“It pays to advertise” was a popular slogan from the 1950s that is still proving itself as true today. I was reminded of this recently in the little town where I live.

There’s an old-fashioned food stand across the road from a small beach not far from my home. The beach has metered parking spaces for about 50 or 60 cars and the food stand primarily served beach visitors with sandwiches, fried food, and ice cream. This was a modest business, successful for a number of years, but definitely limited by its niche location and clientele.

This past spring, the owner of the food stand began an advertising campaign, securing space on a half-dozen billboards, display ads in the local newspaper, and a ‘scroll’ ad running across the bottom of the screen on the local weather channel broadcasts.

That little local beach food stand is now suddenly a regional powerhouse. Nearly every day now, even in bad weather and late in the evening, there are dozens of cars in front of the food stand and parked along the edge of the road while their drivers and passengers feast on lobster rolls and lick dripping ice cream cones. Their customer base includes residents from our town and the surrounding area as well as tourists and people just passing through the area who see the billboards or get a sudden craving for a lobster roll while checking out the local weather forecast.

The Field of Dreams was just a movie; if you build it, a few may come but most will not even know of your existence unless you reach out and tell them. Although several media experts report that global advertising expenditures across TV, newspapers, magazines and radio have dropped over the last 12-18 months, the Internet continues to show that content marketing (white papers, websites, newsletters, blogs, reports, surveys, webinars, viral videos, case studies, niche books, articles), social networking, and all the other sorts of website marketing show an increase in spending.

Does your marketing plan incorporate all these methods to establish a presence and make sure your message doesn’t get lost?  Maybe you don’t have an in-house expert who can quickly and efficiently develop the content needed to communicate your message?  Maybe we can help?

A volcano in Iceland erupts and shuts down air travel to and from parts of Europe. Chinese workers strike for higher wages. A supplier’s plant has a devastating fire. Increased security procedures cause delays in getting import shipments cleared through the port. Commodity prices soar – then tumble. Petroleum prices triple, increasing all transportation costs.

All of these things happen (and many more) and are mostly unpredictable. When you set up your supply chain – choosing suppliers and transportation alternatives, setting inventory policies, etc. – did you consider any of these possible challenges? Have you thought about the impact of any such disruptions? Do you have contingency plans in place?

Many companies have set up contingency plans for their IT systems – daily back-ups stored off-site, emergency data center access, technical support on-call – but few have even thought about the same kind of preparation for the supply chain. One deterrent is probably the size of the problem. Only a few, easily definable disasters can affect your computer system. Literally anything can happen in the supply chain.

Nevertheless, when disaster strikes, you will be better prepared to react if you have thought about it ahead of time.  Even if you have not taken action in advance, knowing what to do will give you a great head start. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. But it would be good to know the impact of the disruption before it happens.

One characteristic of successful supply chains is agility – the ability to change in response to changing conditions. Supply chain risk management is a big factor in gaining that agility. The other part of agility is reacting to slowly changing conditions. Not every change is abrupt and dramatic. Recognizing gradual changes in demand, the impact of evolving technologies, competitive forces moving into or out of your markets, and emerging opportunities can make the difference between growth and success or gradual decline and obsolescence.

The world can be a surprising and unstable place. Your supply chain must be built to accommodate change – whether it’s sudden and disruptive or gradual and erosive. Either way, flexibility and agility are the keys to long-term supply chain success.

“Lean IS Green” ABSTRACT:   Can’t get excited about green and sustainability? Not sure about the global warming? No matter. If you know and love lean you can jump on the green and sustainability bandwagons and proudly proclaim your green achievements because lean IS green. Benefit from the knowledge that your lean efforts contribute to sustainability and find out how to you can leverage your lean achievements for the good of the planet, peace of mind, and a good image as well.  Learn more about Lean.

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Remember the bad old days of the dot-com bubble when the big idea was to deliver “eyeballs”? Lots of companies launched websites and eagerly counted “hits” until the advertisers realized that having their image on the user’s screen does not mean that they have made a connection. Dot-coms that couldn’t deliver “clicks” quickly faded away.

While visibility for its own sake is valuable in building brand awareness, it takes a connection to turn a suspect into a prospect. How do you get that connection? You have to capture the viewer’s attention. Some companies have been successful using outrageous images or statements. But that doesn’t work well in the technical / business world. What you need in business systems and software is to touch an area or an issue that the viewer is interested in.

One strategy is to focus on “pain points” – let the viewer know that you understand the problem and, presumably, know how to ease that pain. Similarly, hitting on an issue that is likely to become a pain point in the near future (carbon footprint, responsible disposal) can be just as effective.  Another strategy is to discuss an issue that is of interest – a new technology like cloud computing, for example, that the viewer wants to know more about.

In any case, you first have to establish credibility – why should the viewer spend time reading what you have to say? You can do that, to some extent, with name recognition (these guys know the xxxx industry, so they know what they’re talking about). You can do it by association – get a “name” expert to help deliver your message.  All the better if your message is truly of value to the viewer and not just a sales pitch in disguise.

A point that captures the viewer’s attention, from a credible source – that’s the key to turning hits into clicks and suspects into prospects.

When you bought and implemented your system, you were looking for (and hopefully measuring) the Return on Investment – ROI. Now that you have had the system in place for some time, wouldn’t you like to Re-energize Operational Improvements?

I talk to a lot of companies that have applications or modules of their ERP system sitting “on the shelf”, never implemented or merely installed but not really being used. Some of these modules might have been part of a discounted package that included modules the company might not have been ready to implement. Or the vendor might have offered aggressive pricing for a group of apps, some of which the company has not yet put into use. There will never be a better time to leverage those investments and multiply the benefits.

Idle and under-used software does not provide a return. A modest incremental investment in training and assistance can help get those applications working for you and delivering real business benefits – like better flow of work, reduced inventory, more effective use of resources, increased throughput, reduced cost, and more. Often, just a couple days of consultation can get things moving in the right direction.

An informal audit of current system usage can point out the “low-hanging fruit” – the high payoff improvements that you can implement quickly and easily. Many times, there are simple changes that can open up a whole new area of benefits and ROI from your existing system investment. At the end of the two days, you’ll have a list of things to work on immediately for quick results and a longer-term road map for enhanced system use and benefit.

Production Solutions is helping an equipment manufacturer, an automotive aftermarket producer, a valve manufacturer and many more to get better return from their system investments.  We can help you find out how a small additional investment in your existing ERP system can multiply the benefits and Re-energize Operational Improvements.   Contact us today!

The subtitle of my Lean + Green Manufacturing blog is “…making products cheaper, better, faster”.  Not very elegant perhaps, but in line with the traditional mandate for manufacturing management. Of course, satisfying the customer is the ultimate goal, but manufacturers are driven to do so at the lowest practical cost; the highest quality within the limits of technology, equipment, budget and skill; and as quickly as possible to meet demand, reduce inventory, and increase responsiveness to changing markets.

Are there equivalent mandates for marketing?  Perhaps we should consider cheaper / better / faster here as well.

Marketing budgets are always vulnerable to cuts the first time there is any kind of business challenge – isn’t it always the first thing management cuts when they need to reduce spending? Arguing against this strategy here would be preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, marketing, like manufacturing, is continually driven to reduce costs and get “more bang for the buck”. We typically send out press releases, cajole editors (a dying breed), and these days, use social media to get the word out with the lowest direct cost. (ie. cheaper)

And who doesn’t strive to get better? We in marketing are continually learning to use new outlets, craft more compelling text, find images that grab attention and convey the message in a new and compelling way. With shrinking (and unstable) budgets, we have to get more creative all the time in looking for that ‘better’ way to reach out.

Faster almost goes without saying. The sooner the message gets out, the more opportunity there is to call attention to your company’s products and blunt the competitors’ messages.

Marketing is producing a product, much the same as manufacturing. Our product is awareness and demand and the vehicles we use (the production equipment) include ads, white papers, web pages, press releases, brochures, etc., etc. We are challenged to use all appropriate vehicles in the most effective way, within the resources available (budget) and in the time frames dictated by company needs and media deadlines.

So why shouldn’t we manage our marketing activities the same way a manufacturer manages inventory and production? Prepare forecasts, put together a ‘master schedule’, schedule and manage resources, meet objectives on time and within budget? Maybe we don’t want to be as formal as plant scheduling (we are creative types, after all), but it would be a good thing to think of marketing as a resource management process.