Fig.1. Definition of strategy

The strategy can be viewed as a detailed comprehensive comprehensive plan, aimed at fulfilling the mission and achieving the goals of the organization with maximum efficiency. The main task of such a plan is to ensure innovation and changes in the organization in accordance with changes in the environment.

Real strategy organization consists not only of directed (planned) actions, but also of response to unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, the strategy must be considered as a symbiosis of planned actions. (proactive strategy) and adaptive response to the situation (reactive strategy).

defining elements strategy is:

1. Presence of a mission and strategic goals

2. Decision on allocation of resources

3. Adaptation to the external environment

4. Internal coordination

5. Creating a lasting competitive advantage

Strategic Management- This activity, aimed at achieving the main goals and objectives of the organization, determined on the basis of anticipation of possible changes in the environment and organizational capacity, by coordinating and allocating resources.

Strategic Management can be attributed to the philosophy or ideology of business and management, where a significant place is given to the creativity of top management and staff of the organization. We remind you that strategy is the "art of the commander" (manager).

At its core, the strategic approach to management involves the response to three main questions :

1. What do we want to achieve as a result of our activities?(Desired state model).

Here, we are talking primarily about goal setting, based visions the firm's leadership of its business in a certain future. At the same time, it is necessary, through analysis, to evaluate possible changes in the environment that can be used to effectively achieve goals, and those changes that may prevent the organization from achieving its goals. Thus, a certain ideal of the organization is created, to which one should strive (model of the ideal situation).

2. Who are we now?(Model of the real situation).

Assessing the potential of the company in terms of organizational potential (marketing, production, financial, human resources, etc.), managers must determine what the organization can really achieve and what resources it has to achieve its goals. Such diagnostics gives an idea of ​​the organization's capabilities in terms of implementing new goals and what is lacking in organizational resources for this. The result of such diagnostics is a model of a real situation.

3. How to move from the state in which the organization is currently in a state that will ensure the achievement of goals in the future?

When goals are set taking into account external factors and the potential resource capabilities of the organization are assessed, it is necessary to determine the way to achieve the goal. In other words, the leaders of the organization must both broadly and specifically decide what needs to be done to achieve the goals. In fact, this is the concept of strategy as a set of the main goals of the organization and the main ways to achieve them.

Rice. 2. Basic understanding of strategic management

There are a significant number of options for achieving goals; the task of strategic management is the choice of the optimal option at the level of strategy development, which, as a rule, turns into a specific action plan that must be completed within a certain time frame. In the model shown in fig. 2, it can be seen that the transition of the organization from the initial state to the desired one (for example, leadership in the industry in terms of sales) can occur in different ways.

Path "a" involves rapid and radical changes in the organization at the initial stage of strategic management, and then gradually bringing the "details" to the desired state. Path "b" involves the alternation of radical changes with a period of reflection on what has been achieved as a launching pad for the next breakthrough towards the intended goal. The “c” path is gradual, cautious actions associated with minor organizational changes, which, with the accumulation of sufficient experience at the end of the planning period, should lead to significant changes.

Constituent elements of strategic management

Strategic Management is strategic planning with feedback.

PROACTIVE COMPANY

V.A. Lapidus

Introduction

We have been trying for many years... and are still trying to change for the better Russian, Kazakh, Ukrainian and other companies, not only formed on the basis of Soviet enterprises, but also grown again.

As a result, we have gained experience and knowledge, which we are now trying to combine with Eastern and Western concepts, approaches and methods of management and create something useful for Russian companies and their former counterparts.

The main impression from our exercises is that it is very "difficult to drag a hippopotamus out of a swamp." Russian management is absolutely special, it has a special "bog" become, and it does not want to change or learn.

The confirmations are very simple. How many companies in our country have applied the ISO 9000 series standards to date? Ten times less than China gave an increase in certified companies over the past year.

What is labor productivity? If we take a widely used indicator - output per year per worker - we will get 10-20% of the western one.

You can continue to humiliate the patriotic feelings of the reader, but you still need to answer the question: -“Why does Russian industry and the economy for the most part not apply new and “old”, but overlooked, effective management models?” .

In fairness, we note that several dozen, maybe a hundred or two effective companies of a new type have appeared in Russia. But while they do not make the weather. In addition, these are either joint ventures or firms with foreign management.

Having received the answer to the first question, the second immediately arises: -“Maybe Russian (Kazakh, Ukrainian, Belarusian, etc. from the CIS list) need to be offered a special product that meets their needs, if any exist?”

First of all, it is necessary to assess the Russian situation (we will limit ourselves to Russia, although our former fraternal republics have much in common in the difficult fate of the transition from fictitious socialism to an unknown formation, under the general vague name of “market relations”).

So specific.

1. The specifics of the Russian situation

Let's start with the most popular attempt to change something - the implementation of the ISO 9000 series standards. Admittedly, the implementation does not work. And few implementations, and not effective, and superficial. The standards themselves are flexible and, if desired, can be of great benefit, but it is obvious that the ISO 9000 series standards in Russia are based on a different basis than abroad. It should be recognized that in general, our management is very far from modern, global, it practically did not develop in the twentieth century.

Entire milestones are missing: Taylorism, human relations school, behaviorism, management by objectives (MBO), policy management (hosin kanri), strategic management, TQM, etc.

Gone are the production management models and approaches such as Just-in-Time, Kanban, Lean Production, Poka-Yoke, etc. Yes, and statistical process control (SPC) hooked a few.

The legacy of the past was "repressive management" - as the basis for managing organizations, and a low corporate culture, very specific, very far from humanistic and intellectual.

Briefly describe our typical corporate culture -it's a culture of internal struggle - everyone with everyone and against everyone, naturally forgetting, and sometimes not having the strength to fight with competitors.

“We are fighting with quality, with productivity too, with bureaucracy, drunkenness, corruption (internal), theft - they are fighting.”

In addition, "old style" companies are overorganized and difficult to transform. All of them are similar to each other and suffer from the same diseases. The main one is "repressive management". We recommend the book to the reader.

Companies of a new type, more market-oriented, more customer-oriented, process-oriented, but they are underorganized. They are all very different and very similar to their creators.

We indicate the main diseases of new companies:

Low level of development of organizational structures, documentation;

Lack of mission, vision, values ​​and guiding principles, realized and used by the majority of employees;

Blurred responsibilities, powers and interactions;

Leaderism (the only leader is the leader);

No description of functions, processes, procedures

Unconscious model of your own company;

Lack of a long-term strategy and policy.

It is also important to note the personnel problem - the lack of professional hired managers as a class.

It is obvious that they had nowhere to appear. In the turbulent 1990s, those who had managerial, organizational talent, created their own business.

From young people, even with a foreign MBA degree, a real manager is obtained only over time, through the accumulation of experience in the practical application of the acquired knowledge.

Management is the lot of mature people, including, perhaps, young people.

A particular problem is the gaps in trust between owners and managers, as well as between managers and ordinary personnel and workers.

We note the lack of motivation for work in general and for improvements, innovations in particular; unjustified proportions in earnings between new (note, not always professional and successful) managers and other specialists.

On the other hand, the pages of our magazines, books and other publications are flooded with information about new and not very new approaches, systems, methods, and management tools that have not yet been mastered.

Here is a far from complete list: ISO 9000 series, 14000 series, 18000 series, TQM, business process reengineering, Five S, Six Sigma, outsourcing, Lean production, Kanban, just in time, kaizen, hoshin kanri, coaching, etc.

The menu is extensive. There were many consultants "quickly and cheaply" ready to implement anything and everything.

It's easy to get lost in this situation.

And we believe that it is precisely these two features - the backwardness and ugliness of our management, which has passed the path of historical materialism, on the one hand, and an overabundance of new approaches, concepts, systems, methods, tools that came from abroad, on the other hand, that give rise to the main specifics of transformations Russian companies.

In fact, this is a conversation about where we are and where we are going.

But when we find ourselves in our very backward location on the management map and see an inordinate number of ways to get better, a methodical "shock" ensues.

The natural reaction of managers and owners is: “It is better not to change anything until you understand what needs to be changed and how.”

And this is where the need arises to obtain general recommendations in relation to menu items, which in one form or another reflect the range of modern proposals for management changes, i.e. advice on how to read the menu and take advantage of its offers.

It is unrealistic to set the task of introducing even a part of new approaches without any integral concept. We see this in the examples of suppliers to the automotive industry.Too much transformation . However, they are necessary, and they should be implemented in a time frame that is not comparable with the time spent by foreign companies.

Various attempts to implement either ISO 9001, or ISO 14001, or TQM, or statistical methods lead, at best, to particular results, and often to simple disappointments.

Our many years of experience have led to the realization of a generally simple fact: all Russian companies and companies in the CIS countries need very serious changes and transformations of the widest and deepest types, so we need to start transforming our enterprises into companies that themselves are capable of purposefully changing.

With that in mind, we asked ourselves two main questions:

What kind of company should be able to make deep and fast purposeful transformations?

What needs to be changed in the company so that it acquires the ability to change?

Our experience of working and communicating with the best Russian companies led to the following answer:it is necessary to make changes in the motivational and intellectual basis of the bulk of the company's employees and, above all, its owners and managers.

In particular, it is necessary to provide a knowledge base, including the foundations of new management, new views on the market, on competition, on cooperation, on the relationship of all interested parties. In other words, to form the basis of a new corporate culture - a culture capable of generating processes of purposeful transformations. This is the answer to our second question.

And to answer the first question, we decided to create an image of a company capable of carrying out deep transformations. We named such a companyproactive and created the first image of such a company“Proactive company. Model 1. Growth Management» and the corresponding product on a modular basis.

We have come to understand that any company that wants to start transforming must prepare for it and become a company that can change. We understood this before and always insisted on motivational seminars, management trainings, creation of internal projects before the implementation of ISO 9001 or other models.

However, this is clearly not enough. Very serious preparatory work is needed, such as, for example, the training of climbers, pilots, cosmonauts, and so on.

Transformation is a profession.

Transformation is a constant state and at the same time the readiness of companies for change.

If we recall Newton's second law, then acceleration (rate of change) is inversely proportional to mass - a measure of inertia.

Proactive companies should start by working to reduce the measure of inertia. Although we note that the measure of inertia should not be too small, so that the company is not blown away by a light wind of change or turned over by a small wave.

2. Proactive company. Main features. Image

Let's explain the concept"proactive company"

First of all, it is obvious that companies, like people, can be divided into two classes:-passive Andactive .

Without dwelling on passive companies for obvious reasons, we will also divide active companies into two classes:reactive Andproactive .

What is the difference between them?

Reactive companies show their activity as a reaction to certain phenomena of an external and internal nature (impact). This is a valuable quality of the entire living world, allowing its representatives to fight for existence.

However, people and companies, as communities of people, are capable of proactive behavior that predicts (as a result of observations, measurements, analysis) possible impacts and influences them and themselves, anticipating them.

Console"pro-" most often means striving forward (with the exception of profanity): progress, prologue, clearance, etc.

Here is a definition of a proactive company, which is more of a slogan than a strict definition, but it is very important: A proactive company is a company that controls its own destiny within the limits set by the destiny itself.

A comment. A proactive company is not a fatalist, it does not believe that everything is determined by fate, everything is written in some books.

A proactive company seeks to control its own destiny, but there are always limits to what is possible, set by someone outside our influence. In general, these are the limits, the tolerances of the possible, released to us by fate itself. Being proactive is constantly exploring the changing limits of what is possible and, within that framework, achieving your goals, including those of growth and development.

A proactive company follows several modernized precepts:

God! Give me the strength to change what can be changed;

God! Give me the ability to adapt to what cannot be changed;

God! Give me reason to distinguish the first from the second.

jet company - a company that reacts to changes in the external and internal environment, but does not predict changes and does not influence them.

Examples:

The head of one company complains to the author: “We lost so much money on purchases in Europe because of the euro jump. We are currently downsizing and have limited investment in new products.”

The second leader says: “In 2002, we began to analyze the economic processes in the United States, the possible consequences of the war in Iraq, and decided to transfer part of our purchases from Europe to the United States, and also began to invest in the development of Russian suppliers, because. understand that the dollar will weaken and the euro will rise.”

There is a legend that when in the 19th century the German Minister of Defense received a call at night that the war had begun, he grumbled: “Open the second drawer on the right of my desk in the office, there is a complete plan of our actions, I will arrive in the morning,” and fell asleep.

It is not difficult to see who was proactive in these examples. A proactive company treats business as a game where you need to see a few moves further than the enemy (competitors, environment, nature, fate) and tries to be the cause of events, and not their consequence.

In general, according to the formula - "White starts and wins."

Let's offer a more academic definition of a proactive company.Proactive company - a company that is able to learn about itself and the environment and change using this knowledge to ensure proactive development in relation to the dynamics of consumer needs and the challenges of competitors, based on a balance of stakeholder interests. Here we touched on very important concepts - stakeholders and the balance of interests.But this is a separate issue.

Characteristics of a proactive company

A proactive company has the following features:

Clear desire to develop and grow (indefinitely) among a critical mass of employees, managers, owners;

A clear long-term goal;

Mission statement explaining its role in the economic community;

Vision, values ​​and guiding principles that guide its internal processes and environment;

Positive attitude towards the world, people, including their staff;

A flexible management system (including the organizational structure) focused on long-term life, the health of the company, the growth of the main performance indicators (indicators) and, above all, the value of the company (under appropriate environmental conditions, a proactive company can be in different phases: explosion, controlled growth (limited growth), balance with the external environment - homeostasis, conservatism, conservation and / or accumulation of energy, controlled compression, etc.);

Freedom of choice and corporate will;

Conscience (recognition and honest analysis of errors, inconsistencies, defects, losses);

Suffering, unwillingness to put up with negative phenomena (corrective actions);

The ability to self-study, self-knowledge, self-learning, self-improvement;

Balance of interests of "stakeholders" (parties interested in the company's activities);

Corporate Aggregate Energy;

Corporate environment focused on self-study, self-knowledge (dualism: management - study) and support for change;

Knowledge of methods of theory and practice of transformations;

Having a change strategy.

In addition, we will consider the company model not as an individual, but as a population.

This is very important for understanding the longevity of a company. Unfortunately, the age of many modern companies is very short, 20 years on average…

In many respects, such a short period is explained by the fact that companies are built according to models of individuals, identifying the necessary management functions, similar, for example, to individual organs of people. In particular, functional management, based on special management functions such as marketing, design, production, purchasing, sales, service, etc., obviously uses the model of the individual from a biological point of view.

However, individuals live much less than populations, primarily due to the processes of the birth of new individuals, their learning and natural selection.

It's good if the company understands this and properly builds career growth and rotation, but often our people become symbols of their function and are ready to occupy the appropriate positions until their deathbed.

The biological model of the company as a kind of population;

The social model of the company;

economic;

Energy;

Emotional-psychological model.

3. Biological model of a proactive company

Any organization consisting of people, omitting equipment, structures and other assets, has the properties of a living being, including the ability to grow and develop.

At the same time, growth and development are under the influence of two main forces - acceleration and deceleration (accelerators and decelerators).

This is typical for any formations of wildlife and provides a certain development and balance with the environment.

The presence of change retarders (these are not always people) is usually ignored by reformers, often irritating them, although the presence of retarders is vital, and the bearers of slowdown processes should be perceived with an understanding of their role, which ensures the balance of change.

Let us compare some aspects of the growth and development of populations and corporations.

Table 1 shows analogues of the corporate structure to population models.

Table 1

Development models

populations	corporations
Natural selection	Career, rotation
Mutations	Innovation
Leaders, herding, group behavior	Leadership, teamwork, synergy, corporate patriotism
Culling, thinning (the sun is not enough for everyone)	Leadership selection systems, careers, layoffs, layoffs
intraspecific competition	Conflicts, intrigues, struggle, internal competition, rivalry
Conquest of living space	Conquest of consumers, creation of branches, subsidiaries
Population growth and space occupied	growth management
Ecological balance with the environment	Environmental management
Reproducibility (be fruitful, multiply)	The system of expanded reproduction of knowledge, skills, the flow of skills from universities, colleges, schools, mentoring, training
Saving and saving energy	Economic management, cost reduction, production costs
Nutrition	Resources, investments, knowledge, sales revenue
reflexes	Taboo, rules, order, technology, standards
Instincts (individual and group)	Instincts of group behavior of people, values, principles
parental instinct	Mentorship, leadership, training of followers and disciples
Sexuality (sex difference)	Division into internal suppliers and consumers
family groups	Circles and groups of quality
Adaptation, mimicry, adaptation	Adaptation, transformations
Fight for survival	Competition, winning consumers, product quality
Accelerators and retarders	Reformers and Conservatives
Diseases and mortality of individuals	Poor quality and mortality of products, processes, care of workers

Comparison of the two columns in Table 1 is not useless, it suggests a number of proposals for the structure of corporations, allowing them to become long-lived.

Not every company has a fairly complete set in the right column.

Quite often, there are no open and clear rules for career and employee rotation, innovation is suppressed, there are no leadership institutions, there is no environmental management and simply careful attitude to resources and nature, there is no growth management, knowledge reproduction system, etc.

Meanwhile, the absence of one or another factor in the development of populations from the left column leads to a decrease and, often, to the disappearance (death) of populations. Note that the market mechanism itself - free enterprise - uses the nature and laws of populations, and many companies, to their unconscious regret, apply the laws of the individual.

Then a natural question arises: Isn't the absence of a number, and sometimes many lines in the right column of Table 1, the reason for the short life of corporations?

What should be a proactive, growing company - a long-liver (in terms of biological systems)?

As follows from Table. 1, it must have the following systems:

Selection, development and change of personnel;

Leadership as a form of responsibility for a group, a company and as a way of management;

Corporate recognizable environment and devotion to the group (corporate patriotism);

Transparent career and career opportunities;

Staff rotations;

Synergy (corporate energy management);

Transformation of the organizational structure in order to give authority and responsibility to mature leaders;

Intraspecific (internal) competition, competitiveness;

Enemies and aggressive environment;

Taboo - restrictions incompatible with the life of a corporation;

Values, traditions, culture;

Quality management, safety, company health, environmental management;

Training, mentoring;

Self-forming and self-governing circles and quality groups;

Motivation for improvement;

Adaptations, adaptations to the surrounding world;

Management of innovations, improvements;

Process approach based on the relationship of internal suppliers and consumers;

Balance of reform and conservative efforts (accelerators and retarders);

Free, unregulated management areas of activity.

We do not set ourselves the task now to give a complete list of systems and, moreover, to order them in order of importance. The goal so far is simpler - to pay attention to the biological models of corporations and apply them to build proactive long-lived companies.

Let us draw the reader's attention to one more moment of the biological model of the company.

It is known that the growth of any biological subject is described by the S-curve shown in Fig. 1 for the company, products, personnel.

The S-curve reflects a number of important stages of growth - birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, conservatism, aging, death.

If we look at the main elements of the company - products, people's capabilities, their fatigue and aging, mission, technologies (processes, including business processes), organizational structures and management systems - we will see that each element has its own S-curve and your lifespan.

At the same time, all these elements are vital and their aging or death determines the life span of the company. She (company) dies from the first deadly disease.

We do not claim the accuracy of life expectancy estimates for the elements shown in Fig. 1. This may be the subject of a special study. But if we take these figures as a typical example, then companies need to first reproduce new products, new knowledge and maintain the competence of the staff.

Picture 1

However, this can be very individual for each company and is a matter of self-study.

It should be noted that in Russian companies there is no experience of such analysis and self-study, in any case, it is unknown to the author, who closely follows publications about the successes of Russian companies.

In computer technology and software, products age in 3-4 years, in the automotive industry - 5-6 years, in consumer electronics - 3-5 years, etc. The half-life of knowledge is of the same order. Without innovation and in the absence of rotation, workers become tired of their work in 3-4 years. With the monotonous nature of the activity, this can be an even shorter period.

It is obvious that a view of the company only from a biological point of view cannot be complete.

Let's consider other aspects: social, economic, energy, emotional and psychological.

For brevity, we confine ourselves to listing the main elements.

4. Proactive company: social aspect

It is obvious that any companies are communities of people, and all the attributes of sociality are present in them.

Some of the aspects that we will highlight were also present in biological models above. This is natural, because societies are simply a higher level of biological models.

In table. 2 presents the main social elements that should be recognized by the company and be the subject of analysis, discussion, collective and individual agreements.

table 2

Proactive company: social aspect

(company as a society)

1. Balance and community of interests, turning into a community of fate for all interested parties;

2. Justice and guarantees for the future;

3. Protection of employees in case of illness, upon reaching retirement age, from the dangers of the external environment;

4. Protection of top managers - contracts that limit the tenure of positions, as well as compensation payments in case of termination of contracts at the initiative of the owners - "golden, silver parachutes";

5. Leadership system - the relationship of leaders, career, rotation, the creation of new structures. Each leader stands on the shoulders of other leaders (ethics of competition);

6. Wage system tied to the basket and inflation

7. Right to learning, development, growth;

8. A system of recognition of achievements, respect for knowledge, professionalism, competencies, etc.;

9. Motivational environment that fills the work with positive emotions;

10. Encouraging the creation of free groups, teams, improvement circles;

11. Collective social agreement, pension programs;

12. Compensation payments for layoffs, etc.

As before, the data in Table. 2 do not pretend to be complete and orderly and draw attention to the need to take into account these and, perhaps, some other missing elements when transforming a “regular” company into a proactive one.

Undoubtedly, this aspect requires more detailed consideration, which the author intends to do in the near future.

5. Proactive company: economic aspect

We must not forget why companies are created: - to earn money for shareholders, owners, managers, employees of all levels.

The main property of a proactive company in the economic sphere is the clarification of the complicity of all employees in the business, regardless of whether they are shareholders, managers, employees, workers.

Each employee must have clarity in understanding the goals of the business, his personal role and his remuneration. It is important that people understand not only the possible and expected income from the business, but also share all the risks that exist in business.

Briefly, the main elements are shown in Table. 3.

Table 3

Proactive company: economic aspect

1. Participation of all employees in achieving the goals of the business and its income;

2. Relationship of salary, allowances and bonuses with the success of the company;

3. Decent level of remuneration;

4. Financial incentives associated with indicators (indices) of growth;

5. Participation in the distribution of business risks;

6. Availability of economic information;

7. Understanding that together people can earn more than individually

The economic side of a proactive company is manifested in:

Participation of employees in business planning and goal setting;

Creation of a system of remuneration and material incentives that transparently shows the sources of earnings and their relationship with business results and related risks.

6. Proactive company: energy aspect

Obviously, in any company, the energy of people, the direction of its application, synergy are important.

As before, we note only schematically the main elements (Table 4).

Table 4

Proactive company: energy aspect

1. Creation of a corporate environment aimed at motivating to achieve business goals, creative hard work;

2. Management of psycho-energy flows, synergy;

3. Maintenance of energy tone and positive fluid field;

4. Elimination of all types of internal struggle, wasting the energy of the staff;

5. Designation of competitors (enemies) and goals for their advance (adrenaline stimulation).

7. Proactive company: emotional and mental aspect

In a proactive company, one of E. Deming's calls is being implemented: "Let people get joy from work."

People spend too much time at work, and the company should give all the wealth of positive emotions that life gives, because work for many is a big part of life. This is closely related to the motivation, creative behavior of workers, their patriotism and a number of other very important categories.

Interactions of people should be aimed at creating a positive fluid field. // 24.11.2019 10:09 - stories about important things in simple language.

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Reactive and proactive business behaviors

An extremely important point is the forecasting of the market situation. It is necessary to analyze the market regularly to identify new customer needs and new trends, to test new products. In this regard, I will cite the notorious company Kodak as an example. Do you remember the last time you heard about her? Today, few people know about this company, because it made two mistakes in a row in strategic planning. At first, Kodak did not believe in digital cameras and decided to continue producing film cameras, remained in this segment (the production of digital equipment was expensive at one time). But time has shown that digital technologies have replaced film by 99%. For the second time, the company did not believe in mobile phone cameras: if they cost only a few dollars, what can you earn from them? But the manufacturers did not take into account the gigantic volumes of innovation - now almost every phone has a camera.

Exist two business models:

1) reactive. Analyzing the Kodak example, one can understand that its behavior in the market was reactive: the reaction to changes was belated. If the company had even invested in mobile cameras, it might not have had time to skim off the cream, but it would have remained afloat;

2) proactive. It means looking further and analyzing the essence of things, predicting the chain of events and customer needs, testing and trying everything new. Here it is especially important to “catch the wave”, and for this you need to look for it.

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“As a rule, managers do not use really effective strategies and choose the approach that entails the least risk. The best solution is worth nothing when you fail in front of your colleagues.”

— Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

In his book Moneyball, Michael Lewis tells the story of how a new kind of data analysis revolutionized the way baseball scouts and recruits work and changed the game overnight. In 2002, the Oakland Athletics were the only team to use predictive analytics to make decisions about their roster. That season, they managed to win 20 matches in a row, and therefore their approach worked quite well. In 2004, all baseball teams started using this system in an attempt to achieve the same results.

Marketers often fall into the same trap as yesterday's baseball scouts: We're used to using data to measure past performance rather than predict future actions.

By adhering to well-known marketing techniques, you actually maintain the status quo, and only the use of additional tools can be the most important competitive advantage for you on the path to success.

Proactive vs Reactive Marketing

The point of reactive marketing is to get you to react to the data as soon as possible. Consider this example: In July, Chris, an eCommerce manager for a sports ticketing company, checks the last month's records and sees that a large number of women between the ages of 25 and 40 were buying tickets to Oakland Athletics matches.

In August, he launches an email newsletter and SEM (search engine marketing) campaign to sell tickets to this audience segment. In October, he sees that the surge in active purchases has subsided, and stops the campaign. Chris used a relatively simple marketing ploy, but it allowed him to make short-term profits before the end of the season.

On the other hand, in proactive marketing, data is used to identify factors that can contribute to positive growth, and the results of previous campaigns are not so important here. This allows you to create more enticing experiences and get more value for each user at a granular level.

Imagine that one of those clients, say Lindsey, buys tickets regularly for the purpose of organizing corporate events for her company. Chris could have been proactive and sold her seasonal baseball tickets. He could design micro-campaigns based on Lindsey's interests and develop targeted fan letters that would impact overall sales, revenue, and long-term performance.

As a proactive marketer, you can be guided not only by obvious information (last purchase, demographics, visit frequency), but also by more hidden data (behavior, interests) across all channels. This way you will always know what your next message should be and what your customers will want in the future. Plus, by getting to the bottom of each customer, you can leverage important user characteristics to increase engagement, retention, and growth.

7 Steps to Proactive Marketing

Designing an impressive user experience based on data is not easy. But still, leading eCommerce companies have at their disposal a variety of techniques - from advanced artificial intelligence - to help them make better decisions in terms of the needs of the target audience.

Below we list 7 tips to help you become a more proactive marketer:

1. Access your data in real time to avoid miscalculations

The most useful data is the one you already have! This is first-order data or information collected directly by the developers of the resource and the sales team. Its value is difficult to overestimate, but still try to use this asset correctly. More often than not, by the time the marketer sees the opportunity and reconfigures the campaign, the deal is already broken. Use analytic charts to improve the visibility of your data, and set up slope alerts so you can react faster to changes.

2. Send smarter emails

Writing is the perfect proactive marketing tool. You still react quickly to trends, but here the point is that you need to get ahead of them by predicting future buyer preferences. Run split tests, segment users, and use dynamic content to better target your target audience with more relevant products, headlines, and post times.

3. Tailor your marketing and landing pages to the same program

Make sure that the resource fulfills all marketing promises, because this is of paramount importance for increasing the level of engagement. Also, remember that in most cases, the behavior of users on the site characterizes their interest in email newsletters, and the opposite is also true here. Add mobile platforms to the mix and you really start to understand users and their habits more holistically.

4. Personalize. Personalize, Personalize

There is nothing more proactive than anticipating the needs of a particular client. True personalization involves observing people's behavior - what they order, what they read, when they do it, and how often - all this allows you to predict what the buyer will like at any given moment under certain conditions. Segmentation will help you develop more targeted campaigns.

5. Recognize Churn Early

Try to segment your audience into "active" and "inactive" users. Customer acquisition is complex and expensive, and if you don't proactively engage them through thoughtful emails, you're wasting too many assets. To identify churn before the problem gets worse, use the 4x4 rule: find users who visited the site at least 4 times in the last 4 months, but were not active in the last 4 weeks. Then, before it's too late, send them a newsletter about the benefits of working with you.

6. Look for Opportunities to Impress Customers

Although marketers are getting better at anticipating customer needs and targeting audiences every day, some experts believe that we risk appearing too boring. There is nothing surprising or successful in building loyalty compared to serendipity, also known as "relevant discovery". You can continue to pick up worthwhile materials and hope for success - but you have a smarter way.

7. Use the Computer: Predictive Personalization at Scale

With the right amount of data and time, an astute person is able to predict the behavior of certain audience segments. But if you want to scale this approach, you need help processing all this information. You need technology that allows you to quickly personalize and distribute content based on individual user behavior. Technology that helps people find the content, product, or service they want before they even know they want it.

using IT technologies

What is interactive marketing? This is an opportunity to “draw” a person into an exchange with you even when he is at home. That is, he begins to interact with you, without suspecting it. This is an additional touch point that allows you to build trust in you as a seller from a person who simply comes to your site. Let's see how it works.

Interactive marketing and augmented reality technologies

Here are 5 examples of the use of AR technologies (augmented reality technologies) from large global companies and small Russian enterprises.

Makeup

L'Oréal launched an app back in 2014 that allows girls to upload their photos and apply makeup to their face in real time.

More than 14,000,000 girls have already downloaded this application. For both parties, the benefit is obvious)) - the girls save time and nerves, the company strengthens relationships and increases loyalty.

Jewelry

Tiffani (a jewelry retailer) has made an app where you can select rings by trying them on your fingers in real time.

Everything is simple. You upload a photo of your hand to the app and you can cycle through all the ring options. Fast and convenient.

Interactive marketing in our work

With large companies, everything is clear. Not every company can order such an application. But almost every company that has its own website can add interactive content to itself at no tangible cost.

Here are 3 examples for you.

Print on canvas

4 years ago, we were promoting canvas printing services. Our goal was to double the number of applications without increasing the budget. That is, we needed to increase the site's conversion by 2 times - this automatically solved the problem. How did we manage to increase the efficiency of the site several times with the help of interactive?

Everything is simple! We offered each site visitor to check how the image he wants to apply will look on the canvas. It was only necessary to upload your photo through a convenient form on the site.

It was the lack of understanding of how a photograph printed on canvas would look that was one of the most frequent objections from potential clients. At that time, we had not yet conducted customer surveys and could only intuitively determine their objections. But even with a superficial analysis, it was obvious that for many buyers it was important to see the final result before printing.

And if you can also look at what frame will look best with your image, that will be just great.

I repeat. We just offered a good exchange. On the one hand, it was necessary to upload your photo to all those who doubt the original image (its quality) and how it will look in the end. And on the other hand, in response, everyone received several options for how their image would look on canvas, taking into account retouching and framing.

After uploading the photo, we asked for contacts (phone number and name) to get in touch to clarify the details and address for sending the finished layouts. And then it's all a matter of technique and your desire)). Of course, this will add work to designers. But given that the cost of the application was reduced by 3 times, you can not worry about additional costs.

Fences and gates

We do the same for one company that produces wrought iron fences and gates.

We offer to try on a suitable fence without leaving your home and choose the best option. In this case, you can immediately consult with family members.

All in all, a benefit for everyone. We get contacts of potential buyers, and they, in turn, get an opportunity to save their time, money and nerves!

Watch pawnshop

And the last example. Two months ago, I took part in the Synergy Business Plant project for the second time.

The essence of the project is that in 3 days, entrepreneurs, led by a team of experts, create a new source of customer acquisition. And they do it with their own hands.

On the first day, we, together with Evgeny Tarasov (founder of Bazium), tell and show how to increase website conversion using proven marketing technology (if you want to know the details of the technology, put "+" in the comments).

Artur Muradyan (project moderator) independently tested the idea of ​​the “Business Plant” under the guidance of Zhenya and me.

He decided to pack up the business of one of the project participants and prove that it is possible to make a new website in one day, whose conversion will be much higher than a regular website. Arthur got a watch pawnshop.

This project also managed to apply interactive.

As a call on the site, we invited all visitors to upload a photo of their watch with a strap and get an accurate cost estimate in 2 minutes.

As you understand, most people want to know the exact amount they will receive before going to a pawnshop. And you can tell it only if you see the clock itself. In general, a benefit for both parties.

I am sure that this will help many to increase the conversion of advertising. If you have more examples of the effective use of interactive on the site, write in the comments.