I honestly don’t know why this wouldn’t be top of your list, looking at, you know, in the spirit of not looking at where the puck is, but where the puck’s going, you have such an incredible opportunity to establish and create a business that’s future-proof. – Richard Milne, VP and Global Leader of eBusiness at Thermo Fisher Scientific
I started this conversation with Richard Milne around a case study he had on his LinkedIn profile about using a cloud solution to manage multiple life science marketing properties around the globe, but it turned into much more.
The original challenge (and opportunity) was to take advantage of each local team’s proximity to its customers to deliver exactly what is needed in each market. The more you can do that, the better. At the same time maintaining brand standards can be challenging in that situation as well.
Richard described for me all the considerations around building a global eBusiness platform beyond just a website including legal entities, quote to cash etc.
I was curious about what it takes to execute a project like that and the skill sets required. Richard tells me it’s something he thinks about all the time. In the long run it’s about more than digitizing all your marcom material. He sees a time when a new understanding of what digital marketing means takes hold. That means looking for people who think about delivering new marketing experiences, even through the product such as protocols, for example, and seeing how people use those protocols to inform new product development.
All of this requires an (ongoing) commitment from the highest levels within the company, all the way up to the CEO. It’s not a build it and be done scenario. It’s a constant effort.
If you are a small company, he says, this should be at the top of your priority list, because the best time to build a global digital marketing platform is now. It is an easier proposition for smaller companies who want to create a scalable asset that increases the value of your company and makes them more competitive.
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