EMEA Regional Centralisation of Brand Marketing Management : Strategy to Execution Gaps

Brands can never stay still. To stay relevant they continuously need to evolve to meet the changing market conditions.

Whether its changes in consumer preferences, channel or market expansion, to keep growing brands continuously need to shift the gears 'inside workings' of their brand and marketing organisation management.

However, for most brands, the pace of internal change within marketing organisation and brand organisation management - operational set-ups, infrastructure and capabilities, lags behind the pace of business change.

Internal organisational structures and capabilities within marketing and brand organisation management, lag behind the pace of business needs change.

As they grow organisations change. Aligning the marketing organisation pace of change with business pace of change is the biggest challenge or brand and marketing organisation leaders. When marketing and brand organisation configuration is ahead or aligned with the timing of the business change then it becomes an accelerator of business growth. However, when it lags behind it becomes an inhibitor.

When marketing and brand organisation configuration is ahead or aligned with the timing of the business change then it becomes an accelerator of business growth. However, when it lags behind it becomes an inhibitor.

Marketing and brand organisation management configuration needs to continuously evolve with evolution of the business. Set-ups and capabilities need to be adapted to changes in the competitive dynamics in the business environment.

And this is true for one of the most exciting and yet most challenging journey for a brand - international expansion (internationalisation) as a phase

International Expansion : Local Led vs Regional Led

International expansion may come in different flavours depending on the organisation, industry, product, and competitive dynamic in the target market(s). Best model will be different for each company, but it will mostly depend the :

1) similarity or diversity of target markets

2) stage of international expansion and number of markets

3) pace of internationalisation / expansion - opening up of new markets

For example, organisations may chose the local-led model to probe the international waters - for example first entering their most perspective markets which are on certain level of evolution, establishing the first foothold. Test their value proposition, adapt their product, portfolio and international way of working.

As the organisation grows, and its international expansion accelerates - new markets are onboarded, regional structures introduction and model might work better as the marketing organisation can start to reap benefits of scale in certain elements of its go-to-market strategy execution.

Market-by-market marketing organisation approach works best when there is a limited number or new markets, as in the early stages of international expansion companies are effectively researching whether and how international audiences are responding to their marketing offering. This is also true when target markets are very diverse - in terms of marketing environment - from consumers to regulatory environment in each market.

For example, if your brand operates 1-3-5 markets without prospects of entering new ones in short-to-medium term future, regional approach might not be worth it as benefits of scale might be limited.

However, as the organisation grows, and its international expansion accelerates - new markets are onboarded, regional structures introduction and model might work better as the marketing organisation can start to reap benefits of scale in certain elements of its International go-to-market strategy execution.

Regional Centralisation of Brand and Marketing Organisation Management : Strategy to Execution Gaps

As they grow and expand their international presence, brands usually start to learn that market-by-market approach becomes to costly to manage. Namely, creation of very local campaign and marketing communication, simply starts to cost more than manageable and it may undermine growth.

Additionally, in case they're competing with already established brands - whether it is local competitors or global established players, finding ways to create efficiencies in cost structure of go-to-market operations becomes a key strategic topic and competitive advantage.

Benefits of scale - cost efficiencies in regional approach, can unlock - free up budget, talent and organisational focus for strategic competition and market share growth.

Namely, any benefits of scale - cost efficiencies in regional approach, can unlock - free up budget, talent and organisational focus for strategic competition and market share growth.

However, changes inside the marketing organisation management are far from easy or simple. Especially for marketing and brand professionals which are going through the journey for the first time. Even if they've experienced changes in other organisations, each organisation is unique and essentially every time it's a staring-over experience.

Strategy-to-execution gap of regional centralisation efforts of brand and marketing organisation management will be different for each organisation, but for most-if-not all there will be tension, confusion and problems. These tensions can undermine, slow down and obstruct benefits of the strategic intent behind it.

Worse, if done improperly they can halt the international expansion progress entirely.

Some of the most common topics and pain points which arise are :

1) How to actually regionalise previously localised go-to-market model

• How to design the organisational structure and roles. Define and align responsibilities, job descriptions and most importantly incentives to benefit both from regional structures and local presence?
• What should be the division of roles and responsibilities, capabilities available to regional and local teams.
• How should individual marketing organisation departments be run and set-up? Should media buying be regional? How about social media management?

2) What are resources and processes needed for scalable regional execution

• If scale is the target benefit of regionalisation centralisation, do we really have in place scalable marketing organisation infrastructure in place?
• How to (re)define regional go-to-market approach, aligning new product development with campaign launch planing and execution
• How do we ensure we are both regional and local - providing enough support to local marketeers, while making sure we grow pan-EMEA or pan-European approach.

3) How do we adapt our brand strategy, creative strategy and content execution to EMEA based regional model

• Levels of brand development and maturity, and corresponding metrics - awareness, recognition and consideration will be different in different markets. Previously each individual market would address these points individual. Is accounting for differing levels of brand development possible with regional brand marketing strategy and approach?
• How do we (re)define the creative strategy to both foster the new regional, unifying European approach while meeting the marketing needs and differences in markets?

4) Best support models and vendors for new regional approach

• How to select and implement go-to-market support models in terms of potential vendors and integrative marketing approach
• Should we in-house / outsource and which parts elements of the regional marketing support? Should all markets receive same level and type of support or need to prioritise markets

Solving the Gaps of Regional Centralisation Strategy Definition and Execution

Regional centralisation of marketing organisation management will bring the strategy-to-execution gaps - whether its on the level or marketing organisation strategy definition, enablement for the change or execution of the new model.

Organisational Strategy and Design : Don't do it alone

For example, instead of going through it alone, and learning on your (organisations') mistakes, learning from experience of companies which have previously gone through similar if not same changes of regional centralisation will help you identify blind spots in your plans and set-ups.

For marketing leaders facing the challenge of regional centralisation, our service of advisory board set-up and management, where we organise marketing, brand, creative leaders from comparable companies to share their experiences of this journey helps you unlock invaluable insights and build both leadership and organisational confidence in the strategic correctness of the move.

Scalable go-to-market definition and execution

Underlying benefit of regionalisation is unlocked only through scale. For scalable regional brand growth you need to have :

• scalability enabled brand marketing strategy definition
• scalable organisational set-up and infrastructure
• scalable creative strategy definition and execution support models
• scalable brand governance models

In case you're looking to define and execute best-in-class regional brand and marketing organisation and support in your EMEA support model we have 10+ years of experience in regionalisation of global brand marketing strategy and execution for leading brand marketing organisations experiencing changes like :

• regionalisation of previous local market led approach
• international expansion
• in-housing / creation of EMEA in-house marketing and creative organisation

All of which in high-growth, market acceleration context which creates challenges even best teams.

In case regional centralisation and/or acceleration of international market expansion is a relevant topic, feel free to reach out to and set-up an intro call and discusssome of the challenges you(r) / organisation may face.

Challenges are better prevented than solved once they are already there but here are some symptoms you might already need help

• tension between regional (HQ) and local marketeers
• competitive infighting
• confusion and tension inside the marketing organisation as well as in cross-functional collaboration - eg. with sales or product development
• brand inconsistency across markets
• late campaign launches or last-minute launches
• duplication of efforts across markets / duplication of content production
• all-around waste of time between regional and local teams
• (mis)alignment meeting

The list goes on, let me know if you have other to add.

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