21 Jul WHY CANT MARKETING UNDERSTAND OUR PROBLEMS?
By 1999 Clark Faucet Company had grown into the third largest supplier of faucets for both commerc Show more By 1999 Clark Faucet Company had grown into the third largest supplier of faucets for both commercial and home use. Competition was fierce. Consumers would evaluate faucets on artistic design and quality. Each faucet had to be avail- able in at least twenty-five different colors. Commercial buyers seemed more in- terested in the cost than the average consumer who viewed the faucet as an ob- ject of art irrespective of price. Clark Faucet Company did not spend a great deal of money advertising on the radio or on television. Some money was allocated for ads in professional jour- nals. Most of Clarks advertising and marketing funds were allocated to the two semiannual home and garden trade shows and the annual builders trade show. One large builder could purchase more than 5000 components for the furnishing of one newly constructed hotel or one apartment complex. Missing an opportu- nity to display the new products at these trade shows could easily result in a six- to twelve-month window of lost revenue. CULTURE Clark Faucet had a noncooperative culture. Marketing and engineering would never talk to one another. Engineering wanted the freedom to design new products whereas marketing wanted final approval to make sure that what was designed could be sold. The conflict between marketing and engineering became so fierce that early attempts to implement project management failed. Nobody wanted to be the project manager. Functional team members refused to attend team meetings and spent most of their time working on their own pet projects rather than the re- quired work. Their line managers also showed little interest in supporting project management. Project management became so disliked that the procurement manager re- fused to assign any of his employees to project teams. Instead he mandated that all project work come through him. He eventually built up a large brick wall around his employees. He claimed that this would protect them from the contin- uous conflicts between engineering and marketing. THE EXECUTIVE DECISION The executive council mandated that another attempt to implement good project management practices must occur quickly. Project management would be needed not only for new product development but also for specialty products and en- hancements. The vice presidents for marketing and engineering reluctantly agreed to try and patch up their differences but did not appear confident that any changes would take place. Strange as it may seem nobody could identify the initial cause of the conflicts or how the trouble actually began. Senior management hired an external consul- tant to identify the problems provide recommendations and alternatives and act as a mediator. The consultants process would have to begin with interviews. ENGINEERING INTERVIEWS The following comments were made during engineering interviews: q We are loaded down with work. If marketing would stay out of engi- neering we could get our job done. q Marketing doesnt understand that theres more work for us to do other than just new product development. q Marketing personnel should spend their time at the country club and in bar rooms. This will allow us in engineering to finish our work uninter- rupted! q Marketing expects everyone in engineering to stop what they are doing in order to put out marketing fires. I believe that most of the time the problem is that marketing doesnt know what they want up front. This leads to change after change. Why cant we get a good definition at the beginning of each project? MARKETING INTERVIEWS q Our livelihood rests on income generated from trade shows. Since new product development is four to six months in duration we have to beat up on engineering to make sure that our marketing schedules are met. Why cant engineering understand the importance of these trade shows? q Because of the time required to develop new products [4 6 months] we sometimes have to rush into projects without having a good definition of what is required. When a customer at a trade show gives us an idea for a new product we rush to get the project underway for introduction at the next trade show. We then go back to the customer and ask for more clar- ification and/or specifications. Sometimes we must work with the cus- tomer for months to get the information we need. I know that this is a problem for engineering but it cannot be helped. The consultant wrestled with the comments but was still somewhat per- plexed. Why doesnt engineering understand marketings problems? pondered the consultant. In a follow-up interview with an engineering manager the fol- lowing comment was made: We are currently working on 375 different projects in engineering and that includes those which marketing requested. Why cant marketing understand our problems? QUESTIONS What is the critical issue? What can be done about it? Can excellence in project management still be achieved and if so how? What steps would you recommend? Given the current noncooperative culture how long will it take to achieve a good cooperative project management culture and even excellence? What obstacles exist in getting marketing and engineering to agree to a singu- lar methodology for project management? What might happen if benchmarking studies indicate that either marketing or engineering are at fault? Should a singular methodology for project management have a process for the prioritization of projects or should some committee external to the methodol- ogy accomplish this? Show less
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