Pic taken at Singapore flyer, Thank God it didnt stall!!!

APAC Marketing Meeting with In-Country managers from China, Singapore, Japan, Korea and Global (USA)

i tot that I had updated this blog more recently, but apparantly it could hav been my intention but it didnt happen in reality.

CHC is starting a blog network! wahhaaa, super fun!

I wanna hav more biz stuff and marketing stuff haaa.. so here is a snippet abt wat marketing means to all the ppl who r not in the loop

ABOUT MARKETING
HEARTBEAT: In the context of IPS, what exactly is marketing, its role in the industrial automation space?
LAURI: Marketing is about 3 simple things
1. Understanding the market
2. Identifying customer needs
3. Meeting and exceeding expectations

Within an organization, marketing is responsible in developing training tools so people can address questions and clarify them. By defining roles and responsibility more clearly, client- acing employees are more equipped to engage customers. It is Marketing’s responsibility to first inspire employees of IPS then customers. With a ‘value story’, IPS employees will be equipped with the right information to articulate IPS solutions capability to and convince customers of our superior quality.

Marketing will take the lead to drive the business through identifying customer needs ahead of competition enabling IPS to be more nimble in our responses.

Far more than mere advertising, administrative support or glamorous events, marketing is about strategy! Marketing has to be strategic to come up with feasible responses to market pressures and business challenges facing the customer and formulating roadmaps and methodologies where we can communicate our solution portfolio, optimization capabilities and technology features to the client.


Lowdown on Business to Business (B2B) Marketing: It’s your say!
Marketing is about understanding the market from first a macroeconomic and then a microeconomic level.
Marketing is about understanding the client, that’s a lot of listening!Marketing is inspiring, it’s about getting customers and prospects excited about our products and services and letting them testify our key benefits!
Marketing is about retaining profitable customers, getting maximized returns, enabling effective resource allocation and the return on every dollar spent (ROI).



ABOUT TRENDS
HEARTBEAT: You have had much experience in marketing, how has marketing evolved?
Lauri: Marketing has evolved in the usage of media, usage of internet and mobile media.The market is now much more informed and sophisticated, we need to be scientific in identifying our critical target, coordinating the messages, providing localization and individualization in order to capture the attention of the right audience.

HEARTBEAT: How can we in Asia Pacific (AP) leverage on these trends?
Lauri: We need to be more creative in engaging people and capturing mindshare with the usage of electronic media (CRM resources, data sources) as AP is the engine of growth. IPS has to be ‘choiceful’ about industry events, using them wisely and strategically to engage the right people.

ABOUT THE PLAYING FIELD
HEARTBEAT: Globalization levels the playing field, do you think marketing does the same?
Lauri: Marketing can level the playing field by being the first to engage people to be well-versed, inspired and up-to-date about our amazing technology, engineers and engineering services.
IPS has to be ‘play smart’ by choosing spaces or gaps in the market where we can win, marketing enables this through our strategic intelligence arm.

Through marketing, we can leverage on the reputation of our excellent operations management team as leaders in safety and critical control and also in the area of asset management. Marketing can and will showcase the right opportunities and capabilities.

ABOUT CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES
HEARTBEAT: Being on board for about 5 months, what challenges and opportunities do you see ahead?
Lauri:
Challenges – Presently, with IPS’ competitive position, we need to strike the right strategic alliances with the right partners in order to win. We have to be more focused than our competitors and more aggressive so we can build our portfolio.

Opportunities – The power industry is an open door for IPS, in spite of the Wall Street meltdown and sagging economic climate, power needs are still growing. IPS is honored to be one of the two companies who are able to have regulatory approvals to provide world-clas Triconex safety systems in nuclear environment globally.

With these challenges and opportunities, we need to be more communicative to showcase our points of differentiation.

ABOUT CHANGE
HEARTBEAT: With IPS going through a brand transformation, share with us your leadership insight in change management
Lauri: Change is the only constant in life! We need to be able to ensure every single employee is on board with the right information and a platform to ask questions and understand the change in job scope and focus.

Marketing plays a key role to build stronger loyalty to the change we are undergoing. Through various platforms like our internal communications newsletter HEARTBEAT, external communications newsletter MOMENTUM, skip-level meetings, IPS Vision forum internal webinars and external roadshows, stakeholders(both internally and externally) can understand how they are impacted by change and be a participator instead of a spectator of change.

Marketing DRIVES change by steering the organization and fuelling it to be proactive instead of merely reactive!

Our in-country marketing leads are the agents of change as they are constantly on the ground, scouting for news, ideas and trends and ensuring that they are communicated to management and the right people.