Does Your Marketing Organization Have The Right Talent To Navigate the Future?

Flock Associates is a marketing transformation consultancy. We help marketing organizations, large and small, transform the way they work, internally and with external partners such as agencies and production companies. We have been at it for almost eight years and have worked with marketing organizations at Ford, McDonalds, Walmart, Citi, SAP, and many others.

In this year of COVID we are working with clients to help them navigate through the rest of 2020, but to also transform themselves so that they are ready for 2021, when the way they work and the way they market will likely be changed…for the better.

Marketing organizations inside companies will be smaller, not only because cuts will need to be made based on reduced revenues, but because our client engagements tell us that organizations are seeking smaller, more agile groups in the future. These teams will be asked to do more, sometimes with less, and likely with less support from outside agencies as scope gets pulled internally.

Therefore, talent has never been more important.

Flock Associates conducts talent assessments for clients utilizing a proprietary methodology and our Flock Skills Assessment Tool. These engagements allow us to help clients sort out where they stand in regard to the marketing talent within their group as they line this talent up to the transformation they desire. For example, if your company is going to leverage data more robustly in the future does your team have the capability to capture, measure, analyze, and determine actions step from this data?

If you are considering transforming the talent in your group, here are three things to keep in mind:

1. You need the right data in order to make good decisions 

Performance reviews are sometimes the only info you have to determine if someone has the skills they need. You need to dig deeper: with the employee, their managers and co-workers. Flock does this through a series of quantitative surveys that we measure against thousands of points of data that inform capabilities are in line with future needs.

2. Communicate why you are doing this. Then continue to communicate.

There can be no confusion as to why you are undertaking this assessment. You don’t want this to be a surprise to your teams. You will need to clearly communicate why and how this is happening, and then continue to update the teams on progress, results, and decisions made.

3. Talent transformation is an ongoing opportunity, not a onetime initiative. 

Marketing transformation is not easy, especially when it comes to talent. And the most important part of this process is to never stop thinking about your employees’ potential and talent. No other factor is likely to make such a big difference when it comes to building a high performing team. Consistent talent assessments (we recommend once a year) is good for your team, and good for the organization.

For more information, don’t hesitate to contact us at Flock below and we will be in touch!