Matt Preschern recently started working as CMO at HCL Technologies. Here he reveals his insights on B2I, the power of employees and brand awareness
What’s the recipe for success in B2B marketing?
It is very important in B2B to humanise your brand. One of the ways to do this effectively is through telling stories in an engaging and human way.
There is this notion of B2B and B2C and whether it is one or the other. But I think a lot about B2I (Business to Individuals). In B2B marketing we need to remember we are not marketing to buildings or to databases or to some abstract thing. We are marketing to key decision makers and these people are individuals.
A couple of years ago everything was about social media, now it is about content marketing. My personal view is that the most effective marketing tactic in B2B, and possibly in B2C, is to find ways to integrate your online and offline marketing.
HCL Technologies has a strong focus on employees. What’s marketing’s role in this?
When you think that historically, a lot of marketers were focused on the brand and what they externally communicate, the culture was all HR’s responsibility. But that is not how it works in today’s interconnected world.
The strongest representatives of your company are your employees. They are active and have all kinds of touch points with customers. So thinking of your employees as your biggest assets and as the people who represent the brand is very important. The notion of marketing and HR working together is super important for us, we think of our employees as idea creators. They are the ones who create ideas and who implement them. We have, for example, this platform called MAD Jam where our employees can go and contribute ideas. We will then compensate the employees with the best ideas. It’s generating a significant amount of good ideas and goodwill. I like to truly empower those who interact with the customer.
What are your biggest challenges?
Anytime you start at a company that is growing, to continue that, you must do things very differently and much faster. Up to 60-70 per cent of my time is spent just travelling because I have to be in certain places.
From a marketing perspective I want to raise awareness of the HCL brand around the world.
If you are growing in a global environment that itself is a challenge; because if you want to enter the global market who are you going to hire? Ultimately you will have to find the balance between hiring new skills from the outside and taking the best that you have from the inside.
How do you think marketing can usurp the CFO and the sales director to become the CEO’s best friend?
CEO’s are most worried about the following: are we growing? Do we understand our customers? And are our sales effective?
I think that at the end of the day the relationship with your CEO, whether it’s a good one or not, ultimately always comes down to whether you can prove there is true value that marketing is contributing.
What are you going to be working on over the next few years?
The answers to the following questions: how do we do continue our growth through digital channels, as well through leveraging our own employees as brand ambassadors? And how do we do that by really leveraging the great work we do with, and through, our customers and let them become advocates for us?
