In conversation with Valeria Maltoni on Dell and building your brand

In this exclusive interview, Valeria Maltoni (ConversationAgent.com), Valeria talks with VentureOutsource.com about ways companies can differentiate themselves in industry and effectively communicate such distinctions through ‘conversation'.

ConversationAgent.com is recognized among the world's top marketing blogs. Valeria Maltoni is also a Fast Company Expert blogger and a contributor to The Blog Herald and Marketing Profs Daily Fix.

Read what Valeria says about Dell's successful online conversation platform; determining if your customers' decisions to ‘buy' are based on emotion or functionality, ways your company can measure communication success, and more.

VentureOutsource.com: You've defined corporate business today as a long, open conversation. As companies and their manufacturing supply chains become more global, how can corporations address the disparity in communications, especially when great distances are a factor, while remaining focused on building cohesive (global) teams that can communicate effectively and help them serve customers better?

Maltoni: I see the issue as twofold -- on one hand you have a more competitive environment due to global forces such as sourcing of cheaper materials and less expensive labor in low cost countries like China and India, on the other hand, you have a more empowered customer landscape, even in a B2B model. Let me address these separately.

Doing business in many countries has always represented a challenge for companies -- the cultural landscape within the employee base cannot be taken for granted. Today, internal alignment is one of the biggest challenges, especially for those organizations that have grown thanks to merger and acquisitions and are now suddenly facing a challenge to their core principles, which were rooted in the way business was conducted in the country where the company headquarters are located. Let me give you an example of how culture affects business practices.

A chemical manufacturing company with deep roots and materials sourcing in Europe, and a strong presence in the United States, is acquired by an Indian corporation. All of a sudden, a supply chain that had been run fairly predictably (based on capacity for a number of factories in one region of the world) is to switch sourcing to include a country much farther away.

Valeria Maltoni
President & Founder
ConversationAgent.com

Transportation issues, language barriers, and cultural differences in how the two businesses are run are only the beginning.

Now that the company is run from India, every single decision made in the countries that used to lead now need to go through an approval process not yet transparent and often discouraging. Aligning supply chain processes is only the beginning -- any delay in production will have a much greater ripple effect on customer expectations until things settle, if they ever do.

In the example above, customers have been used to a personal touch from the sales team and the product management team, as well as the supply chain. When things change for these groups and they become less involved in the day to day running of the business, the customer base experience the results -- uncertainty and lack of internal alignment will be felt externally. Hopefully, the new leadership team will invest in communications while it works out kinks in the process.

In my experience, the ‘communication' piece may not be addressed until profits begin to erode and by then it could be too late. It's a two to three year cycle of consistent dialogue to rekindle that flame, both internally and externally.

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