Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Creating Channel Strategy Requires Extensive Customer Contact
A recent project has reminded me forcefully about a law of channel marketing. No mater how well you know the subject or how well you know the topic, insightful strategy comes from frequent, intense customer interaction. At MSI we always had a research project as a major part of any strategy design project or program design project. The reason is that you need the feedback to get the subtle details right. I also need the interaction with real world business problems to keep me interested and on target.
Strategy, at least for me, is an interactive process. It is not created out of thin air. The magic happens when I am taking to customers. Ideas begin to spring up out of the thousands of other projects I have done and I can immediately test, validate and modify the idea. Any other approach yields narrow, inside-out perspectives and anemic strategies.
Scott Karren, The Channel Pro
A recent project has reminded me forcefully about a law of channel marketing. No mater how well you know the subject or how well you know the topic, insightful strategy comes from frequent, intense customer interaction. At MSI we always had a research project as a major part of any strategy design project or program design project. The reason is that you need the feedback to get the subtle details right. I also need the interaction with real world business problems to keep me interested and on target.
Strategy, at least for me, is an interactive process. It is not created out of thin air. The magic happens when I am taking to customers. Ideas begin to spring up out of the thousands of other projects I have done and I can immediately test, validate and modify the idea. Any other approach yields narrow, inside-out perspectives and anemic strategies.
Scott Karren, The Channel Pro
