Marketers have outsourced creative, right-brained activities as early as the seventeenth century. That was the genesis of the advertising industry. Since then, companies have evolved to a stage today when marketers outsource a majority of their functions - be it direct marketing, advertising, events, media planning, and even analytics which was hitherto closely held within the “ivory tower." Some have outsourced more than others. But today, an even broader adoption of outsourcing is underway - that of entire marketing operations. Marketers need to embrace this change and make the most of it to drive greater value for their business. The link in the PDF/Presentation is not working due to some changes in the website. Please refer to the new link http://bit.ly/ikmO7w

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Seven tips to successfully offshore marketing operations
By Anurag Mehrotra
Several weeks ago, I met a senior marketing executive from one of the world's largest brands. She was discussing the
possibility of offshoring their marketing operations to.
As we got into the discussion, it was clear that there were three key drivers for their decision to offshore marketing
operations -
The brand had been asked to reduce spend by at least 20 percent. To put this in context, various industry reports
state that 2009 marketing budgets were, on average, cut by over 20 percent compared to pre -recessionary
levels. And the number of companies that cut marketing budgets was 25 percent higher than predicted in January
2009.
As brands go global, maintaining brand consistency across geographies is becoming a huge issue for marketers.
Consistency is important not just from a customer experience standpoint but also from the perspective of
marketing efficiency. If you create standardized brand "templates," the local geographies can respond faster to
market/sales needs.
The marketing function is under pressure to deliver ever ROI much faster than before. Management is asking
tougher questions of its marketing teams; the focus on metrics has never been sharper.
I realized that the company had gone after the usual cost reductions such as the elimination of travel, training, new hiring
and new campaigns. However, they were looking to further reduce cos t and increase efficiency. This triggered the idea of
outsourcing/offshoring marketing operations.
If companies are interested in offshore their marketing operations, what can they do to ensure that their plan is well -
thought out and effective? My counsel to this particular marketing executive was to keep seven mantras in mind:
Secure a champion - Ensure that the company has an offshoring sponsor or champion who can evangelize the
need for offshore delivery, address any issues that come up and resolve problems.
Charge the CMO to dri ve adoption - Make sure that the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is fully supportive of the
offshoring plan. The CMO's approval should be communicated to all brand managers else to combat resistance
from the brand managers. One trick that I have seen work is to have the CMO ask each CEO during their
monthly/quarterly/annual marketing reviews how they have leveraged the offshore unit to deliver marketing
efficiencies. This will ensure that all the brand managers see offshoring as a CMO priority.
Be clear about what can and what cannot be offshored - Draw up a list of functions that can be delivered from an
offshore center. For example, offshoring event management can be costly and ineffective because it requires
much client intimacy in terms of planning and last minute exigencies like booth set-up and brochure placement
among others. While the designing of the booth can be offshored the logistics needs to be managed onsite.
Therefore, draw up a list of what can and what cannot be offshored.
Start with the low-hanging fruit to build credibility - The list of activities to be offshored must have the highest
probability of delivering on metrics of efficiency, time and cost. To be credible, the offshore unit must first deliver
low-hanging fruit, and then gradually scale up to more complex tasks. For example - start with parts of email
marketing such as database creation and validation, design layout of marketing collateral, making brand -
consistent PowerPoint presentations, website/portal development and maintenance, among others. Once these
reach a certain level of stability, start to look at more complex aspects of marketing such as campaign design, or
content creation.
Keep all delivery options open - Offshore centers can be set up in several forms. These include a fully owned
captive center, outsourcing functions to a third party service provider, or creating a hybrid model where some
parts of the operations are outsourced to a third party service provider and some are retained within the captive
center.
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2. Set up a robust governance structure - This is probably one of the most important but least understood
outsourcing issues. A documented governance framework that details every process and workflow will help the
delivery teams by m aking the task “process -oriented”. It will also put in place strong review mechanisms through
steering committees to address any issues that the center or its client users may face.
Publicize the offshore center’s successes - The company must ensure that the offshore center's successes and
any client accolades received are publicized amongst top management and the wider marketing team.
Perception matters.
Marketers have outsourced creative, right-brained activities as early as the seventeenth century. That was the genesis of
the advertising industry. Since then, companies have evolved to a stage today when marketers outsource a majority of
their functions - be it direct marketing, advertising, events, media planning, and even analytics which was hitherto c losely
held within the “ivory tower." Some have outsourced more than others. But today, an even broader adoption of
outsourcing is underway - that o f entire marketing operations. Marketers need to embrace this change and make the most
of it to drive greater value for their business.
http://www.wns.com/blogs/OutsourcingCurrentTopics
Confidential © 2010 WNS Global Services | w ns.com 2