Jonathan Becher is one CMO who is not short on opinions and advice. Maxine-Laurie Marshall caught up with the SAP marketer during his brief trip to the UK
A nice, but fairly non-descript hotel restaurant is the setting for my interview with a nice but pretty distinctive CMO.
Jonathan Becher, CMO at SAP, considers talking to people like me, journalists, as part of his job. He actively seeks us out, because we are part of the market he insists the marketing department should be focusing on. And the reason for this focus is because he believes the customer isn’t owned by marketing, they are owned by sales.
He explains: “If we’re not product and service and we’re not customer, the answer is in the name, we’re the market. We have 250,000 customers, that’s a lot. Yet there are something like six and a half million potential customers. Who is talking to them, who’s talking to press, analysts, watching competitors? I think our job is to be the voice of the market. So what we do is spend more time thinking how do we connect with those six million people, understand their needs and bring that back to the company to make more strategic decisions.”
And for me, being part of that market, means I’m in for an insightful chat with Becher. Before I even arrive he’s tweeted me, questioning if he can convince me the boundaries between B2B and B2C are blurring.
B2B, B2P or P2P?
Although I didn’t need too much convincing on this, B2B has been flirting with the idea of its imminent death and rebirth as B2P for a few years now, I did question Becher’s point in removing the final B. Therefore turning B2B into P2P; person-to-person. Surely it’s unrealistic and counterproductive for a business to forgo its brand story in favour of one of many individual stories? Becher insists it’s possible to do both.
“Our basic value proposition, is ‘Run better’ if we say it longer it’s ‘Help the world run better and improve people’s lives’. One of the things we do is say each individual can talk about how they are helping the world run better. We have an internal website that says, tell your story about how you’ve helped the world run better. Those are all individual stories that collectively show how SAP helps the world run better and improves people’s lives.
“So yes I care passionately about the brand, but you can’t, in these days of social media, in these days of individuals, say there is only one corporate story.”
With this in mind it’s no surprise to hear Becher say people are the most important part of a business. “A lot of what you have to do as a leader is marketing, as long as you remember marketing is not outbound only, it’s inbound as well.”
Internal focus
And in order to keep/develop that vital business ingredient, mentors are required. Mentors aren’t exclusive to junior staff members, Becher still speaks to his mentor (an old colleague) at least once a week,
even though he has now retired. When asked who should take ownership of mentoring Becher says: “We strongly encourage everyone to have a mentor and be a mentee at SAP.
Nobody can sit around in their career waiting for the world to make sure they get their next promotion and make sure they get trained. You’ve got to look out for yourself. However, the essence of a good leader is somebody that creates an environment where people are more important. And not all leaders think person first, most of them think themselves first, or the organisation first, or the department first.”
Despite not owning the customer, in the eyes of Becher, he does think another crucial trait in a B2B leader is the ability to understand them. He insists understanding what they want as opposed to understanding your own product and service is the key.
“Most B2B marketing has been what I would describe as inside out, if you look at B2B leaders of the last decade, the really good ones have been able to articulate the value proposition of their product or service, and they do it in some kind of compelling way. That’s a very push orientated mentality. The new generation of B2B leaders are the ones who don’t think inside out starting with the product or service, but outside in. Start and say how it is you pull people in and support their buying process as opposed to supporting your selling process.”
Becher is pragmatic enough to acknowledge his company’s past imperfections and how he’s learnt from them. He explains, about three years ago the company had an annual event; Sapphire, which involved: “40,000 people all hanging out in Orlando, Florida, and if you weren’t there for those three days in May then you missed all the news.”
Questioning the logic of why attendees had to be physically present on specific days Becher explains SAP made the event virtual, stopped relying on one single event and gave the option of running local events.
Agreeing with Becher’s logic and commending his outside in approach I just want to confirm the customer is key and should be so for all marketers.
He counters, “The challenge I have when people say customer is key, is for most B2B people the customer is a company and a big glass building doesn’t buy software, for me, it’s not about understanding the customer it’s about understanding the person.”
And we’ve come full-circle back to the Ps. Whether it’s a matter of semantics or not, I commend Becher for his efforts. Personalisation in B2B is often talked about, but I’ve yet to see it so ingrained in someone’s thinking as it is in Becher’s.
