Bill Pearce, CMO of Del Monte Foods company recently gave some advice to his peers in a talk. He suggested that they “spend on marketing, capital investment and innovation or risk losing your business in the next 5 years.” He did this in the face of an environment where the management (mostly through avoidance) risk is the name of the game.
Part of the advice was to review what was working and what was not in this new environment. Using a historical viewpoint is a mistake because the “revenue stream now is not where the stream was 12 months ago.” Mr. Pearce intoned that “now is NOT the time to shy away from new ideas” further suggesting that you fund them by cutting current practises that worked in the past, but look dubious now or are break-even. “The companies that invest in innovations and roll out…new services now will reap disproportionate benefits when the economy makes a turn.“ (more…)
