Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 7, Issue 2, Year 2017

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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 Irena JINDRICHOVSKA 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 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 Deputy Head of Department of Business Economics, University of Economics 1

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

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 7, Issue 2, Year 2017

Contents

Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA - Editorial: Telling the Truth about the Difference Made by Data and Analytics, Bridging the Gap between the Marketing and Technology, and Improving Data-Driven Results.……………………………………………………...……............4

Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA - Digital Marketing Challenged by Delivering Value in the Flux Ioan Matei PURCĂREA

Business Environment…………………………………...………............7

Bernd HALLIER (by courtesy of) - The Language of the Global Green University…………………14 Theodor PURCĂREA - Marketing’s Progress Beyond its Heritage Functions: New Marketing, New CMO, and the Revenue Potential……………………………………..18 Léon F. WEGNEZ (by courtesy of) - Automatic Distribution Combines Availability and Quality….29 Theodor PURCĂREA - The Latest Issue of our Partner Journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Volume XII, 2017, Number 1, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia…….………………………......................................31

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: Telling the Truth about the Difference Made by Data and Analytics, Bridging the Gap between the Marketing and Technology, and Improving Data-Driven Results “Always tell the truth - to your clients about their problems and what is necessary to solve them, to yourself about the quality of your work and your personal goals and to consumers”, (Conick, 2017) recommended Andrew Keller (while speaking with the Miami Ad School), global creative director of Facebook’s in-house agency Creative Shop, who will be a keynote speaker at the AMA’s 2017 Annual Conference in Las Vegas, September 9-11. On the other hand, Simon J. Bell, a professor of Marketing in the Faculty of Business & Economics at the University of Melbourne (interviewed by Cynthia Nalevanko, Editor, SAGE Publishing, the world’s leading independent academic and professional publisher), argued that in this “Google age”… “firms should be proactive in educating customers and pay particular attention to educating them about how their firm operates.” (Nalevanko, 2017) Nine years ago, Professor James G. Looby (Chair Computing and Information Sciences Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, Rensselaer County, New York, USA) expressed the well-documented opinion (Looby, 2008) that holistic marketing management (management being responsible for shaping an organization’s values, culture and direction, and holistic marketing’s primary tenet being the understanding that every component of an organization and every actor in the value chain must embrace the holistic marketing orientation as a component of his job description and necessarily integrating all facets of business from a market-oriented perspective) is “a converged approach consistent with the widespread convergence we are witnessing throughout the technologies and across many disciplines…” and predicted that “we will see increased convergence between marketing and other disciplines most notably, Information Technology (IT) and Organizational Behavior (OB)…”. And citing Kotler & Keller (2007) who underlined that: relationship marketing achieves its goal (to develop and sustain mutually satisfying relationships throughout the supply and value chain that will subsequently optimize the customer’s perceived value and the organization’s customer lifetime value) by focusing on continuing two-way communications through customer relationship management (CRM) and partner relationship management (PRM); successful relationship management will also depend on the communication and IT competencies of the workforce further emphasizing relationship management’s integration with the human resources hiring (he even suggested that internal marketing must begin with HR process), training and retention process. He also highlighted that the foundation of holistic marketing is an effective communication (the relationship between social responsibility marketing and internal, integrated and relationship marketing being therefore obvious and additionally consistent with OB best practices (citing: Jaworski & Kohli, 1993, and Robbins & Judge, 2007). Looby concluded (by agreeing with Kotler and Keller) that “holistic marketing and a comprehensive integrated approach is necessary to optimize performance and manage the increasing complexity of today’s Internet driven global market place”, and suggested “the emergence of the Internet while increasing the

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complexity of marketing will also yield new opportunities and its accessible digital basis will provide managers with better research and analytics”.

“Technologies for the Internet of things as well as advertising continue to advance at a rapid rate”, argued recently Becky Wu, Ph.D., Sr. Executive Vice President Luth Research (which is well-known for its Luth Research’s ZQ Intelligence, a pioneer and leading technology for passively monitoring consumer behaviors across computers, smartphones and tablets). There is a real challenge today for marketers to better understand and decipher the data points when using the Internet across the devices, by learning to work with various types of digital metrics such of those reflected in the figure below:

Figure 1: Various types of digital metrics Source: Wu, B., Unlock your imagination for digital data, Luth Research Whitepaper, p. 4

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting - “A Custom Technology Adoption Profile” (surveying 108 US B2C director+ marketing/advertising decision makers at companies that own their CRM/customer data) - and commissioned by LiveIntent, recently (2017) evaluated the state of advertising technology (adtech) and marketing technology (martech) convergence (which is a popular topic among marketers, vendors, and investors), and in order to be made a real needed progress (the majority of firms being at an earlier ramp up stage) it was suggested that marketers should start by focusing on mastering one particular customer identifier as email addresses (as a first step toward the necessary data consolidation which must drive effective technology convergence). The study concluded that the B2C marketers’ need to deploy customer experiences that drive growth for their companies is reflected by this convergence, these marketers’ current analysis, orchestration, and execution capabilities being also pushed to their limits by the pressure of connecting and delivering customer interactions across touchpoints and devices.

There is no doubt about the real challenge today of effectively bridging the gap between the marketing and technology. As Stephen H. Yu (a world-class database marketer and Associate Principal, Analytics & Insights Practice Lead for eClerx) recently stated, for example, “Stop Holistic Marketing Management

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blaming marketing problems on software”. (Yu, 2017) He attracted the attention on the imperative of fixing the data first when facing with a large amount of unrefined, data refinement work including: data hygiene and edit, data categorization and tagging, data consolidation, and data summarization and variable creation. It is not by chance that at the beginning of this year Victoria Godfrey (the CMO of Avention) highlighted that data-driven marketing will continue to be at the forefront of marketers’ strategies (B2B and B2C marketers uniting over analytical strategies; CMO and CIO working together) by focusing on maximizing data to provide insights that ultimately lead to increased customer conversion and retention.

Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor-in-Chief References Conick, H., Facebook’s Andrew Keller to Keynote 2017 AMA Annual Conference on Marketing Leadership, Marketing News, retrieved on 08.06.2017, from: https://www.ama.org/publications/eNewsletters/Marketing-NewsWeekly/Pages/facebook-andrew-keller-keynote-speech-2017-ama-annual.aspx Godfrey, V., How data and technology will affect your marketing in 2017, January 25, 2017, retrieved on 10.06.2017, from: https://martechtoday.com/how-data-technology-affect-marketing-2017-194216 Kotler, P. & Keller, K. L. (2007). Marketing management (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Publishing.

Looby, J.G., Marketing, IT & the Web, retrieved on 19.09.2013, from: http://www.ciss100.com/lecture-topicsmodules/11-e-commerce/marketing-it-the-web/ Nalevanko, C., When, and How, Should Firms Educate Their Customers? Bell, S., Auh, S., and Eisingerich, A.B., Unraveling the Customer Education Paradox: When, and How, Should Firms Educate Their Customers? Journal of Service Research, Posted on February 27, 2017 by Cynthia Nalevanko, Editor, SAGE Publishing, Retrieved on 12.05.2017, from: https://managementink.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/when-and-how-should-firms-educate-theircustomers/ Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2007). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ USA: Prentice Hall Wu, B., Unlock your imagination for digital data, Luth Research Whitepaper, retrieved on 31.05.2017, from LuthWhitepaper_Unlock-Your-Imagination-for-Digital-Data.pdf Yu, S.H., Stop Blaming Marketing Problems on Software, May 11, 2017, retrieved on 12.05.2017, from: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/post/stop-blaming-marketing-problems-software/all/ *** Forrester Consulting’s “A Custom Technology Adoption Profile”, Commissioned By LiveIntent, May 2017, Kick-Start Your Adtech/Martech Convergence. Leverage Customer Email To Start Tackling Marketing’s Next Great Opportunity, Project Director Nicholas Phelps, Senior Market Impact Consultant, retrieved on 08.06.2017, from Forrester-2017-Predictions.pdf

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Digital marketing challenged by delivering value in the flux business environment Dr. Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA Ioan Matei PURCĂREA

Abstract Today’s companies’ success is depending on the digital transformation on the way of delivering improved experiences, considering digital which has changed the nature of growth, analytics, cloud, the reimagining of core systems, and the partnership between marketing and IT. It is imperative for companies to respond to the identified changes, interacting accordingly with technology, also looking at the new environments created by the virtual and real worlds coming together. B2B marketers need to develop new skills of using marketing technologies, being also need to learn more about optimizing content for revenue growth, considering the central role of customer journeys within the context of B2B relationships’ complexity and of the confirmation of the viability of McKinsey’s Marketing Operating Model.

Keywords: Digital transformation; Digital customer experience; Digital customer journeys; Marketing Operating Model JEL Classification: L86; M15; M31; O33

Staying relevant in the future with the help of digital transformation. The prime mover in reshaping CX is to deliver digital services and operations

Experience is everything in a world becoming more digital, smarter, more mobile and hyper-connected, as argued by Avaya (a leading, global provider of customer and team engagement solutions and services available in a variety of flexible on-premise and cloud deployment options; Avaya Oceana, a digital customer engagement platform, offers a range of tools and resources to create individualized customer experiences based on a contextual, 360degree view of a company’s customers’ journeys). In the opinion of Avaya, (Avaya Inc., 2017) there are three equally important components of a customer experience (CX) strategy: customer journey mapping, channel alignment, and routing. Digital commerce, digital entertainment and digital communications represent opportunities created today thanks to the global transformation to digital, this digital transformation being considered as the foundation of how successful organizations will stay relevant in the future.

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As reminded recently by Mc Kinsey’s representatives, in order to deliver real benefits to companies that successfully execute customer-centric strategies it is necessary to improve CX. (Ehrlich, O., Fanderl, H., and Habrich, 2017) And the prime mover in reshaping CX in almost every sector (see, for example, Amazon, Apple, Uber etc.) is to deliver digital services and operations within the context of the dynamic of value creation and durable competitive advantage. New levels of speed, agility, efficiency, and precision can be sustained by companies’ customer-centric strategies through the proper combination of digital technologies and operating capabilities. There are four key success factors (identified by the Mc Kinsey’s representatives while building a next-generation operating model that is putting the customer’s needs and wants at the center of a digital transformation strategy, this model being enabled by redesigned customer journeys and agile delivery of insights and services) in delivering superior digital experiences: designing and digitizing customer journeys, increasing speed and agility in insight generation, achieving customer adoption of digital customer journeys (by informing the customer, making the digital journey relevant, and guiding the customer ), and developing agility in delivering journey transformations.

The “mixed reality” and the future of engagement

Last time we underlined the significant role of digital intelligence as a continuous initiative transforming businesses and customer experiences. (Negricea & Purcarea, 2017) There is no doubt about this necessary “ability to transform digital data into real-time, actionable, customer-centric insights.” (atinternet.com) As shown recently by Deloitte Consulting LLP’s representatives, (Deloitte University Press, 2017) disruption and transformation in today’s always in flux business environment are driven by the already known (from 2010) macro forces (digital, analytics, cloud, the reimagining of core systems, the changing role of IT within the enterprise), for companies being imperative to respond to the identified changes (such as: user engagement, digital identities, cognitive analytics, blockchain), and to act accordingly for turning business potential into kinetic energy. The way we interact with technology, for example, will be changed by advances in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and thanks to the “mixed reality” (MR, the controlled collision of the AR/VR and IoT trends) digital and physical objects (and their data) will coexist and interact with one another in new environments created by the virtual and real worlds coming together this way. Specifically leveraging VR capabilities, MR can provide challenging experiences in marketing and customer service field, (Matia, 2016) and mixed-reality capabilities could enhance shopping, (Booth, 2016) on the shop floor AR meeting the IoT. MR, which is requiring an entirely new set of digital content and context, adds intelligence (physics, gravity, dimension, even personality) to the digital content relative to the space around us announcing the future of engagement.

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Among other aspects Deloitte Consulting LLP’s representatives highlighted that: ▪ “Everything-as-a-service” – XaaS, a strategic and operational blueprint that will redefine soon the fundamental goals of core modernization systems in order to create greater efficiencies and engage customers, employees, and business partners in new ways – is a new business imperative today; ▪ The shared-ledger technology “Blockchain” (still maturing, may lead to even greater disruption; it is well-known its starring role in the Bitcoin hype cycle) is assuming the new role of gatekeeper of reputation and identity in the emerging “trust economy” (in which what digital information is recorded in a blockchain, and how that information will be used is determined by the individual), also making it possible to proffer digital contracts, this way transforming reputation into a manageable attribute; as shown in the figure below there are three levels of blockchain:

Figure 1: Three levels of blockchain Source: Tech Trends 2017: The kinetic enterprise, Deloitte University Press, 2017 Deloitte Development LLC, p. 94

Strong confidence in digital channels at the level of B2B digital marketing The sixth annual State of Digital Marketing Report of DemandWave (a premier B2B digital marketing agency helping its clients drive leads and revenue with its data-driven approach Holistic Marketing Management

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to SEO, SEM, Display Advertising, Content, and Account-Based Marketing) revealed (DemandWave, 2017) the various findings from a survey about 200 B2B marketing professionals based in the U.S (from marketing managers to C-level executives, representing software, manufacturing, telecommunications, healthcare, and more), such as: ▪ delivering quality leads remains (32%) the greatest challenge facing B2B marketers (within the ongoing mission to grow and accelerate pipeline revenue), followed by measuring and proving ROI (24%), generating enough leads (16%), producing quality content (14%), securing staff and budget (8%); ▪ a tie between SEO and email is the top channel for revenue growth; ▪ 55% of B2B marketers dedicate 41% or more of marketing spend to digital channels; ▪ the number one metric used to measure digital marketing performance: conversion rate/ from lead to customer (31%, making sense as it ties to B2B marketers’ top goal), lead volume (25%), ROI (22%), website traffic (12%), cost per lead (7%); ▪ channels which are a part of companies’ digital marketing mix: social media (95%), email (93%), organic search (91%), paid search (71%), display advertising (55%); ▪ 53% of B2B marketers stick with content creation in-house teams, 42% use a mix of both agency and in-house content sources, and 48% invest in agency-created content; while content types produced is as follows: blogs (82%), videos (82%), white papers (73%), case studies (68%), infographics (68%), webinars (60%), other (23%), mobile apps (15%); ▪ content types driving revenue (still having a long way to go in terms of optimizing content strategy for revenue): white papers (40%), webinars (37%), case studies (34%), videos (30%), blogs (28%), not sure (22%), infographics (17%), other (15%), none of the above (13%), mobile apps (6%); ▪ social media channels which are a part of companies’ digital marketing mix: LinkedIn (89%), Twitter (86%), Facebook (82%), You Tube (67%), Instagram (30%), Pinterest (12%), Other (11%), Snapchat (6%); ▪ 39% of B2B marketers see 21-40% of their website traffic come from mobile, and 49% of B2B marketers use between one and three software platforms as part of their marketing tech stack, for 69% of marketers that tech stack including a marketing automation system; ▪ sales-marketing alignment: aligned - 57%, feeling a disconnect - 36%, still unsure - 7%; 58% of B2B marketers are now responsible for a sales-qualified lead goal; ▪ 37% of respondents have tried or currently use Account-Based Marketing (ABM); 42% of ABM users are finding success, and 40% are unsure.

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DemandWave’s report concluded that B2B marketers have made significant progress in measuring digital ROI, and there is a fresh sense of confidence in digital thanks to the ability to better track marketing efforts. On the other hand, among other aspects: B2B marketers should expect an even more competitive SEO battleground moving forward; few of the marketers using marketing technologies (like predictive lead scoring and website personalization) had strong confidence in their current strategies, but confidence will increase as B2B marketers develop these new skills; only 40% or less of B2B marketers can attribute revenue for any given content type, being necessary to learn more about optimizing content for revenue growth.

There is no doubt that digital has changed the nature of growth, and with the rise of technology and advanced analytics the way of capturing growth has changed drastically, being a real need – as argued this Spring by Mc Kinsey’s representatives (Ahuja, Perrey, and Hilton Segel, 2017) – of mastering the three dimensions of growth in the digital age: invest, create, perform.

The necessary deepen collaboration between CMOs and CIOs. Digitizing customer journeys and processes

In May 2017, (Lucey, 2017) a representative of Avaya (article first appeared in CIO Review, May 2017) pledged for harmonizing the work of CMOs (which should operate as major influencers of IT spend) and CIOs (which should work alongside CMOs) in order to amplify the customer communications experience. Starting from raising two questions (how can CIOs support CMOs to make their best marketing technology investments, and how can CIOs empower CMOs to operate at maximum potential each day), five things CMOs want CIOs to know were identified to help marketing teams do what they do best: the imperative of moving at the speed of the consumer, and flexibly responding to digital change; the need of quickly connecting off-the-shelf applications available (which can be instantly cloud-deployed) and securely for immediate use; the imperative of understanding how marketing is working to create a better experience for external customers; the need of having the right infrastructure and tools to work as securely as possible; the need of a true business partner in driving the best possible business outcomes and customer experiences.

Digitizing customer journeys and processes is today a rapidly developing field, and within this framework it is very important to make customers aware of a new model and of the launch of the (often overlooked or neglected) digital-adoption campaigns. In the opinion of McKinsey’s representatives, (Asif, Hiraoka, Jones, and Vohra, 2017) successful customer adoption of new goods or services rests on five pillars providing a firm foundation for any customer-adoption campaign (of course, specific tactics varying by company and context): CX, Holistic Marketing Management

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marketing and communications, incentives and promotions, legacy channels (encouraging slow adopters to migrate and demonstrate commitment to a new digital solution), and policy (avoiding disruptive conflicts between leaders on: strategy, targets, compensation, or mind-sets).

Other recent McKinsey’s research (Maechler, Poenaru, von Collenberg, and Schulze, 2017) has revealed that efforts to serve customers better by companies’ investment in developing customer portals or apps often fail to create significant improvements in CX, because of different issues (such as: bad data which remain unsolved; the functionality of the technology which proves to be too limited or complex to be useful). It is well-known that to both B2B and B2C the role of customer journeys is central, but the incidence and importance of these customer journeys (in 2009, McKinsey underlined the importance of aligning marketing with the “consumer decision journey”, introducing this more sophisticated approach which replaced the funnel metaphor; more recently, in the November 2015 Issue of Harvard Business Review, McKinsey’s representatives reminded why journeys are becoming central to the customer’s experience of a brand, also explaining “The New Journey Management Organization”, and revealing the major shift lead by thinking about the customer journey as a product) is different for B2B, where: relationships often go deeper, journeys involve more individuals, customization is more widespread, and deals’ stakes are usually higher. This recent McKinsey’s research concluded that - within the context of B2B relationships’ complexity - among the keys to success are the following: “carefully parsing those complex customer relationships, striking the right balance of human and digital interactions, and maintaining an agile approach to navigating intricate customer networks.”

Conclusions Digital transformation remains the main ongoing marketing management trend, marketers (enabled by technology to meet customers’ expectations) trying to better understand what is happening at the confluence between humans and technology, enhancing the customer journey (digital customer engagement is already a top strategic priority) with the help of the digital tools, choosing the right channels/strategies and digital marketing tactics.

Today’s evolution confirm the viability of McKinsey’s Marketing Operating Model (MOM, made up of integrated consumer data, decision making, and distribution platforms, all three working together) in driving revenue growth and improving customer experience, (Heller, and Robinson, 2017) including on the basis of the active collaboration between marketing and IT having joint priority lists and action in concert.

References

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Ahuja, K., Perrey, J., and Hilton Segel, L., Invest, Create, Perform: Mastering the three dimensions of growth in the digital age, March 2017, retrieved on 30.03.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketingand-sales/our-insights/invest-create-perform?

Asif, C., Hiraoka, J., Jones, T., and Vohra, P., Digitizing customer journeys and processes: Stories from the front lines, May 2017, retrieved on 12.05.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/ourinsights/digitizing-customer-journeys-and-processes Booth, J., “How virtual reality will change the way you shop,” Time, March 28, 2016, http://time.com/4273885/virtual-reality-shopping/, cited in Tech Trends 2017: The kinetic enterprise, Deloitte University Press, 2017 Deloitte Development LLC, Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, p. 51 Court, D., Elzinga, D., Mulder, S., and Vetvik, O.J., The consumer decision journey, retrieved on 09.06.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-consumer-decision-journey Edelman, D.C., Singer, M., Competing on customer journeys, Harvard Business Review, November 2015 Issue, retrieved on 09.06.2017, from: https://hbr.org/2015/11/competing-on-customer-journeys Ehrlich, O., Fanderl, H., and Habrich, C., Mastering the digital advantage in transforming customer experience, May 2017, retrieved on 04.05.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/ourinsights/mastering-the-digital-advantage-in-transforming-customer-experience?

Heller, J., and Robinson, K., Meet your new MOM (Marketing Operating Model) Article - March 2017, retrieved on 10.06.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/meet-yournew-mom?

Lucey, M., Five Things Every CMO Wants Their CIO to Know, May 30, 2017 (article first appeared in CIO Review, May 2017), retrieved on 09.06.2017, from: https://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2017/03/nextgeneration-really-look-like.html Maechler, N., Poenaru, A., von Collenberg, T.R., and Schulze, P., Finding the right digital balance in B2B customer experience, April 2017, retrieved in 25.05.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/ourinsights/finding-the-right-digital-balance-in-b2b-customer-experience?

Matia, A., “What the rise of virtual reality means for marketers,” Convince & Convert, June 17, 2016, www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/virtual-reality-for-marketers/, accessed January 22, 2017, cited in Tech Trends 2017: The kinetic enterprise, Deloitte University Press, 2017 Deloitte Development LLC, Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, p. 51 Negricea, C.I. & Purcarea, I.M., Digital intelligence and digital marketing effectiveness, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 7, Issue 1, 2017, pp. 12-17 *** The fundamentals of digital transformation. Communications solutions that move at the speed of your customer - purpose-built for a smart, digital world, 03/2017 Avaya Inc., retrieved on 09.06.2017, from Avaya.com/oceana, digital-transformation-ebook.pdf *** https://www.atinternet.com/en/glossary/digital-intelligence-2/ *** Tech Trends 2017: The kinetic enterprise, Deloitte University Press, 2017 Deloitte Development LLC, Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, pp. 2-3, 49-52, 54, 61, 79-80, 93-97,103, retrieved on 06.04.2017, from DUP_TechTrends2017.pdf *** DemandWave’s State of Digital Marketing Report, retrieved on 20.04.2017, from 2017-State-of-DigitalMarketing-FINAL.pdf

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The Language of the Global Green University Bernd HALLIER

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier and RAU Rector Ovidiu Folcuţ confirming the wise words of Henry David Thoreau: “The language of friendship is not words but meanings” Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier, President of the European Retail Academy (ERA), a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal (he is also an Honorary Member of the Romanian Scientific Society of Management - SSMAR) attracted our attention on great events happening in the second quarter of 2017 at the Global Green University level, and allowed us to present them. It is also worth mentioning that Professor Bernd Hallier has participated, at the end of May and beginning of June 2011, to a series of Round Tables and Public Lectures (The intertwine of Culture and Trade; Introduction of the European Retail Academy; Branding: the successful example of EuroShop; Evolution Tornado Retail; the Global House of Harmony; Lifelong-Learning; Environmental Retail Management). It is also worth mentioning that Professor Bernd Hallier 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 pushed “environment” to become a high political issue during the EU-Presidency of Germany, in 2007). On the other hand, it is worth recalling that on June 25, 2015, Professor Ovidiu Folcuţ, Rector of the Romanian-American University (RAU) received a visit from Professor Bernd Hallier, the agenda of the productive meeting including significant items of discussion, such as: the international transfer of know-how between business and universities, bringing more transparency on retail-research and retail-education; the actual need of anticipating skill needs in the commerce sector, taking into account the attention to be paid to the evaluation of philosophies offered by the steady upgrade of retail-technologies; the developing cooperation between Germany and Eastern markets. Within this context, Professor Bernd Hallier introduced the challenging volume “Food Waste Management” (based on an EU-project FORWARD), the reduction of food waste being seen as an important lever for achieving global food security, freeing up finite resources for other uses, diminishing environmental risks and avoiding financial losses (not forgetting to suggest from the very beginning the distinction between “food loss” and “food waste”). It was underlined, for example, that: there are substantial losses along the stages of the food chain (agricultural production, post-harvest handling and storage, processing and packaging, distribution, and consumption); the reduction of food losses is seen as an important starting point for achieving global food security, freeing up finite resources for other uses, diminishing environmental risks and avoiding financial losses.

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10.06.2017: EXPO Astana The Global Green University welcomes the opening of the Expo Astana with the topic of Future Energy! By this contribution of Kazakhstan devoting its focus to CO2-emissions and the Global Climate Change it demonstrates its leadership for a better Global House of Harmony.

The European Retail Academy started its Global Green University-Site after a student trip from Yekaterinburg/Russia to Kazakhstan's Astana Economic Forum in 2013. The students of the World Economic Youth Forum demanded in an official declaration - drafted together with Prof.

Dr. M.Fedorov and Prof. Dr. B. Hallier - from politics more attention to green issues. In 2013 the first Peace Nobel Laureate to sign also that declaration was Prof. Dr. Rae Kwon Chung from Korea. Prof. Hallier will promote in 2017 those ideas by a speech at the Astana Economic Forum about a necessary new equilibrium for economics - connected with ecology and ethics: even giving the ECOLOGY the dominant role in that triangle.

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01.05.2017: Innovation Accelerator The World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Accelerator identifies, nurtures and scales bold solutions to fight hunger globally; it is identifying and testing solutions in an agile way. At the moment there are 22 projects listed across 14 countries (LINK).

The European Retail Academy supports the penetration of Anti-Food Losses/-Waste activities around the world like via its special site Global Green University, its e-learning Food Waste Management (Download eBook), participation at the 1st pan-African Postharvest Loss Congress (News at ABF) and at the 3rd World Save Food Conference at the Interpack Exhibition in Duesseldorf/Germany coming on 4.05.17 (LINK).

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10.04.2017: Maturity Model Based on the "Collaboration"-workshop of January 2017 (see also ERM-News) now a draftmodel to optimize the Total Supply Chain has been designed and will be discussed in a followup Meeting in the end of June in Hamburg.

Due to its importance for the sector the group has decided to use this draft (Download the Draft) as an open-platform for discussions at University Chairs or within companies along the chain from farm to fork. The assessment of those groups about the practicability, relevance and value of the model can be sent to Colin Peacock.

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Marketing’s progress beyond its heritage functions: New Marketing, New CMO, and the Revenue Potential Theodor Purcărea Abstract There is a clear pressure for marketers of proving their impact on company’s revenue, better understanding what technology drives company’s go-to-market strategy, and the relation between revenue relationship models in customer experience, knowing that customers are driving up revenue risk which is serving to accelerate companies’ CX initiatives. The modern CMO is seen now as the voice of the customer in the organization, and he is challenged to mix data science, technology and marketing know-how with experience, always having a proper marketing plan, and capitalizing on the numerous opportunities in transforming CX, keeping pace with the evolution to real-time CX. Keywords: Revenue strategy; CX; new marketing; CMO and CMS; CXM and BXM JEL Classification: L84; L86; M31; O33

Revenue risk driven by customers is the wake-up call for marketers B2B marketers are under real pressure of proving their impact on company’s revenue by capitalizing the “small window of opportunity to move away from their departments’ legacy functions”, as shown by a recent Forrester’s report. (Snow, Robertson, Bullock, Hartig, 2017) At the beginning of May 2017, Radius SVP Shari Johnston highlighted on Marketing Smarts (O'Shea Gorgone, 2017) the need for today’s marketers to bring their contribution in the company’s revenue strategy by combining the best of marketing and sales operations with a focus on driving revenue. Johnston presented the comprehensive landscape of tools of different technologies necessary to optimize different areas offered by Scott Brinker (the well-known advocate for a role of a chief marketing technologist as the right hand of the CMO; he underlined the ascendency of marketing as increasingly being the center of the business, seeing the marketing operations – which cover responsibilities driven by software and data: ROI, accountability, process optimization, and marketing enablement – as the organizing force within that mission), (Brinker, 2013) and referred to the recently “Revenue Ops Technology Landscape” offered by Radius:

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Figure 1: Radius’s Revenue Ops Technology Landscape, February 2017 Source: O'Shea Gorgone, K., Marketing Drives Revenue, and Now You Can Prove It: Radius SVP Shari Johnston on Marketing Smarts [Podcast], MarketingProfs, May 03, 2017

Johnston showed how important is to understand what technology drives company’s goto-market strategy, and to use, for example, predictive analytics to apply data science accordingly and reduce sales cycles, improving conversion rates all the way through the funnel.

At the end of the same month, Sheena Koo, Content Marketing Specialist at ResponseTek, explained the relation between 3 revenue relationship models in customer experience (CX) and what they mean for companies’ customer experience strategy, (Koo, 2017) starting from the Forrester’s report “Drive Revenue with Customer Experience, 2017”, (Forrester Research, 2017) which revealed that depending on which kind of relationship a company has – relationships tending to take on three main shapes, as shown in the figure below – the company’s investments in CX programmes need to focus on the areas that impact revenue the most (considering more tangible and actionable strategies in terms of creating ROI).

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Figure 2: The three main shapes taken by relationships (within the context of the variety of CX and revenue potential relationships experienced by differing industries and businesses) Source: Koo, S. (work cited), Recreated from Drive Revenue with Customer Experience, 2017, January 18, 2017 by Forrester Research Inc., Copyright © Forrester Research Inc.

And this CX approach considering the (elevating) “Purpose” theme taken by the Temkin Group (Temkin, 2017) as being particularly important for companies in 2017 (“Empathy”, in 2014; “Employees”, in 2015; “Emotion”, in 2016), purpose being an important component across all four CX core competencies (purposeful leadership, compelling brand values, employee engagement, customer connectedness), as suggested in the figure below:

Figure 3: Purpose cuts across all four CX core competences Source: Temkin, B., Welcome to 2017, The Year of Purpose, January 3, 2017

It is worth mentioning that findings of the recent Temkin Group’s report “The State of CX Management, 2017”, which evaluated the state of CX management at large companies, revealed that the highest two levels of CX (as shown in the figure below) have been reached by only 10% of these surveyed companies (180 organizations with 500 million dollars or more in annual revenues):

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Figure 4: Results from Temkin Group’s CX Competency and Maturity Assessment Source: Temkin Group’s Report: The State of CX Management, 2017, May 1, 2017

While another recent Temkin Group’s report, “What Happens After a Good or Bad Experience, 2017”, which surveyed 10,000 U.S. consumers about their recent interactions with more than 300 companies across 20 industries, combined the percentage of customers in an industry having a bad experience with the percentage of customers who said they decreased their spending after a bad experience, and then used the findings to create a Revenues at Risk Index for all those 20 industries. For example, retailers stand to lose the least revenue (1%) from delivering bad experiences, while rental car agencies stand to lose the most revenue (6.7%).

In the same time, we also have to take into account the just published Temkin Group’s report “The Shift To Customer Journey Insights”, which shows the new developed approach of five strategies forming the so-called “Customer Journey Insights” (CJI): internal journey alignment, journey data farming, journey performance tracking, journey visualization, and journey prioritization. And in order to enable customer journeys companies need to proceed on their path through three stages: customer journey orientation, customer journey enablement, and customer journey mastery.

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There is no doubt that we are in the age of the customer, and according to Forrester’s 2017 Predictions customers are driving up revenue risk, rewarding or punishing companies based on a single experience (a single moment in time), revenue risk being the wake-up call for companies (already under pressure of making the needed changes in leadership and talent, of making important advances in how they deliver CX, and of staying in front of technologies that are vital to winning customers’ attention, affinity, and spend) and serving to accelerate companies’ CX initiatives and the broader efforts to organize and compete in a customer-led market (a customer-centric market moving fast, challenged by increasing customer expectations and declining tolerance for even mediocre experiences). In the same authorized opinion, how businesses operate and interact with customers (augmented and virtual reality, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing) is reshaped by three forms of key technologies: engagement technologies, insights technologies, and supporting technologies.

The rapidly expansion of the scope of the new CMO’s role.

The role of Chief Marketing Scientist (CMS) A new study – “2017 Trends & Tech Guide for B2B Sales + Marketing” – co-authored

by Prezi (the cloud-based presentation software helping connect powerfully with an audience), Ambition (a Harvard Business Review-endorsed performance tracking, management and motivation platform built specifically for client-facing teams in sales, support, marketing and account management), and LeadGenius (an Account-Based Marketing and lead generation platform), argues that the modern CMO is seen now as the voice of the customer in the organization (beyond brand vision, people management, creative development, market research, advertising, agency management), leading a full-funnel marketing team which is responsible for driving customer success (not just acquisition), under the scope of the CMO’s falling product marketing, retention, upselling, customer happiness, and user experience. The study shows that critical for today’s CMO is keeping the pace with the quickly evolution of the technology landscape (using key tools such as analytics and reporting, and savvily handling data), so as to optimize marketing-sales alignment, report on pipeline performance, supply sales with educational content and assets, and manage full-funnel marketing teams.

A recent eBook – << Is a Chief Marketing Scientist a “Must Have” to Compete? >> – authored by 5W Decisions (focused on maximizing the effectiveness of its clients' direct marketing activities by offering strategic and tactical consulting, database marketing, analytics, insights, marketing tools, data and creative services), started from the chasm existing between companies’ marketing staff and their data scientists (statisticians and analysts), and explained the role a CMS should play as a creative thinker in a company (if it has the budget to support this position, as a full-time CMS or outsourcing it) by mixing data science, technology and marketing know-how with experience, working closely with the CMO (CMS reporting generally directly to the CMO) to manage the Database Marketing Group. What presupposes to create a roadmap (in order to incrementally advance company’s database marketing) based on an assessment of Holistic Marketing Management

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company’s direct marketing capabilities, including a review of how well it optimize the concept coined by 5W Decisions so-called “5 W’s” (Who to engage, with What message, Where, When and Why), and company’s infrastructure in terms of people, tools, data systems and processes.

As shown recently by Sponge (an all-in-one marketing planning & analytics solution helping modeling different revenue scenarios, creating data-driven marketing plans, and measuring performance to understand which company’s campaigns are driving results), for a modern marketer (who is equivalent to a data-driven marketer having a keen understanding of working strategies, knowing how to convert leads to real sales opportunities) is essential to have a solid marketing plan focused on 5 key areas: ▪ getting honest about company’s last year review as a sanity check - by reviewing aspects like: if the company achieved its revenue target, and what did marketing contribute; which campaigns generated the most leads and the fewest; which campaigns had the highest impact on sales pipeline; how did the funnel perform compared to marketer’s assumptions; what marketer learn about specific strategies, tactics, or processes in the last year.

▪ setting company’s vision for the new year - by discussing revenue targets, confirming a shared understanding of the demand waterfall, and agreeing on how many opportunities sales will need to create in order to achieve the revenue plan; figuring out how many leads marketing will need to generate to support the sales pipeline; using Sponge’s Lead to Revenue Template: Summary of Results: Segment, Model Output, Target vs. Plan, Cushion; Number of Opportunities: Segment, 2016, 2017, 2018; Raw Sales from Opportunities: Segment, 2016, 2017, 2018; Distribution for Sales to Account for Sales Cycle: Segment, 2016, 2017, 2018), as shown in the figure below:

Figure 5: Setting company’s vision for the new year Source: Sponge’s The Modern Marketer’s Guide to 2017 Planning

According to this vision it is important to think of marketer’s themes (such as Awareness, Target Persona, Data, Inbound, to start; then, Optimize Lead Nurturing to Decrease Time to Revenue etc.) for the year like umbrellas, under which all of marketing campaigns and tactical plans will fit, keeping the marketing team focused on what really matters; Sponge also recommends the use of a practical so-called “Stop, Start, Adjust” exercise (by giving some real-world examples from a recent planning session), which is helping to identify programs that will need more or less funding in the new year (the 4th area).

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▪ creating a company’s agile marketing plan - after covering annual planning and how it relates to themes and strategy being recommended to think about the year ahead, considering the need for flexibility; Sponge gives two practical examples of big campaign themes, attracting the attention that here it can be well applied the 80/20 rule (80% of these campaigns and activities/ resources being planned in advance, 20% being committed later while testing, learning, and iterating).

▪ building a company’s programs budget - by starting evaluating new technologies and queuing up campaigns to accelerate deals; Sponge underlines three guidelines to throw on the budget whiteboard: to bold enough to kill anything that isn’t working, to revisit the target personas, and to budget with agility.

▪ defining company’s metrics - considering five metrics: lead to opp conversion, campaign opportunity influence and ROI, email open rates and engagement, funnel velocity, and happiness (in this last case not losing sight of the team and the customers, and avoiding to sacrifice quality and sanity).

Customer Experience Management (CXM) and Buyer Experience Management (BXM) Two years ago, in April 2017, it was reminded that as the second most important criteria among B2B buyers in determining the value of a vendor is the “perceived sales experience” (according to a McKinsey study), and the sales experience is worth 53% of the buyer’s likelihood to be a loyal customer and brand advocate (according to a CEB study), delivering a positive value-based experience is a major differentiator for a company. (Mollins, 2017) And in order to enhance the buying experience to make company’s customers long-term advocates, Peter Mollins recommended three steps: simplify your buying process, provide value at every stage of the sale, and challenge your buyer to be the hero (considering the buyer’s opportunity to be a thought-leader in the supplier’s organization).

At the end of May 2017 we find out (CustomerThink Corp. 2017) – thanks to a paper based on information presented on a CustomerThink webinar March 2, 2017, along with data from an online survey (this survey collected 136 responses for B2B organizations, primarily in North America and Western Europe) fielded to CustomerThink’s registered members in February, 2017 – that despite the fact that improving CX is the top priority in the opinion expressed by 72% of businesses, according to a 2016 study conducted by Forrester marketing and sales organizations have lagged behind, especially in B2B. A 2017 CustomerThink study focused specifically on the B2B buying experience found (compared to a 2015 CustomerThink study which revealed that were successful 24% of B2B CXM initiatives, and 41% for B2C) weaker results in both categories (B2B and B2C). The above mentioned CustomerThink paper concluding, among other aspects, that: << ROI on buyer experience initiatives is driven by improvements in customer satisfaction and loyalty/retention, faster revenue growth, and improved efficiencies; improving the buying experience will require a coordinated approach to deliver the right content, hire and train employees, and enable with appropriate solutions; poor understanding of the buyer’s journey, lack of cross-organization cooperation, marketing content Holistic Marketing Management

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that doesn’t engage buyers, and sales reps struggling to connect solutions to their prospects’ issues al these are some of the key obstacles; organizations plan substantial investments over the next two years in: marketing and sales automation, e-commerce, content management, sales playbook solutions, and purchasing systems. >> There are numerous opportunities in transforming CX (such as: higher profits, more loyal customers, more engaged employees), these kind of transformations being a change program, and making CX a strategic priority is not easy, involving to change company’s employees mindsets and behaviors. (Duncan, Neher, and Tucker-Ray, 2017) Mc Kinsey’s representatives have studied the differences between successful and failed CX transformations, and identified the “seven deadly sins”: myopia, indifference, worthlessness, heedlessness (measuring customer journeys instead of touchpoints, and using imputed importance to analyze survey responses being two factors which stand out in understanding what matters to customers), imbalance, “fractionalism” (thinking about CX very narrowly), and orthodoxy (not understanding the power of cutting-edge design and digital capabilities).

Allow us within this context to highlight that a survey conducted between 8 October and 2 November 2015 (Gorbanescu, Badea, 2015) by EY (a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services) on how top executives in Romania communicate on social media (survey based on an online survey of 320 C-suite level executives from companies operating in various sectors), revealed that the most important audience that CEOs have in mind when they post on social media networks is represented by customers (74% of respondents). It is also interesting to note that according to the same study CEOs who do not engage on social media networks (by title of the respondent) will become less relevant in the digital age (in the opinion of: 61% of non-executive employees, 43% of C-suite executives, 42% of CEOs, and 41% of managers), while the use of social media networks by CEOs (by title of the respondent) giving their companies a human face or personality (in the opinion of: 92% of non-executive employees, 85% of CEOs, 81% of managers, and 77% of C-suite executives). What concerns CEO’s activity on social media, the EY survey showed (overall responses) that this activity is managed mainly by: the CEO him/her-self (54% of respondents), the PR department (17% of respondents), and Marketing department (9% of respondents).

Instead of conclusions In March this year we have seen that CMO are challenged to clearly identify priorities in this year of data and measurement, of Agile Marketing, and to reimagine marketers’ role as a central driver of organisational change, output, and impact. (Purcarea, 2017) But as “the long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything” (Sophocles), and “today you have to run faster to stay in the same place” (Philip Kotler), allow us to paraphrase an American author and speaker about business leadership, Michael Althsuler, by saying that even the time flies, the good news is that the modern marketer can be the pilot… if he is considering the new lessons to learn.

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At the beginning of the last week of April 2017, the reputed Brian Solis (Solis, 2017) invited readers to think about the experiences that people have and share, considering the following adages heard by all of us: customer service is the new marketing; happy employees equal happy customers; if a happy customer tells a friend, an unhappy customer tells the world; for a better CX, 86% of buyers will pay more, but only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations. He argued that as now everything matters and great experiences are becoming mandates, it’s time to find gaps between brand promises and real world experiences, and to design experiences companies want people to have, remember, and share, CX being the new marketing, while customer experiences (what customers have, feel and share; experiences becoming good or bad memories) becoming the brand (BX). And what is more importantly in the opinion expressed by Solis is the fact that: “CX becomes a way of business that permeates and reshapes every facet of how and why companies operate. It’s about purpose, vision, and meaningful work” (as reflected in the figure below, where: BX means Brand Experience, CX means Customer Experience, UX means User Experience, and EX means Employee Experience):

Figure 5: Solving for X, Brian Solis Source: Solis, B., Customer Experience is the New Marketing and Customer Experiences are the New Brand, April 24, 2017, in Experience, New Media University

Just a week after, the reputed Jeanne Bliss (Bliss, 2017) attracted our attention on what we can learn from the new report called “The Evolution To Real-Time Customer Experience”, a joint production of Forrester Research and DataStax, taking into account that a problem for CX is represented by real-time data. As there is a real need for companies to more effectively tackle CX insights in real-time, she recommends companies to have the right plan/strategy in place (confirming that company’s leadership team is aligned, and people throughout the organization understand the importance of CX etc.) which supports the CX platform technology, because even great tools need to be in the service of a strategy. That is why before wanting real-time insights on your customers (what is something very good), it is necessary to clarify the followings aspects: why the company need the real-time information, what are the company going to do with this real-time information, how will it affect your decision-making, and what is the revenue potential.

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Let us finally recall another quote of the Father of Modern Marketing, Philip Kotler: “The future isn’t ahead of us. It has already happened.”

References Bliss, J., The problem of real-time data in CX, June 1, 2017, retrieved on 04.06. 2017, from: http://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/daily-customer-insights-nps-2017-06-01?

Brinker, S., In the land of marketing, operations may become king, retrieved on 03.05.2017, from: http://chiefmartec.com/2013/04/marketing-operations-may-just-rule-the-world/ Duncan, E., Neher, K., and Tucker-Ray, S., Avoiding the seven deadly sins of customer-experience transformations, April 2017, retrieved on 11.04.2017, from: http://www.mckinsey.com/businessfunctions/operations/our-insights/avoiding-the-seven-deadly-sins-of-customer-experience-transformations?

Gorbanescu, O., Badea, E., The Social CEO Romania 2016. A survey on how top executives communicate on social media, 2016 EYGM Limited, retrieved on 20.05.2017, from EY_The Social CEO_EN 2016_04291022.pdf Koo, S., 3 revenue relationship models in cx and what they mean for your customer experience strategy, retrieved on 01.06.2017, May 30, 2017, from: http://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/daily-rewards-programsbrands-2017-05-30?open-article-id=6649025&article-title=3-revenue-relationship-models-in-cx-and-what-theymean-for-your-customer-experience-strategy&blog-domain=responsetek.com&blog-title=responsetek Mollins, P., Customer Experience Starts with Buyer Experience, Focus on your customers’ success, 24 Apr, retrieved on 04.06, 2017, from: https://www.knowledgetree.com/blog/2015/04/customer-experience-starts-withbuyer-experience/# O'Shea Gorgone, K., Marketing Drives Revenue, and Now You Can Prove It: Radius SVP Shari Johnston on Marketing Smarts [Podcast], MarketingProfs, May 03, 2017, retrieved on 03.05.2017, from: https://www.marketingprofs.com/podcasts/2017/32021/B2B-shari-johnston-radius-marketing-smarts?

Purcarea, T., CMO priorities in approaching consumer decision journey, and inspiration and influence in marketing, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 7, Issue 1, 2017, pp. 18-31 Solis, B., Customer Experience is the New Marketing and Customer Experiences are the New Brand, April 24, 2017, in Experience, New Media University, retrieved on 04.06. 2017, from: http://www.briansolis.com/2017/04/customer-experience-new-marketing-customer-experiences-new-brand/ Snow, A., Robertson, C., Bullock, A., Hartig, K., Measuring Isn't Managing: The New Rules Of Marketing Performance Orchestration, February 24, 2017, retrieved on 12.05.2017, from: https://www.forrester.com/report/Measuring+Isnt+Managing+The+New+Rules+Of+Marketing+Performance+Orch estration/-/E-RES134931 Temkin, B., Welcome to 2017, The Year of Purpose, January 3, 2017, retrieved on 01.06.2017, from: https://experiencematters.blog/2017/01/03/welcome-to-2017-the-year-of-purpose/ *** Drive Revenue with Customer Experience, 2017, January 18, 2017 by Forrester Research Inc. *** Temkin Group’s Report: The State of CX Management, 2017, May 1, 2017, retrieved on 01.03.2017, from: https://experiencematters.blog/2017/05/01/report-state-of-cx-management-2017/ *** Temkin Group’s Report: What Happens After a Good or Bad Experience, 2017, May 8, retrieved on 01.06.2017, from: https://experiencematters.blog/2017/05/08/report-what-happens-after-a-good-or-bad-experience2017/ Holistic Marketing Management

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*** Temkin Group’s Report: The Shift To Customer Journey Insights, May, 15, 2017, retrieved on 01.06.2017, from: https://experiencematters.blog/2017/05/15/report-the-shift-to-customer-journey-insights/ *** Forrester’s 2017 Predictions: Dynamics That Will Shape The Future In The Age Of The Customer, October 2016, retrieved on 05.06.2017, from Forrester-2017-Predictions.pdf *** 2017 Trends & Tech Guide for B2B Sales + Marketing, by Prezi, Ambition, and LeadGenius, retrieved on 14.05.2017, from: http://salesiq.leadgenius.com/hubfs/%09%202017-Trends-and-Tech-Guide-For-B2B-Sales-andMarketing-Prezi-Ambition-LeadGenius-1.pdf *** Is a Chief Marketing Scientist a “Must Have” to Compete? Optimize Your 5 W’s — Maximize Your Success, 5W Decisions, 2017, 5W_Decisions_CMS_eBook, retrieved on 24.05.2017 *** Sponge’s The Modern Marketer’s Guide to 2017 Planning, retrieved on 31.05.2017, from Modern-MarketersGuide-to-2017-Planning.pdf *** How to Transform the Buying Experience? CustomerThink Corp. 2017, retrieved on 31.05.2017, from: CustomerThink_Transform_the_Buying_Experience.pdf *** The Evolution To Real-Time Customer Experience. Optimize Customer Experience With CX Data Platforms, A Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper Commissioned By DataStax, April 2017, 2017, Forrester Research, Inc., retrieved on 05.06.2017, from: http://www.datastax.com/wp-content/uploads/resources/whitepaper/ForresterCX-TLP_DataStax.pdf

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Léon F. WEGNEZ (by courtesy of) - Automatic distribution combines availability and quality, “Distribution d’aujourd’hui”, 57ème année, December 2016, Brussels

Sharing with our distinguished Readers a well-known source of usable and useful knowledge…

Prof. Dr. h. c. Léon F. WEGNEZ is a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of our “Holistic Marketing Management“ Journal. He was honored by the European Retail Academy (ERA) as the 2015 “Man of the Year” (the distinguished personalities who have been honored by ERA in the last six years were: Philip Alexander Nobel, John L. Stanton, Léon F. Wegnez, Romano Prodi, Klaus Toepfer, and Robert Aumann). Knowing our distinguished readers’ thirst for knowledge, we offer you, by courtesy of this remarkable personality, the above mentioned article published in the prestigious “Distribution d’aujourd’hui”.

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The latest issue of our partner journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Vol. XII, 2017, Number 1, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Theodor PURCĂREA

JEL Classification: Y30

We are happy to receive by post a new issue of our partner journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Vol. XII, 2017, Number 1. „Marketing Science and Inspirations” is a wellknown academic journal addressed to academics and practitioners. The latest issue of this journal covers a wide range of topics in the marketing research field: “Adapting a corporate culture to the changing circumstances – cultural change through social media” (the author Marcus Diedrich argues that: the increasing use of social network demands a significant change in corporate culture, and the fact that more and more people are networked and that everyone can send and receive messages anywhere and at any time requires a brake in the behavior of a company, in which all employees have to be involved; a long-term competitive advantage can only be Holistic Marketing Management

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achieved through a consistency between corporate culture and corporate strategy; the central challenge will be to become familiar with this new starting situation and to accept it); “Ongoing trends in European and Central European chemical distribution” (the author Marcel Kajan is mapping the trends and actual developments in the chemical distribution market, arguing that it should give actual overview of market sizes, trends and developments, dynamics of the chemical distribution markets and key companies acting on these markets by analysis of secondary figures; also discussed in this article are different characteristics, strategies, objectives and key success factors in chemical distribution enterprises); “The brand of the National Forest Holding << State Forests >>” (Gabriela Roszyk-Kowalska, Piotr Malz; the authors argue that building a brand such as NFH SF should depend on promoting the non-manufacturing functions as well on Corporate Social Responsibility; they show that the aim of the research – having as basis a survey with 438 participants – was ascertaining brand recognition of NFH SF and the awareness of its mission statement and activity); “Shopping centers and experiential marketing” (Vanda Lieskovska, Silvia Megyesiova; the authors focus their article on the classification of shopping centers in the United States, name the largest shopping centers in Europe, and pay attention to the shopping center that can be considered a leader in terms of implementing experiential marketing in the retail management); “Valuation practice of trademarks in the Czech Republik” (Monika Harantova, Marie Heskova; the authors conducted quantitative and qualitative marketing research through a questionnaire survey in order to advice SME on trademark valuation as an intangible asset of the firm, offering a manual to improve brand management and brand valuation); “Survey of selected marketing aspects in functional urban regions of Slovakia” (Peter Rafaj, Lubomira Strazovska; the authors summarize in their article the research findings of selected aspects of marketing communication and provide “marketing inspirations” for practical applications of marketing in the area of local and regional development).

The „Marketing Science and Inspirations” journal also includes other sections such as: “Marketing Briefs” (Pavel Strach – “On marketing stickiness: How to motivate your customers want more”); “Captured us” (“Czechs and advertising 2017”); “Reviews” (Dusan Pavlu – “Michaela Banzetova: Works on galleries and market with contemporary art. Not only in the Czech Republic”, BRNO, FVU VUT, 2016; Dagmar Weberova – “Radomila Soukalova, Eva Svirakova, Jan Gorig, Jarmila Straznicka, Premysl Straznicki: Design stories, and Creative innovations and problems of their transfer to practice”); “Dictionary of Useful Marketing Terms” (Dagmar Weberova).

Allow us to also remember that the Editor-in Chief of the „Marketing Science and Inspirations” journal is Professor Peter Starchon, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, who is also Member of the Editorial Boards of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal and of the “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”.

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And it is always our honor and pleasure to remember our meeting in Koln, Germany, in 2011, on the occasion of the working meeting of the European Retail Academy (ERA).

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