com/blog/training-distributed-workforce-for-tomorrow

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Forum Art Business (FAB): Bloom Award, Art Duesseldorf, Dico Zograf, Heritage Craft, and Heritage Fashion Bernd HALLIER

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier, President of the European Retail Academy (ERA) is a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of our “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal. He began many years ago a fruitful collaboration with the prestigious Professor Klaus Toepfer (former Federal German Minister for Environment, former director of the United Nations Environment Program UNEP and initiator of the Kyoto Protocol), and with Dr. Angela Merkel (today Chancellor of the Federal Republic, and who ushed “environment” to become a high political issue during the EU-Presidency of Germany, in 2007).

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Bloom Award At the Duesseldorf Art exhibition the Warsteiner Brewery promoted for the 10th time young artists by its international Bloom Award. At the photo all 2019 finalists (out of 89 applications) and the jury-members enjoy the event of the award presentation.

Warsteiner’s engagement in art started thirty years ago when Andy Warhol did choose a Warsteiner beer-glas (“Pilstulpe�) as one of his motives. In 2010 the Bloom Award by Warsteiner was initiated - and in 2013 its Art Collection started. For Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier collecting and sponsoring art is a tool not only on the micro-level of individual companies for marketing - but it also shows the status of civil society in his philosophy on the macro-level.

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Art Duesseldorf For the third time Art Duesseldorf exhibits in the capital of NorthRhineWestfalia. Out of around 100 booths half of them are from abroad (with a high proportion from the Benelux countries) - 10 percent are from Asia and the USA. By this mixture Art Duesseldorf positions itself as an international fair with strong regional roots.

Highlights are among others special projects with Duesseldorf’s twin city Warsaw/Poland and the Contemporary Art Foundation Tokyo/Japan. Last but not least Art Duesseldorf continues according to Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier to promote young artists.

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Dico Zograf Within the context of the World Congress of Entrepreneurs in Skopje the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences invited for a Vernissage of 200 years of Dico Zograf in its rooms.

D. Dico Krstevic produced between 1840 and 1868 approximately two thousand icons and dozens of fresco ensembles in a symbiosis of traditional and new, traditional past-Byzantine and modern Baroque paintings.

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Heritage Craft The city of Xi'an / China - known for the Terracotta Army - is also a pool of traditional craft. At the bazaar next to the great mosque drum tower the finger printing artist Zeng follows his forefathers business to paint beautiful Chinese landscapes by only using the fingers and palms of his hands.

The classification of Chinese ink as thick ink, light ink, dry ink and wet ink is according to its proportion to water. The fingers draw different levels of shade (black/white) and create by this technique the unique lingering charm (more: 258621251@qq.com).

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Heritage Fashion In China recently the young generation discovers romantic traditional fashion again. In the evenings or for walks in parks quite often boys and girls are seen old style dressed.

For photos in traditional outfits at ancient highlights like the mediaeval city wall of Xi�an young couples reserve photo-dates for up to.

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Aligning Marketing and Sales within the Evolving CMO Responsibilities: Ensuring Greater CX, Customer Success, and Value Theodor Purcarea Abstract We are witnessing significant CMO predictions, while approaching new marketing and sales strategies, AI and analytics, event marketing and so on. Marketers are under a true pressure of optimizing sales approach, taking initiative, and delivering products and experiences which are the most relevant to a consumer first, blending the physical and digital worlds. There is a real challenge of updating CMO’s responsibilities, while looking at customer success as key differentiator for a brand focused on continuously improved CX, holistically thinking about the customer journey, while considering perceptions, recession, ecosystems, digital platforms, revenue marketing engine, and customer-centered action.

Keywords: Marketing and Sales; CMO Responsibilities; Greater CX; Customer Success; Value JEL Classification: L86; M31; M37; M38; O33

CMO predictions, new marketing and sales strategies, AI and analytics, event marketing The emergence and evolution of mobile technology, and the “big data” launch into the mainstream were emblematic for this decade close to the end, significantly contributing to a more holistic customers’ view, customers already waiting new ways for their support teams to communicate with and learn more about them (searchable text with minimal effort; streamlined chat and text experiences on mobile devices; personal assistant technology interacting with automated support; seeing on-demand content; the best day and time to receive a message, from who, what terminology to be used etc.). (Customer Experience Update, 2019) After traditionally compiling insights and input on CMO predictions from marketing influencers, the integrated marketing and PR firm for B2B technology and healthcare brands PAN Communications revealed significant research findings for 2020 such as: content and information overload and the need to cut through the noise is ranked as no. 1 challenge; data (or analytics) will also play a key role in evaluating CX, assessing strategies, and improving upon the 2019; budget focus (considering its scattering across a variety of areas within the marketing department) should be resultant from each brand’s mission, values and business objectives. (Habeshian, 2019) It is no wonder within this framework that the reputed American Marketing Association (AMA) launched an invitation for significant AMA Training Series events: “SEO for Marketers: Strategies, Tactics and Trends” (Tampa, FL, January 30-3, 2020; in order to learn the skills to lead change, influence others and navigate stressful conversations), and “People Skills in the Workplace” (Chicago, IL, February 26-27, 2020; taking into account that in the eyes of their clients and employers a marketer’s leadership and interpersonal skills can truly make the necessary difference). (AMA Training, 2019) Holistic Marketing Management

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Indeed, to survive and thrive in today’s economy businesses are beginning to realize the importance of having a data driven approach, many professionals showing eagerness to examine their data and uncover new ways of connecting with customers in innovative and hyperpersonalized ways, in this respect already discussing in an enthusiastic manner the promises of artificial intelligence (AI) for delivering better CX while simultaneously reducing the cost to serve. (CX Network, 2019) According to recent research from Sagefrog (based on data from a survey of 100 marketers who work for firms in a wide range of different B2B verticals), the new marketing and sales strategies for 2020 include personalization (47% of respondents) and AI and automation (36%), together with Account Based Marketing (42%), video marketing (41%), inbound marketing (39%), conversational marketing (Chat Bots, 33%), influencer marketing (27%), podcast and livestreaming (22%), programmatic advertising (19%), mobile-first strategy (17%) etc. And this within the context in which the top objectives of B2B marketers in 2020 are to convert more leads into customers, to increase their number of sales leads and brand awareness, to produce thought leadership, and to increase website traffic. (Nanji, 2019) AI and analytics are important tools used by the sales force (a driving force behind sales performance) in addressing most pressing needs within the context of changing buyer behaviors and of ever-shifting selling environment, as shown by the “2nd Annual CSO Insights Sales Operations & Technology Study”, 2019 (CSO Insights being the independent research arm within Miller Heiman Group, dedicated to improving the performance and productivity of complex B2B sales), which included as respondents 807 sales operations leaders, sales executives, sales managers and sales enablement leaders. (Miller Heiman Group, 2019) While struggling to make better decisions, an impediment to AI usage is a lack of data (presupposing that the organization has already a data strategy and implemented a sales tech stack, being equipped to act on the insights AI brings, and also having an adequate forecasting process – for which CRM is a backbone – well aligned to its overall sales process). Sales operations are assisting marketing particularly with lead qualification, data management of marketing data, marketing campaign management, metrics and analysis, and marketing automation management.

With regard to the most common use cases for AI, there is clear evidence about lead generation/prospecting (account intelligence, lead scoring, etc.), performance and planning (forecasting, compensation planning, etc.), sales enablement (content management, training, etc.), and sales cycle management (opportunity and account planning). When developing an AI roadmap it is necessary to consider data sources across the organization, options for automating data entry, and methods for cleansing and augmenting data, as argued by CSO Insights.

And speaking about data it is important not to forget that a data-driven strategy to ensure return on investment is event marketing, events being recognized, for example, as an effective marketing channel for reaching their target audience by 83% of US marketers, according to September 2019 research from Demand Metric and PFL. Event organizers need to integrate event data with their sales and marketing systems, so as to ensure the delivery of leads to sales and pushing them rapidly and effectively through the sales pipeline after that event. (eMarketer, 2019) Among the marketing tactics most used by US B2B marketing professionals, according to Holistic Marketing Management

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an October 2019 report from Sagefrog Marketing Group, 50% of them (% of respondents, Sep 2019) identified trade shows and events as part of their marketing mix, other most used tactics being as follows: email marketing, 84%; social media & social media advertising, 73%; blogging & content marketing, 63%; SEO, 61%; online display & PPC, 48%; PR & editorial pitching 39%; video marketing, 33%; seminars & webinars, 31%; telemarketing, 20%; print ads, 19%; other, 8%.

Optimizing sales approach, taking initiative, and delivering products and experiences which are the most relevant to a consumer first, blending the physical and digital worlds At the end of the first decade of December this year we remarked an article written by Dave Brock from Partners In EXCELLENCE (Brock have worked in sales, marketing, and executive management capacities with IBM, Tektronix and Keithley Instruments) and entitled “False Choices: Transactional Versus Solution Selling Approaches”. (Brock, 2019) Brock pledges for choosing how the organization effectively and efficiently responds to the way its customers buy, aligning the sales process to how they buy and engage them in ways that create value to that process, by defining its target markets and its ideal customer profiles (ICP), better understanding what problems it is capable of solving, identifying the characteristics of those customers who have those problems (defining this way the organization’s ICP). An optimized sales approach is always driven the target markets/customers, the sales approach being optimized around how these customers buy. The outside-in approach recommended by Brock is considering a most effective sales engagement model to support the customer’s buying process, the engagement model having to be optimized for each buying process (multiple ICPs, different buying processes), and also taking into account that customers’ buying process changes over time.

There is no doubt that sales executives may be facing a more uncertain selling environment, as Seleste Lunsford from CSO Insights underlined recently looking to 2020. And in this perspective, in her opinion it is recommendable for sales executives to take some initiatives with regard to: pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses in their sales system (diagnosing what is dampening performance and what can be done to improve efficiency and effectiveness); rethinking what the organization means by “sales” (aligning sales, marketing and customer service teams around the customer so as to fit into the larger customer picture); fusing organization’s disparate sales tech stack (integrating all of the often-disparate components highlighted by the above mentioned 2nd Annual CSO Insights Sales Operations & Technology Study); scrutinizing sales talent while market conditions are right (strategically investing to improve current capability and predict new-hire success); aiming high when it comes to sales enablement (on the basis of business plans with realistic and trackable metrics of leading indicators). (Lunsford, 2019) In the same time, it is important to know that commercial capabilities are closely correlated with solution-selling performance, according to a McKinsey’s Holistic Marketing Management

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analysis which revealed that marketing-and-sales capabilities are strong drivers of B2B sales.

McKinsey’s representatives argued that there is a much wider gap between average and top performance among solutions providers than among product sellers, showing that sales leaders are typically doing three things in companies which excel at solutions selling (getting much closer to the customer to innovate, maximizing sales time for salespeople, and quantifying each sale in terms of customer value and lifetime profitability). (Driedonks et all., 2019) On the other hand, also looking towards 2020, it is worth showing that eTail eCommerce Innovation Briefing offered us recently a new exclusive look at how major retailers (such as: Adidas, Chubbies, Nike, and Zappos) are preparing for 2020 and beyond, and we have chosen to underline some very interesting aspects from the ongoing digital transformation of Adidas (struggling to improve its digital capabilities along the entire value chain), one of the majors retailers of sporting goods (and also a fashion brand), which is leveraging the power of personalization just from the moment a customer arrives (engaging with it on computers and mobile devices) at its website (thanks to the Salesforce data management platform Adidas’ personalized homepage is created by using information gathered and processed accordingly). (eTail West, 2019) Acting like an intelligent shop window Adidas’ personalized landing page is identifying customers, ensuring imagery and product recommendations relevant to them.

Recently, the CMO of SAP Customer Experience, Jason Rose (who is responsible for all aspects of marketing strategy and execution), showed that while being on their digital transformation journeys businesses need to have the right mix of digital and physical touchpoints, on the basis of a cohesive strategy, thinking of the total experience, appealing to all of a customer’s senses. (Rose, 2019) He recommended some tactics to help brands (B2C or B2B) stand out in a digital world: physical touchpoints keeping a brand at the forefront of a consumer’s mind by activating customers’ senses and ensuring stronger emotional connections; incentivize action through special offers or promotions (like event tickets within the received mailer, for instance); keep it interesting by finding new ways to engage with audiences or by introducing new inspiring shopping models (such as retailers’ “immersive experiential centers” or a “brand store” inviting the consumer to come “inside” the brand).

Also recently, the head of evangelism at Bing/Microsoft, Christi Olson, argued that businesses will further transform (power) CX on the basis of the right strategy, data, and technology, spinning faster thanks to CX flywheels fueling momentum for marketers (rethinking the customer decision journey according to the new shopping ways, going beyond purchasing and retention, to expansion and advocacy) by removing friction and blending the physical and digital worlds, creating more customer engagement opportunities by better understanding the customer decision journey (CDJ, as shown in the figure below): (Olson, 2019)

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Figure no. 1: Top benefits experienced from understanding customer decision journey Source: Olson, C. (2019). Goodbye Funnel, Hello Flywheel: How to Build the New Customer Experience (CX), MarketingProfs, December 4 (work cited)

And in order to build the CX flywheel Olson recommended: starting with the Cloud (collecting, managing, and unifying data in the Cloud); creating meaningful touchpoints which drive insights (these consumer “action points” working to collect high-quality first-party data and helping build out fuller customer profiles); establishing trust (consumers controlling their data). On the other hand, as shown also by Microsoft in October this year, AI (responsible for decision making, speech recognition, visual perception, and engaging customers through just-in-time messages and valuable touchpoints) and Machine Learning (ML being AI brain which makes predictions and determinations), when combined with a high-quality data strategy are helping high performers to deliver personal touchpoints which fuel the marketing flywheel (more customer touchpoints yielding more data, which yields greater personalization and revenue opportunities).

(Microsoft Advertising, 2019) Updating CMO’s responsibilities, while looking at customer success as key differentiator for a brand focused on continuously improved CX, holistically thinking about the customer journey Over sixty CMOs were asked by eMarketer (for its last report on the “Future of the CMO”) about both the pathways which led them to their current position, and the most valuable experiences gained by them along their challenging way. Their answers comprised references to a natural blend of expertise, diversity of experience, a willingness to learn and keeping up on Holistic Marketing Management

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new marketing technology (going direct to the consumer digitally, measuring, testing and learning in that environment, inserting into the brand discussion, being data driven and very analytical). (Droesch, 2019) Taking into account the evolution (which includes also complying with customer data regulation such as the GDPR, for instance, because protecting customer data was recognized as the top obstacle for working with data by the respondents in a September 2018 survey from Forbes Insights and The Trade Desk), the modern Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is also seen as: owner of the customer experience (CX), serving as the voice of the customer internally, and being in tune with customer feedback and data from all relevant sources; enabler to shape enhanced experiences on the basis of intelligence derive from accessing data, delivering a seamless CX across channels being an important marketing capability making possible the future success; holistically thinker about the customer journey, creating engagement and nurturing touchpoints across the whole customer life cycle, with presales and post sales together, considering the blurred lines between prospect and customer. (eMarketer Editors, 2019) Recently, the Managing Editor for RetailWire, Tom Ryan, submitted for discussion the question whether the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role should be retired, reinvented or reemphasized, starting from the fact that Coca-Cola is bringing back the CMO only two years after eliminating this role in favor of a Chief Growth Officer (CGO). (Ryan, 2019) Ryann showed that: Coca-Cola made this new structural move trying to integrate more closely marketing within operations; some reputed firms (such as: Uber, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, Walmart) performed similar restructuring, while in other cases the CMO was replaced by its first chief customer officer and chief digital officer (J. C. Penney’s) or with an SVP of global marketing and an SVP of marketing technology, but left no C-level marketing position (McDonald’s). Comments made within the framework of the lively online discussion forum known as “The RetailWire”, brought significant opinions, such as (resuming): CMO is needed as responsible for the entirety of the brand experience (Dave Bruno, Director, Retail Market Insights); CMO must live long as marketing is managing the conversation between the brand and the consumer (Jeff Sward, Founding Partner, Merchandising Metrics); CMO role simply needs to evolve by looking at all of the new ways to market the brand to the target audience (Stephen Rector, Founder, President, Bakertown Consulting); CMO must reflect the ability to create awareness and generate demand (Ralph Jacobson, Global Retail & CPG Sales Strategist, IBM); CMO role is changing as marketing changes, and that’s a good thing (Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer, Shepard Presentations, LLC).

The buyer’s journey becomes a key component of customer success (which is the North Star for CX leaders), and a key differentiator for a brand focused on CX, according to Christopher Ryan, CEO Fusion Marketing Partners, who highlighted – on the occasion of a recent CustomerThink Thought Leadership Webinar – four imperatives to align B2B marketing and sales: remove customer friction; congruent messaging; demonstrate greater value; utilize the right sales and marketing metrics. (Ryan, 2019)

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Within the same context, Bill Price, President Driva Solutions (& Co Founder LimeBridge Global Alliance & Amazon’s 1st WW VP of Customer Service) – who defines customer success as listening to and anticipating customer wants and needs as the only way to support customers, one at a time – argued that there are six 6 components of an “Energized Workforce” (seen as one of the four foundations – together with: customer oriented culture, streamlined processes, and integrated channels) which help ensure to achieve, sustain, and expand customer success: right hires; right role models; right rewards; right metrics; right paths; right empowerment. The hierarchy of customer needs plus the above mentioned four foundations can be seen in the figure below: (Price, 2019)

Figure no. 2: The hierarchy of customer needs + 4 foundations Source: Price, B. (2019). Creating an Energized Workforce, Driva Solutions, CustomerThink, Customer Success Webinar, 12 December (work cited)

Instead of conclusions: Perceptions, Recession, Ecosystems, Digital Platforms, Revenue Marketing Engine, and Customer-Centered Action The founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, Colin Shaw, reminded us in November 2019 that: perceptions do not always line up with reality, despite the fact that perceptions of how the economy is doing are affecting some portion of how the economy performs, and this within the context in which people tend to feel losses much more profoundly than gains of equal Holistic Marketing Management

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magnitude; recessions are challenging, being also a chance to make a change for the better, in adversity being also an opportunity, depending of your positioning yourself in order to adequately handle that change, mitigating some stress and difficulty. That’s why his recommendation was to prepare for a recession, looking for the opportunity, carrying on making improvements in CX, so as to be in a much stronger position post-recession, refining CX and earning customers’ trust, by providing them with more comfort and stability. (Shaw, 2019) In the same period of time, Richard Straub, Builder of the Peter Drucker Forum recognized globally as a leading management conference, spoked on the occasion of an interview for “The Marketing Journal” (Sarkar, 2019) about the topic for the 11th Global Drucker Forum (Nov 21 & 22, 2019, Vienna, with Professor Philip Kotler, Alexander Osterwalder, inventor of the Canvas business model, and others), “The Power of Ecosystems – Managing in a Networked World”, underlining from the very beginning the practical aim of Peter Drucker as a social ecologist to craft a balance between continuity (on one side) and change and innovation (on the other side). And within the ecology we exist in today (composed of the networks reshaped, resized, speeded up and made complex by the digital technology), argued Richard Straub, these concepts of ecology and ecosystems (an ecosystem being defined by McKinsey as “a complex network of interconnected businesses that depend on and feed on each other to deliver value for their customers, to the end users, and their key stakeholders”) give us a new means of marking what is happening, making sense of the turbulence around us, and establishing a common language, taking into account the essential characteristics of business ecosystems as highlighted

by John Fuller, Michael Jacobides and Martin Reeves in the MIT Sloan Management Review’s article “The Myths and Realities of Business Ecosystems” (the complementarity between smartphones and apps being an example of what are often involving the different aspects of competition and collaboration combined by the relationships at the level of these networks).

(Fuller, Jacobides and Reeves, 2019) And as players redefine their capabilities and relations to others over time, underlines Straub, they co-evolve in ecosystems.

After reading the above mentioned articles, we felt the need of reading something again: ▪ an article written by James L. McQuivey, VP, Principal Analyst Forrester, and entitled “It’s time to fight for consumer ‘hope’: The next CX battleground”. (McQuivey, 2019) More than a decade ago, McQuivey coined the term “digital platform” to describe a new breed of company (four of the five companies he called digital platforms in 2008 were Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google) which was about to dominate the economic and social discussions (this prediction proved true in time), and this to escape (in contrast) from the above mentioned term “ecosystem”, considering that the ecosystems (which can be powerful economic tools) are not as powerful as the digital platforms (which require a home for a consumer: the shopping website in Amazon, the search interface in Google - later the Android mobile OS etc.). McQuivey described the logical shift from product-driven to service-driven companies, signaling the danger for services-based relationships to fall into a convenience trap (gradually losing sight of reminding customers why they would want to do business with them), and underlining that shoppers, for Holistic Marketing Management

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example, are hoping to find signs of long-term positive intentions (not only to look for these signs). He introduced within this framework the “hope” as an aspirational drive (not just as a danger detector), highlighting: the need to affiliate with people, objects, movements, and groups believed to have the intention to do well by providers (experiencing hope when finding this kind of affiliation); that this is both what is really plaguing digital platforms today is losing the connection to that hope, and the real challenge ahead of the large digital platform companies.

▪ an article posted in (Pardot, B2B marketing automation by Salesforce) “B2B Marketing, Blog, Sales and Marketing Alignment” in September 2019 attracted also our attention – “How to Build a Revenue Marketing Engine: 6 Lessons Learned, authored by Ljubica Radoicic, Marketing Director APAC, Hexagon PPM (a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions), North Sydney, Australia. (Radoicic, 2019) This Marketing Director did go in her article beyond her introductory propositions (“The traditional view of marketing is flawed. Most organizations view their marketing department as a cost center or a necessity to direct potential customers to the real gem: the product”), sharing with us some vital learned lessons with regard to the value which can be brought through revenue marketing (understood as the development of repeatable prospecting programs that drive customer acquisition and measurable sales – according to the Pedowitz Group’s definition – the revenue marketing’s key being to forecast the results and impact of activities predictably), without neglecting the brand. She pledged for: starting with an overall assessment of the sales and marketing organization and developing a comprehensive change management program; combining dedication, technology, and skills, within the guidance of the so-called “Growth Engine’s Revenue Generation Maturity Framework” (Crawl stage, Walk stage, Run stage, Leap stage – in this last stage the CMO being in charge with a welldefined and optimized team comprised of demand generation, program managers, and digital and content operations, well defined processes marketing technology stack enabling extensive data collection and predictive analytics, performance being measured based on CLV, ROI, conversion rate etc.); a holistic view of the organization going beyond people, process, and technology; revisiting the foundation and adapting continuously.

▪ Medallia’s Whitepaper “Intelligent Customer Experience. Integrating Human and Artificial Intelligence to Improve Business Results” (Medallia being the leader in Experience Management cloud technology), which underlined three ways to improve business results with artificial and human intelligence (from reading to counting; from guessing to knowing; from finding problems to evaluating actions), concluding that companies can now: improve CX by making use of applied AI and machine learning techniques; prioritize and take actions where it matters most, being empowered with new insights. And as a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s finally show a suggestive figure from this above mentioned white paper: (Medallia Inc., 2019)

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Figure no. 3: Customer – Centered Action, Medallia Source: Intelligent Customer Experience. Integrating Human and Artificial Intelligence to Improve Business Results, Medallia Inc., 2019. Retrieved from Medallia_Intelligent_Customer_Experience.pdf (work cited)

References Brock, D. (2019). False Choices: Transactional Versus Solution Selling Approaches, CustomerThink, December 10.

Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/false-choices-transactional-versus-solution-selling-approaches/?

Driedonks, B., Hengstebeck, B. and Viertler, M. (2019). What’s wrong with solutions selling - and how to put it right, McKinsey & Company, December. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketingand-sales/our-insights/whats-wrong-with-solutions-selling-and-how-to-put-it-right?

Droesch, B. (2019). CMOs on Their Paths to Becoming Chief Marketing Officers, eMarketer, Oct 24. Retrieved from https://www.emarketer.com/content/cmos-on-their-paths-to-becoming-chief-marketing-officers?

Fuller, J., Jacobides, M. and Reeves, M. (2019). The Myths and Realities of Business Ecosystems, MIT Sloan Management Review, February 25. Retrieved from https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-myths-and-realities-ofbusiness-ecosystems/ Habeshian, V. (2019). 2020 CMO Predictions From Marketing Influencers [Infographic], MarketingProfs, December 5. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2019/42183/2020-cmo-predictions-frommarketing-influencers-infographic?

Lunsford, S. (2019). Five 2020 New Year’s Resolutions for Chief Sales Officers, CSO Insights, Dec 17. Retrieved from https://www.csoinsights.com/blog/five-2020-new-years-resolutions-for-chief-sales-officers/?mkt_tok

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McQuivey, J.L. (2019). It's time to fight for consumer 'hope': The next CX battleground, MyCustomer, 20th Sep. Retrieved from https://www.mycustomer.com/customer-experience/engagement/its-time-to-fight-for-consumerhope-the-next-cx-battleground Nanji, A. (2019). B2B Marketers' Plans for 2020: Spend, Objective, and Strategy Trends, MarketingProfs, December 18. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2019/42227/b2b-marketers-plans-for-2020spend-objective-and-strategy-trends?

Olson, C. (2019). Goodbye Funnel, Hello Flywheel: How to Build the New Customer Experience (CX), MarketingProfs, December 4. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/42175/goodbyefunnel-hello-flywheel-how-to-build-the-new-customer-experience-cx Price, B. (2019). Creating an Energized Workforce, Driva Solutions, CustomerThink, Customer Success Webinar, 12 December. Retrieved from webinar121219.pdf Radoicic, L. (2019). How to Build a Revenue Marketing Engine: 6 Lessons Learned, Pardot, September 12.

Retrieved from https://www.pardot.com/blog/how-to-build-a-revenue-marketing-engine-6-lessons-learned/ Rose, J. (2019). From Physical to Digital and Back Again: Three Ways for Brands (B2C or B2B) to Stand Out, MarketingProfs, December 18. Retrieved from https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2019/42245/from-physicalto-digital-and-back-again-three-ways-for-brands-b2c-or-b2b-to-stand-out?

Ryan, T. (2019). Should the CMO role be retired, reinvented or reemphasized? The RetailWire, Dec 19. Retrieved from https://retailwire.com/discussion/should-the-cmo-role-be-retired-reinvented-or-reemphasized/ Ryan, C. (2019). Four Imperatives to Align B2B Marketing and Sales, Fusion Marketing Partners, CustomerThink, Customer Success Webinar, 12 December. Retrieved from webinar121219.pdf Sarkar, C. (2019). The Power of Ecosystems - an interview with Richard Straub, Global Drucker Forum, The Marketing Journal, November 5. Retrieved from http://www.marketingjournal.org/the-power-of-ecosystems-aninterview-with-richard-straub/ Shaw, C. (2019).The recession is coming; will you be prepared? Beyond Philosophy, November 8, 2019. Retrieved from https://beyondphilosophy.com/the-recession-is-coming-will-you-be-prepared/ *** 8 B2B Customer Support Breakthroughs to Prepare for In the Next Decade, Customer Experience Update, November 30, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/weekly-exceptionalcustomer-service-brands-2019-11-30? *** â&#x20AC;&#x153;Prepare for the Business Challenges Aheadâ&#x20AC;?, AMA Training" <reply@oneama.com>, Fri, December 6, 2019 6:21 pm, American Marketing Association, 130 E. Randolph, 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60601 *** Artificial intelligence in customer experience: 2019 Report, CX Network (sponsored by Oracle), 10/11/2019.

Retrieved from https://www.cxnetwork.com/cx-experience/reports/artificial-intelligence-in-customer-experience2019-report? *** Finding an Extra Gear: 2nd Annual CSO Insights Sales Operations & Technology Study, Miller Heiman Group, 2019. Retrieved from CSO-Insights_2nd-Annual-Sales-Operations-and-Technology-Report.pdf *** Industry Insights: Event Marketing 2019, eMarketer, Made possible by Cvent, December 2019. Retrieved from Cvent_Industry_Voices_383167282383167282 v4.pdf *** eTail eCommerce Innovation Briefing, sponsored by the digital marketing agency ROI Revolution, eTail West, 2019. Retrieved from etailwest2020innovationbriefing5uybvsuAPfhor014pIcC3qAfNSEEAOOsNGEtRI2rs *** Mastering the customer journey: applying the predictive power of Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Advertising, October 2019/ Retrieved from cdj_mini_ebook_us.pdf *** How CMOs Can Own the Customer Experience, eMarketer Editors, Oct 21. Retrieved from https://www.emarketer.com/content/how-cmos-can-own-the-customer-experience? *** Intelligent Customer Experience. Integrating Human and Artificial Intelligence to Improve Business Results, Medallia Inc., 2019. Retrieved from Medallia_Intelligent_Customer_Experience.pdf

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