Technology Manager in Leadership Roles - by Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive and Founder, TWB_
01 Jan

Moving Technical Managers to Management Roles: Leadership Transformations by TWB_

By TWB_ In Communication, Corporate Training, Leadership /  9 No Comments

Technical Managers moving into Management roles is a script that plays out every day in large tech companies. Managers with the best technical expertise and ability to reach performance goals consistently are the first consideration for senior management roles. It is clearly an expectation from managers that they are promoted to management, the management thinks it is great because it represents continuity and that deep understanding of technologies, products and systems. Until it hits everyone.

The new management candidate gets increasingly frustrated because they spend little time using their technical skills and instead on  “people problems,” navigating office politics, and coordinating.  Such a transition hits hard because there is a no clear fit of existing skills to new professional demands and there is no quick way to acquire them. In this article, we’ll explore how the HR/ Management of the company, the Tech-manager can make the transition. This transition can occur from early to mid-career roles, and again from mid-career to management. Here’s what each of the participants in this situation should need to consider to get Technical Managers to move into Management roles:

The HR/ Management checklist to promoting Technical/ Functional Managers

Making this transition to Mangement roles gets harder as the candidate gains years and experience — so the first thing to consider is transitions that come earlier in career say in the middle management level.  To begin with, how do you determine that functional/technical manager is a good candidate for a management role? To begin with they should have demonstrated these skills:

 

  1. Great Communication & People skills: (S)He has strong great writing, oratorial and presentation skills as well as people skills.
  2. Willingness to suspend ego gratification:  to concentrate on helping others succeed: Management is about ensuring success at an organisational level and is not about pursuing personal success or fulfilment as much as it is one’s colleagues and co-workers.
  3. Strong ‘hard skills’: They need to not only have great organizational, project management, and budgeting skills management requires being able to task-switch among them. It also requires overall inputs into detailed deliverables, and to manage — people, time, technology and money — in getting things done.
  4. Strong strategic thinking bias: They need to have a deep understanding of how the technology works to help businesses and organizations meet their goals and objectives. This requires an understanding of the risks and rewards that technology presents, and how to produce the best returns on customers’ investments and activities.
  5. Ability to manage communications in both directions: Success depends on understanding the needs of those above and below them in the organizational chart. Stakeholders are on both sides with management the incumbent has to communicate to both sets carrying expectations, instructions but most of corporate goals and actions to produce the most positive outcomes possible.

The Technical/ Functional Managers checklist to Management position

If you are a technical or functional manager moving into a management position you need to prepare yourself these 2 fundamental shifts:

  1. The first is your mindset has to change — Your technical knowledge is only limited help in your new management role as you now have to focus on the skills and successes that involves multiple functions and teams.
  2. The second is that your identity in the company will change –Being a superstar in your functional role will not save you from starting at the beginning again, and you need to be prepared for this “identity demotion.”

Here are some steps you can take to make your transition into a management role smooth

  1. Solving Strategic Problems: You need to translate problem-solving into a management context. Problems will require multiple functions within the company and other industry players etc to solve. Reading on cutting-edge business thinking can allow you to think & engage on a broader front.
  2. Build a cross-functional understanding: Technical Managers frequently have a narrow worldview. Unless you understand and leverage the marketers, sales, operations and and others, you will struggle to move beyond your role as a technical manager.
  3. Find a mentor — Look for someone in your organization who has succeeded in a management role coming from a functional role. A mentor can help you avoid some of the mistakes that they made and help get across to the right people within the organization critical for your success.
  4. Stay away from technical work– Resist the temptation to get involved with technical projects that aren’t your responsibility.
  5. Meet with your reports and their teams —  Meeting them allows you to find out what interests and motivates them, and they have the professional environment necessary to be successful in their role. It also allows you to find out what your team expects from you.
  6. Be a good communicator —  You need to learn how to write, learning how to speak and learn how to behave as ‘management’. Emails need to be crafted with care and sensitivity. Communication needs to demonstrate your intelligence, knowledge and thoughtfulness.
  7. Dress up: Your colleagues, the industry and ecosystem you inhabit expects it. Always dress the part for the position.

Technical & functional managers from IT, finance, sales, or marketing are promoted to management because they know their job well. The problem is that they have little management experience and most organizations offer very little management assistance.  In a management role instead of focussing on macro influences, strategic issues, and “people aspect” of their new role, they continue to stay in their comfort zone — their own projects and technical skills. It is important for the organization to focus on how to make the transition smooth so the organization benefits from the deep functional understanding that the incumbent brings as well as fresh ideas and thinking.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a 1996 MBA graduate and 1993 BTech. Rakesh Shukla is the Founder & CEO of TWB_ which is the partner for technology & business content for Fortune 500 leaders worldwide. A motivational speaker he speaks on creating success from professional and personal failure. He divides time between his 2 homes in Bangalore and is called the ‘dog-father’ for being papa to the 750 rescued dogs that live with him at the VOSD Dog Sanctuary. Rakesh has featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies, and at TEDx talks.

 

 

Are you looking to leverage technical managers transition to management?

 

Read More
7 Steps to Creating a Powerful Technology Brand - Branding for Technology Branding - by Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive and Founder, TWB_
30 Dec

7 steps for creating a powerful technology brand: Branding for Technology (Part 3 of 5) by Rakesh Shukla

By TWB_ In Communication, Corporate Training, Leadership, Product Strategy, Strategic Marketing /  5 No Comments

Discussing branding for technology, we’ve seen earlier what makes a brand — the idea of brand promise and lessons from FMCG branding for technology branding. In this article, we elaborate on brand concepts and suggest some specific steps senior managers can take to move their companies from a product-centric to a promise-centric, brand-driven business.

Let’s consider how the buyers and sellers of technology participate in the sales cycle and perceive branding,

From a tech buyers perspective: When B2B consumers of technology especially information technology weigh the merits of a vendor’s bid, they weigh not just how well the vendor’s products and services complement their own business and technological environment but also how the purchase decision looks to others. They are just as concerned with the image of the product as they are with the technical merits. Therefore while it is meant to be a rational decision that maximizes value, it is based on objective or subjective data. That is where a technology brand comes in.

From a tech marketers perspective: Conversely managers in high-tech businesses find brand management concepts interesting but see no merit in moving from a product-centric to a brand-centric model. The common refrain is “it doesn’t apply here”. This argument is based on what they believe to be unique characteristics of high-tech products and markets, mainly fast-changing technology and high levels of uncertainty.

As we’ve seen in the previous 2 chapters it is precisely this expectation gap that a technology brand solves. Indeed when things change quickly, buyers face great uncertainty and they want to deal with a company they perceive has a vision of their needs.

Challenges in high-tech branding are the same as others businesses in formulating distinctive and credible promises of value. However, in high-tech markets, offering a distinctive value proposition is especially difficult since competitors match one another’s clearly defined performance characteristics. There isn’t a great deal of trust between customers and companies in high-tech markets simply because there are many and frequent new entrants, and most have not had the time or the wisdom to build a promise of value that goes beyond price-performance.

For technology branding in the first place it important that before defining a brand for the company to define where it is and where it wants to go. In the first instance: what’s the brand promise? Google stands for discovery. Apple stands for quality and innovation. What’s yours? Aspiration? Trust? What should the customer feel each time they think about the company or use the product. This emotion is what needs to be built into the brand.

In the second place, the process involved in the development of a branding strategy requires us to review the purpose of the company, its reason to be. “Why we do what we do” is much more important than “what we do” and “how we do it”. What do customers, prospects, partners, investors, reporters, analysts, even competitors think? Bridging the gap between the two with messaging, positioning, and a visual language is the branding.

7 steps to creating a powerful technology brand

Price – Performance in branding

“Price” and “performance,” for example, may mean different things to different people. Does price mean initial cost or life cycle cost? Does performance mean microprocessor speed, the speed of delivery of services, the product’s ability to keep pace with the market? Does performance include presale and post-sale service and support? High-tech companies can make it clear exactly which aspects of their offerings’ price and performance benefit their customers through branding.

Developing the brand promise

The promise of value must be relevant to the people or businesses a company wants to have as its customers; no business can promise everything for everyone. But it is possible to tailor a promise to meet the desires of a specific subgroup of customers, as long as that promise can be kept and as long as it doesn’t confuse anyone. That’s why a company must consider its own capabilities and its target customer segments before developing its brand message. 

Branding on Benefits

Many high-tech managers are most comfortable a brand as a set of tangible, verifiable product characteristics. However, high-tech purchases involve not just technologists but also business managers and end users, who are far more interested in what a technology product does for them than in how it works. As high-tech managers come to understand this, many start changing the way they speak of their offerings. Instead of selling “products,” they sell “solutions” or “benefits.” Such a shift in thinking is not enough. A company needs to decide it wants to be in the space of product competition or brand competition. Competitors can continually match and leapfrog over one another by offering better and more features and by identifying the benefits of their products for customers.

Brand promises need to be enduring

While a brand needs to make an enduring promise. Making and keeping a promise, and keeping it consistently, can be a powerful source of competitive advantage. However making too many promises, or changing them frequently, raises uncertainty and erodes brand value. There’s a high probability that truly strong brands will continue to be leaders because they make and keep a promise of value over successive generations of technologies. True, newer technologies can eclipse older ones but an enduring promise of value can buy time for a brand in the face of new technology even the face of serious lapses in product quality.

Market share is not brand promise

Companies sometimes think that a leadership position in a market is a promise. However, market share, even overwhelming market share is not, a promise of value. Brand equity will distort customer perception of size and value very quickly and there is no way that a company can stay immune to if the competition focuses on it.

Brands provide emotional rewards

It is very difficult for many high-tech managers to acknowledge,  the idea that emotions can be so important to a company’s success. But goods and services that reside in that third level are indeed developed and positioned as a way of fulfilling a promise of value to selected customers, not simply as technologies in search of a market. How do customers feel when experiencing the benefits of the brand? Do they feel confident? Productive? Innovative? Caring? Responsible? Successful? 

Brands have personality

Brands have deeper values — such things as conservative values, family values, achievement-oriented values. These are characteristics the brand would have if it had human qualities: friendly, warm, caring, confident, decisive, aggressive, or the like. They attract a customer set they are focused on and are the differentiating characteristics of the brand. 

Brand Performance should be measured

Too often the only yardstick of performance is awards or 3rd party rankings – both of which may not be adequate -markers of brand performance. For high-tech companies, it is important to track how customers perceive the brand relative to its competition over time. It is also important to monitor the health of key dimensions of a brand’s promise of value. Even the most benchmarked aspect of customer satisfaction managers need to determine if satisfaction is leading to loyalty.

A company cannot expect to build broader acceptance simply by making a promise of value in advertising. It must first know what promise to make and to whom. That requires the ability to assess the potential of relevant technologies and to anticipate its customers’ current and future needs—even before customers can articulate those needs. It must also ensure that the promise of value is understood and fulfilled as the company manages complex networks of value-adding partners, ranging from consulting firms to systems integrators, from independent software vendors to resellers.

 

Rakesh Shukla, Chief Executive & Founder, TWB_ I The Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in

Rakesh Shukla, TWB_

Entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, Philanthropist, Rakesh Shukla is a 1996 MBA graduate and 1993 BTech. Rakesh Shukla is the Founder & CEO of TWB_ which is the partner for technology & business content for Fortune 500 leaders worldwide. A motivational speaker he speaks on creating success from professional and personal failure. He divides time between his 2 homes in Bangalore and is called the ‘dog-father’ for being papa to the 750 rescued dogs that live with him at the VOSD Dog Sanctuary. Rakesh has featured in 100+ interviews on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, CNN-IBN, NDTV, India’s national dailies, and at TEDx talks.

 

Are you looking to create or improve your technology brand?

 

Read More
17 Jul

automationshift_ India’s first CXO conference on automation in IT businesses announced: 15 Sept 2017, World Trade Center, Bangalore

By TWB_ In Communication, Product Strategy /  4 No Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bangalore: TWBShift_ Conferences today announced automationshift_ — India’s first conference for CEOs and other CXOs to share their approaches and technological direction leveraging AI + automation + machine learning that drive higher efficiencies across Marketing + Product Engineering + Product Management + Service Delivery + Learning across their organisations. automationshift_ brings together large enterprise users together with exciting start-ups to create a larger automation ecosystem and is created by TWBShift_ Conferences. The conference is on 15 Sept 2017 at the World Trade Center, Bangalore.

Rakesh Shukla, Founder & CEO TWB_ and TWBShift_ Conferences said, “Automation is changing the technology and manpower landscape rapidly. The common narrative is the pain caused by automation however automation is inevitable and TWB_ itself has been at the forefront of automating content for several years. ” Rakesh further said, “It is a natural step for TWBShift_ Conferences to focus on how automation is transforming businesses and highlight the best products, processes, enterprises and start-ups”.


automationshift_ CONFERENCE

automationshift_ is a 1-day conference that packs in

  • a keynote address
  • 5 individual CXO speakers
  • 1 CXO panel discussion
  • 1 product developers round table
  • Release of a 100+ page publication in leading automation thinking from around the world
  • 1 exhibit area with India’s leading software automation products being exhibited.

automationshift_ SPEAKERS & PANELISTS

The speakers & discussions include

  • CEO perspectives the rapidly evolving machine-learning technology landscape and how the industry is leveraging it
  • Chief Marketing Officers perspectives on the role of CMOs in they leveraging to transform marketing.
  • CTO’s, Heads of Engineering & Chief Product Officers discuss efficiency in product design, development & delivery through automation
  • Chief Learning Officers discuss how AI is personalising learning, skyrocketing understanding and crashing discontinuation.
  • Chief Experience Officers discuss how customer service delivery is being transformed through automation

automationshift_ SHOWCASE

The automationshift_ automation showcase brings India’s 7 buzziest AI products together. The showcase is a curated selection of game-changing AI products that impact how business are run. Interestingly they will be under the same roof as the businesses that leverage them.

automationshift_ PERSPECTIVES

The show report has 10 leading voices in automation of marketing, learning, engineering and customer service from across the world writing for automationshift_ in details. It also has over 15 Indian CXO’s sharing their thoughts succinctly. The 100+ report is called ‘Leadership perspective on the autmotomationshift_’ and will be made available in a limited print run to the Indian CXOs at the conference.

 

About automationshift_

automationshift_ is India’s first conference for CEOs and other CXOs to ideate and share their approaches and technological direction leveraging AI + automation and drive higher efficiencies across Marketing + Product Engineering + Product Management + Learning across their organisations. automationshift_ a TWBShift_ conference, also brings together large enterprise users together with exciting AI + automation start-ups to create a larger automation ecosystem. More details available on www.twb.in/shift

About TWB_

TWB_ is the home of Business + Learning + Product content for Fortune 500 technology leaders and start-ups alike. TWB_ creates, automates, repurposes and publishes content achieving unprecedented efficiencies, enhancing content quality, achieving faster go-to-market and lowering costs. TWB_ is the worldwide pioneer of offshore development of technology content (since 2006), was the first India-based company to roll out & implement enterprise-grade Content Automation solution (2010) and the first India-based company to roll out & implement  IETM IV/V solutions for Defense and Aerospace (2013). TWB_ operates across Information Technology, Telecom, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Life Sciences and Aerospace & Defense. TWB_ delivers to over forty Fortune 500 technology majors including AXA, ABB, Cisco, Fidelity, Honeywell, IBM, Intel, Israel Aircraft, Microsoft, Oracle, Société Générale, Samsung Shipping, Siemens, Toyota etc located across the Silicon Valley, the US East Coast, France, Luxembourg, Germany, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. More information on TWB_ is available at www.twb.in

 

PRESS CONTACT

Sangeeta Velegar

Vice President – Marketing

The Shift_ Conferences by TWB_
1st Floor, Pine Valley Building, Embassy Golf Links Off Intermediate Ring Road

Bangalore – 560071,  India.
Mobile: +91 9880819180 | sangeeta@twb.in  

 

Intro video: https://youtu.be/QlWbwC79Gss

Press kit: https://goo.gl/wc3ZSs 

Conference details: www.twb.in/shift

Registrations: https://goo.gl/eYYHyr

 

PRESS INVITES, SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, SPONSORSHIPS

Selena D’Souza

Marketing Manager, The Shift_ Conferences by TWB_

96860 59020 I selena@twb.in

Read More
15 Jul

Automation in Product Engineering & Management I automationshift_ Sept 15, 2017 WTC, Bangalore

By TWB_ In Product Strategy /  7 No Comments

Large parts of understanding, adapting, constructing and modelling both software and processes can be automated as of today. This can increases quality, productivity and go-to-market.

As much as 45% of the the Product Lifecycle can be automated using existing technologies!

Be at automationshift_ to get in-depth insights from heads of product and engineering on how they are transforming engineering and development.

 

automationshift_ is India’s first conference for CEOs and other CXOs to share their approaches and technological direction leveraging AI + automation + machine learning that drive higher efficiencies across Marketing + Product Engineering + Product Management + Service Delivery + Learning across their organisations. automationshift_ brings together large enterprise users together with exciting start-ups to create a larger automation ecosystem and is created by TWBShift_ Conferences. The conference is on 15 Sept 2017 at the World Trade Center, Bangalore.

automationshift_ CONFERENCE

The 1-day conference has a tight schedule that includes a CEO keynote address, 5 CXO speakers, 1 panel discussion, 1 round table and 1 exhibit area with India’s 7 leading Artificial Intelligence startups exhibiting their products. CXO perspectives include the rapidly evolving machine-learning technology landscape and how the industry is leveraging it, perspectives on the role of CMOs in they leveraging to transform marketing, impact on efficiency in product design, development & delivery through automation, how AI is personalising learning and crashing discontinuation and how customer service delivery is being transformed through automation

automationshift_ SHOWCASE

The automationshift_ automation showcase brings India’s 7 buzziest AI products together. The showcase is a curated selection of game-changing AI products that impact how business is run. Interestingly they will be under the same roof as the businesses that leverage them.

automationshift_ PERSPECTIVES

The show reports has 10 leading voices in automation of marketing, learning, engineering and customer service from across the world writing for automationshift_ in details. It also has over 15 Indian CXO’s sharing their thoughts succinctly. The 100+ report is called ‘Leadership perspective on the autmotomationshift_’ and will be made available in a limited print run to the Indian CXOs at the conference.

 

What next?

  • Visit the automationshift_ website here | Register for the conference here
  • Sponsorships, Speaking Opportunities or other information call 96860 59020 or mail shift@twb.in
  • Watch the automationshift_ intro video
Read More
TWB_ (formerly TWB) is the world leader in Technology Content and the Strategic + Creative + Technology Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in
21 Jun

What does India’s leading Pharma company do to enhance communication when it expands internationally: TWB_ customer win

By TWB_ In Corporate Training /  5 No Comments

One of the largest Indian pharma companies that has rapidly expanded in the US & Europe, organically and through acquisitions, has partnered with TWB_ to solve an engagement problem,

  • How does it’s India-based executive management communicate effectively with its counterparts in the US & Europe?
  • How does the India-based line management engage effectively with their counterparts?
  • How do they all entities together produce the content that is required to address the marketplace?
  • How do they produce better regulatory content from India?

While the company has half a dozen FDA-approved plants, this level of communication was not a prerequisite for early success.

Almost all revenue came from below the line selling through the channel and decision-making was centralised. Therefore this level of sophistication in communication was a capability that was never developed.

Beginning now, TWB_’s intervention is expected to last through the end of the year. TWB_ has started delivering on this medium term intensive delivery that includes:

  • Executive Coaching for enhancing senior management interaction effectiveness
  • Business communication training for Indian line management This will be based on the TWB_ Certifications & the TWB_ GRAPE framework & TWB_ Blended Learning for it’s distributed workforces
  • Standardisation of content and guidelines based on TWB_ LifeSciences expertise and experience.

Over the years TWB_ has played a significant role content development and training for in LifeSciences majors such as Unilever R&D, Biocon, Pfizer, ITC R&D, Indigene, Mylan and many others.

Are you a LifeSciences major or startup?

Read More
TWB_ (formerly TWB) is the world leader in Technology Content and the Strategic + Creative + Technology Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in
20 Jun

8 of the 15 largest brands in the world are TWB_ customers

By TWB_ In Strategic Marketing /  7 No Comments

The World’s Largest Brands, Technology and the Consumer-Enterprise continuum

When this (Forbes 2015) list was released it got us thinking: what in the intersect of the size of the company, it’s technology focus, the market it addresses and the value that we create for them. So we plotted this:

The size of the pie is the value of the brand. The focus on tech is plotted on the Y axis and the relative focus on consumer vs enterprise markets they address is plotted on the X axis.

This is where it is at:

  • TWB_ works with 8 of the 15 largest brands in the world! That includes,
  • 4 of 4 of the highest tech enterprise brands: Intel, Oracle, IBM & Cisco
  • 2 of 4 of the highest tech brands which address the enterprise and consumer spaces equally: Microsoft & Samsung
  • 1 of 2 of high-tech engineering/auto giants: Toyota.

That’s something, isn’t it?

Want help with your tech brand?

Read More
20 Jun

What’s better than the backcover of Forbes, Wired, MIT Technology Review, Fortune or Time? (revisited)

By TWB_ In Marketing Content /  5 No Comments

Which has the greatest impact on technology businesses? Their ad on the back cover of Forbes, Wired, MIT Technology Review, Fortune or Time? Or content that puts them in front. TWB_ helps make technology content strategic. We deliver results for the Fortune 500, Indian leaders and startups.

TWB_ is unique because it operates on the intersect of Strategic + Creative + Technology. No-one else does that.

This campaign from early 2015 reflects the beginning of the change in our own communication.

TWB_ is the Agency for Technology Brands (2014)

TWB_ is the Strategic + Creative + Technology Agency for Technology Brands (2014)

 

Want help with your tech brand?

Read More
TWB_ (formerly TWB) is the world leader in Technology Content and the Strategic + Creative + Technology Agency for Technology Brands I www.twb.in
15 Jun

Whitepaper: Moving to Structured Enterprise Content for Effective Reuse

By TWB_ In Content /  3 No Comments

Abstract

Organizations have always had difficulty in managing large collections of documentation, compelling them to look for ways and means to manage them with ease and efficiency. The difficulty crops up due to varied reasons such as, creating and storing documents in various formats and inconsistency in the organization and presentation of content. All of which in a nutshell, is called unstructured documentation.

Migration to Structured content is not one action rather a combination of mastering new tools, new concepts (structured authoring), and new technology (XML, XSLT). What do you need to consider?

A structured approach to documentation results in retrieving valuable information for the right purpose at the right time. This document addresses the problems faced in unstructured documentation and the reasons for migrating to structured documentation. It also explores the methods and means to resolve the problems caused by unstructured documentation.

Download Whitepaper: Moving to Structured Enterprise Content for effective reuse (PDF)

Read More
06 Jun

How can your company dramatically improve written communications in 1 Day?

By TWB_ In Corporate Training /  5 No Comments

Hack your workforce Communication: Make your team communicate better on Day 1!

Quick and clear communication is essential to exchange ideas and instructions and getting business results. A lot of times, however, non-native English speakers communicate in a way perceived to be unprofessional. Correcting this invariably seems like a lot of effort. However here are 3 hacks to communicating 10x better on Day 1

  1. Standardize responses. Most of the information that is exchanged within companies and with customers is pretty standard. These include meetings, mail responses, essential documents. Introductions, greetings, actual responses, closures in emails can be standardized. Documents should use templates. You will see communication quality increase on Day 1
  2. Write in bullets. Encourage writing in bullets and sub-bullets in emails, presentations etc. Each new thought in one bullet. No repetitions of ideas or topics. Keeping it simple enhances the communication experience on Day 1.
  3. Focus on ideas. Remember English is a language, not a measure of intelligence. Most of our colleagues are here because of their technical prowess and attitude not because of their perceived lack of communication in English. When they are comfortable that they are not being judged they will focus on ideas, not words. That is essentially better communication on Day 1.

Transform how your workforces communicate

Read More
06 Jun

Are you a CEO without a Corporate Content Strategy?

By TWB_ In Content /  6 3 Comments

Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/rubik-cube-game-sand-strategy-1703600/

 

Not having a corporate content strategy adversely impacts revenue by 10%[1] and increases spends to create content across Marketing & Sales, Engineering, Delivery & Support organizations by a whopping 200%[2]. Here’s why every CEO should have one, and how.

Does a company really need a content strategy and does the CEO need to get involved?

Any number of CEOs will tell you that they don’t need to bother about content because their management does. It’s true in a way. The CMO’s office takes care of marketing content. The CTO and Engineering CxOs handle the product and technical content. The HR CxO takes care of internal training content for company processes, sometimes even internal communication. Many in their teams are not trained in creating content, or the technologies or the processes or understand company objectives. But that is only part of the problem. Forget corporate alignment and reuse, organizations will develop content simply because they are expected to. Content is a line item for most organizations within the company. For the company itself it’s a footnote. Which begs the question, do you need a corporate content strategy, and why?

A content strategy is the high-level vision that guides different organizations’ future content development to deliver against specific corporate objectives. It puts into words a company’s content goals, audience, creation, quality and collaboration workflow.

Content strategy is required because without it a CEO’s company creates content with no core theme or purpose. A lack of strategy leads to generic content. Generic content is made by generic companies. Generic content is unlikely to rank organically on searches. Generic content doesn’t get shared. Generic content doesn’t engage people. Generic content does not talk about a CEO’s specific product or brand.

The companies that have the capacity and understanding to link content and communication into corporate strategy tend to be stronger and better performing than their competition. A CEO needs to get one together. Not soon. Not next week. Now.

Corporate Content Strategy, a CEO responsibility

Every organization of the enterprise – from finance to delivery – has a content element. It makes sense for it to be nurtured at a strategic level. A CEO’s goals could be retention or growth of market-share, or something else, but in all cases, focused communication through the right channels is a core element.

Any long-term activity that has a long-term effect for the company belongs to the CEO’s desk. Any decisions that are not within one organization but thread through many belong to the CEO’s desk. Content projects of all kinds are time-intensive up-front, with little visible output in the short run, if they are going to be effective. A CEO’s understanding and effective representation can make the difference between success and failure. It’s a strategic decision.

Content strategy touches each area of a CEO’s business. All the software programming in the world is pointless if it doesn’t support the goals of a CEO’s users and clients — that’s what makes a CEO involved in the engineering function. The same should hold for content.

Read More