Case study from Mars, Inc.: knowledge management in sales and marketing
Mars, Incorporated are a global company in the fast moving consumer goods industry, with six business segments including Chocolate, Petcare, Wrigley Gum and Confections, Food, Drinks and Symbioscience. These segments generate total annual revenues of $30 billion. As a family-owned company for nearly a century, Mars are guided by the five principles of quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency and freedom. The global reach of Mars’ business segments and the inclusive nature of these values makes it important for Mars to learn, disseminate and apply knowledge and experiences from one market to another and between business segments. Additionally the fast-moving nature of the business requires a speed, immediacy and dynamism and therefore a fast, dynamic approach to sharing knowledge and expertise. This is particularly true in sales and marketing, where speed to market is of the essence. In this chapter, Linda Davies, Knowledge Management Director for Mars Information Services, explains how Mars use knowledge management within sales and marketing.
Introduction
Mars, Inc. use knowledge management (KM) throughout its business. For us KM is about the use of tacit information – the knowledge that our associates carry in their heads – as opposed to information that is written down and stored in databases. The type of KM and the tools used are the same throughout our business, but the focus and emphasis vary between the functions as a result of differences in the style and nature of the jobs and people involved. A key learning is to never pre-judge what will and will not work for a given function or community – keep an open mind, do not be afraid to try and be prepared to be pleasantly surprised!
For Mars, Inc., knowledge management is about developing and using what people know. It is about solving problems once and applying the results globally – piloting in one area for the benefit of all and combining the knowledge from a range of individuals to craft a solution to a new challenge. Above all it is about people and how to engage them in delivering results: What are we trying to achieve? Who knows what? Where and by whom can we actively apply this knowledge? The core KM team is thus focused on connection, collaboration and conversations – the essence of sharing, collaborating and applying knowledge.
We have standard rules for effective KM. Before we undertake any initiative we must be able to clearly articulate:
Toolkit
Mars, Inc. KM has three main components:
the use of small, focused communities to address specific, well-defined, strategic business challenges, often with a short lifespan (maximum three years). In KM terms these are communities of purpose, although we know them as Global Practice Groups (GPGs);1
the use of communities of practice to connect those with the same or similar roles – known either as communities or, increasingly, as networks;
the use of formal knowledge-capture and dissemination for specific topics of global use.
These are supported and enabled by a comprehensive suite of IT tools.
Both GPGs and networks are types of community. The definition we use for a community (of any type) is ‘a group of people with common roles/activities who share experiences, insights, knowledge and best practices in response to common challenges’. Or, more simply, ‘people who share a passion for what they do’. The key lies in the common roles or activities. We have found that, to work, the focus of the community must be directly related to what an associate does in their day-to-day role. In this way it delivers value and saves time, which makes the time invested in sharing knowledge worthwhile.
Global Practice Groups
Mars use the concept of Global Practice Groups (GPGs) to address key strategic challenges. These are small groups of senior associates who are charged with delivering a step-change in performance in an area of strategic importance to Mars, Inc. Each GPG has a sponsor within the Mars Presidents’ Group, a leader who directs, mentors, enthuses and enables the network and a coordinator who brokers the connections, provides a base level of resource and generally functions as the ‘Energiser Bunny’ of the group. The GPG members each has responsibility for the topic area in their business units and is sufficiently senior to be able to effect change. The communities have a specific, measurable challenge, a defined end target and the responsibility to deliver a step-change solution for the business as a whole. These are used in both marketing and sales, although have had more widespread use in sales.
For example, in our chocolate, gum and confections segments, a large portion of the sales are through impulse outlets.2 In our newer markets in the developing world the bulk of consumer spending occurs in small local shops; the European/US model of large supermarkets has yet to take hold. It is critical to maximise the number of small retail outlets that sell our products in order to drive sales in these markets. To help meet this challenge, we have a ‘Route to Mass Market’ GPG, comprising the sales directors of our twelve largest new markets. Their markets are at varying stages of evolution and each member has unique areas of expertise and real success stories to share. No one director holds all the lessons; however, there are critical challenges running as a common thread across the markets and real bottom-line value is gained from sharing expertise and know-how. The GPG meets every six months, face to face, hosted by one of the markets. The meetings are focused on sharing, learning lessons and discussing. There are no formal presentations; numbers and details are covered outside the meetings. Instead, the meetings are based around three main activities designed to encourage the GPG to share its lessons and to build the knowledge base of successful processes and principles:
Communities of practice
Through trial and error we have learned the benefit of running fewer, large communities (with sub-communities as required) rather than having a multitude of small communities. This is linked to having a critical mass of people and hence multiple, varied activities and a wide range of ideas, expertise and knowledge available to members. In the early days there was concern about the relevance of broad-based communities. However, while at a practical level every job function and market is different and each has its own challenges, at a higher level many of the challenges are the same and the essence of what we are trying to achieve is the same. At this level, the basic ideas present in each job, function and market contain valuable lessons that can be adapted and evolved for others.
Hence our communities are largely global. At the centre is a steering team of senior, experienced associates who sets the agenda for the coming year and controls the centrally focused activities. Note that this does not preclude other activities occurring spontaneously throughout the year. However, it sets a regular pattern of activity, focused on important areas for the business, which ensures the communities make continual, relevant progress on core issues. In this way the community always has something new to offer its members, continuing to deliver relevant learnings to the members and value to the business.
Within each global community, there are sub-communities focused on particular topics. Each of these is led (championed) by a member of the steering group. These sub-communities are run in exactly the same way as the overall community, which provides the link for the sub-community to share its learnings with their colleagues throughout the business. These sub-communities deliver against interests and challenges associated with people’s day-to-day jobs. In Marketing each community is focused on connecting the marketers who work on a specific brand – with six brands in excess of $1 billion each annually, this makes sense! However, we also have communities focused on specific aspects of marketing across brands – for example, establishing petcare in our developing markets. In general, our marketing communities are within product segments, since this is where the common themes lie. For sales, the communities tend to be focused on the type of sales job – for example, connecting associates who are responsible for sales to the grocery trade or the small impulse trade or selling through distributors. Hence in general our sales communities tend to cross the product segments. The common themes here are more likely to be related to the business model than to the product category.
A valuable addition to these communities, especially in marketing, is the inclusion of external partners such as advertising agencies. We have found that the wider the (relevant) membership of a community, the more value it generates. Hence the value of the community is enhanced by including our key partners.
Knowledge exchange
A key tool used by many of the communities, in both marketing and sales, is a knowledge exchange, which focuses on sharing what each member knows about a specific area. Known to the group as a ‘show and tell’, the topics are frequently fairly broad, since we do not always know what each other knows. To tightly specify a topic may mean a missed opportunity. These sessions take anything from half a day to two days (depending on the topic and number of attendees). They are focused on practical examples of solutions to a current hot topic. Prior to the meeting the community steering group identifies the topic. It may be a topic where a couple of markets are known to have expertise that the others need, it may be one where all have expertise and where there is interest in seeing the other good ideas, or where it is accepted that a more common approach would be beneficial. Each person at the ‘show and tell’ meeting has a ‘display’ in the room to exhibit the solution they are proudest of and a time slot to ‘sell’ this solution to the group as a whole. These solutions are always practical; it’s a display, not a presentation. People are encouraged to bring objects that can be picked up, equipment for trial and photographs of examples in action. We have even built entire shop displays in hotel bedrooms! These sessions invariably create a huge amount of discussion and it is common for people to leave the meeting with samples from other markets to implement themselves when they get back home.
Formal knowledge-capture
Practical learning is immensely important for all functions and is the key to knowledge and information being used. However, formal capture also has a place, in order to develop a knowledge base to:
share the learnings of this group with the wider audience in Mars, Inc.;
ensure we do not forget what we have learned (especially when an activity happens relatively infrequently); and
ensure our experts are not continually inundated with the same question.
Both marketing and sales have a programme of formal knowledge-capture with the results centrally stored, always electronically and often in printed form also. Each person who visits a website or picks up a booklet must learn something of value they can apply in their market. We distil knowledge and expertise down to the core lessons and word these as practical recommendations. The summary fits on one sheet of A4 paper. A good check is whether someone can immediately see how this would be applied in their market. A validation of the usefulness is then how many access the longer summary or visit the website for more information.
The community steering group identifies the topics that warrant formal knowledge-capture and identifies the experts. Formal capture is limited to strategic issues and areas of greatest learning, in order to keep it relevant, avoid information overload and focus scarce resources (knowledge-capture is time-intensive to complete). The learnings are captured through a series of interviews (individual or group), summarised into practical tips and recommendations and presented in three formats that support each other:
a series of booklets containing top tips and advice;
a website or wiki containing detailed information, templates, examples, etc.;
The booklets and training courses are a valuable source of knowledge for those starting out or starting a new market. The website or wiki allows the community to update its knowledge base as it continues to evolve and to learn new lessons. Together they provide a comprehensive guide to each core area. These work in both sales and marketing with a different emphasis. The booklets are popular in both – sales makes greater use of the training courses and marketing makes greater use of the websites and wiki.
Go with the flow
The key to all our successful uses of knowledge management in all functions, not only in sales and marketing, is to match what we are trying to achieve with the natural style of the associates concerned. It is important to think what we are trying to achieve, what the associates need, where it will deliver value and, importantly, how they naturally work and therefore how they will access the knowledge and use it. We consider their working environment and their natural communication style; remember KM is about people talking to people! As a sweeping generalisation (and accepting there are notable exceptions), the preferred communication style of our sales people is the telephone, assuming they cannot get face to face. Therefore their greatest aid to connectivity is a simple expertise locator containing name, job title, location, phone number, e-mail and a photograph; it’s easier to phone someone once you know what they look like! Marketing have made more use of technology, aided by being more likely at a desk and/or in front of a PC. Therefore websites and electronic connections work well for them.
We also take time to build activities into the normal ways of working. For example, whenever sales associates visit another market they will spend time visiting the stores, either as part of the meeting or on their own. Therefore a field visit is built into the agenda of each meeting of our sales communities and includes a KM activity. The ‘host market’ highlights their biggest successes and a couple of top challenges at the start of the visit and directs attention to examples of these during the time in the stores. Back in the meeting each group provides detailed feedback on what they see as working well in the market and how to build on the successes they see. They also give their top ten ideas on how to address the challenges, based on lessons and experience from their own markets. In this way the host market receives positive confirmation of their success and how to build on it, plus around thirty ideas and improvement suggestions targeted at their key challenges, based on lessons from proven, practical experience elsewhere in the world. Each member also nominates the one idea they saw during the day that they plan to adapt and implement in their own home markets. This builds realisation that everyone can learn from every experience and encourages the rapid adoption of new ideas. We have many examples of ideas from one market being replicated globally. Some ideas have travelled halfway around the globe and been implemented in a matter of months.
Technology – the great enabler
Technology is the great enabler for knowledge management. Both sales and marketing use a central website for core documents, news, etc. However, marketing uses technology more intensively, with systems for sharing advertising, packaging, brand images and other items. There is no difference in the rules; keep it simple, keep it relevant to my job, keep it refreshed and new, keep it vibrant and fun. It can be a challenge to establish the habit of using central technological solutions. In the early days we had to be fairly directive, making it the only place where certain important information could be found, continually directing people to it and resisting the temptation to e-mail information to people. Once a critical mass of users developed, the benefits sold the systems.
Summary
Overall there are a number of conclusions we can draw about knowledgesharing in a global organisation such as this:
1. Focus KM on the important areas – keep all activities relevant and know how your KM activities will deliver business benefit.
2. It is important to get the network into a rhythm of learning and knowledge-sharing if it is to become second nature to the people involved.
3. For the key connection points, have regular meetings, face to face where possible, since the social interactions are key to building the level of trust required.
4. Keep the discussions, meetings and new knowledge shared focused and relevant to the members so they get real personal benefit from the sharing sessions.
5. In the early days, seed and nurture both the contributors and the knowledge shared. Your early adopters are critical, as is the initial content.
6. Keep it practical, so it is obvious to see how to apply what has been learned.
7. Get people to say how they have used the lessons and ideas and what the impact has been. This encourages people to take time to seek out and use the knowledge of others, encourages those who take the time to share their lessons with others and confirms the behaviour we are seeking.
8. Don’t be too prescriptive – use what works for the community members.
9. Celebrate success and by doing so recognise and reward both lesson seekers and lesson sharers.