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High-tech Marketing – is it the corporate patsy?

Guest post by: Joe Gagliano

Article Overview: Is the head of marketing in the most vulnerable position in the company? A look at some of the underlying issues.

High-tech Marketing – is it the corporate patsy?

Question: How often does your company's marketing head get replaced? There's probably no other position (except perhaps marketing communications) where job tenure is so precarious. Other department heads - manufacturing, quality, finance, engineering, and even sales - can be reasonably stable. So why does marketing undergo such upheavals at regular intervals? For a number of reasons, but mostly because the head of marketing is good insurance, if not a scapegoat, for other departmental heads. Let's get one thing out of the way - very few high-tech start-ups begin with marketing as the main driving force. However, no self-respecting VC would consider funding a company that didn't have all functions, including marketing, duly represented. Plus, business plans emphasize marketing as a vital element that will decide the success or failure of the enterprise. A company that was formed on the idea that some technical product will propel it forward now has to justify its sense of purpose through the labyrinthine intricacies of marketing. What is needed is a head of marketing, someone who can interpret what the founders had in mind and make it look palatable to the moneylenders. Right away vested interests need to be shielded from the realities of the marketplace: the product or service was defined before the outsiders were brought in, so that has to remain inviolate, as much as possible. In all likelihood engineering and manufacturing had a few differences even at the beginning; the introduction of marketing immediately presents the potential for alliances and discord. In cases where the founder is also the president and chief technologist the difficulties are compounded. The reason for all this angst is that marketing affects all other disciplines in the company. Product features, manufacturing costs, support, quality control, product road maps, and distribution - marketing absolutely has to gain consensus in order to be effective. And that is before we talk about branding, advertising, PR, trade shows, etc.

Let us assume that marketing manages to achieve all its goals - how long can it maintain its balancing act before one of the other players begins to view the world through a different prism? What if market conditions suggest that the original product needs to evolve into something that the original creator is unable or unwilling to do? Of course the market assessment could be wrong, but either way the head of marketing starts to become suspect. The essence of marketing is constant change, while every other department is much happier fine-tuning rather than changing. And so the erosion begins, a process that only too often ends with a change of marketing head. A new administrator is brought in (after a process that involves just about everyone in the company) and the cycle begins all over again. The VP of marketing is dead; long live the VP of marketing. Stock options, perks, and a handsome salary - they all help to sweeten the pill. The head of marketing may be the corporate patsy, but at least he or she can travel in style. The only certainty is that the fattened calf will eventually be sacrificed.

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Article Tags: employment, hightech, marketing, vulnerable position



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