Climbing the success ladder and standing atop the management hierarchy is every professional’s dream. If you are too a working professional, don’t you aspire to be one among the senior management one day? Don’t you want to be on the other side of the table – commanding, leading from the top, and setting an example for many to follow? It’s not easy definitely; getting there requires immaculate efforts, and of course, the requisite skills.One among such most vital skills is marketing. Does not sound very common when it comes to senior management roles, right? But yes, it’s a skill that’s highly valued by employers today across organisations. It is, in fact, one of the pivotal competencies of a strong senior manager. We, at Times TSW, will help you explore why and how marketing skills form an inevitable trait for senior management roles, in this article below.Marketing Skills Form the Core of the Senior Management’s ResponsibilitiesIf you thought that marketing is a task restricted to the creative marketing department of your organisation, it’s time to rethink. Competition in the corporate world has brought marketing competencies right to the lap of every employee therein. And, once you start working on augmenting them, you’d soon start treading the path of success.This is because managers must know how to promote their specific product/idea in the market amid cut-throat competition. For this, they need to polish some of the basic marketing competencies such as:Effective communication
Communication is the lifeblood of a team lead/manager. That’s common knowledge. But it shouldn’t just be restricted to interpersonal or in-house communication. Marketing is a type of professional communication that happens between organisations (B2B), as well as with potential and existing customers (B2C). If you exactly know how to market your service idea outside the four walls of your enterprise, you’d be doing immense good to the latter as well as to yourself.Out-of-the-box approaches
What’s the most impactful quality of a senior manager? Their ability to think out of the box for the most trivial or critical issues at hand; to offer creative solutions when needed. Marketing skills require you to develop analytical thinking towards project goals and requirements and present innovative ways to achieve them, both to your team as well as your customers.Keeping pace with technology
Technological changes have seeped into every phase of work functions today. You may be part of any domain in your organisation, be it IT, marketing, finance, HR, or any other, you do need to adapt yourself to fast-paced changes all along so as to surpass the competition.Moreover, you need to keep an eye open for cues all along. For instance, keep a check if the traditional means of advertising the project idea are failing to attain desired results? See if digital marketing is the new trend in the market that can put across your message more effectively? Figure out and work on your marketing strategies in accordance with changing technologies.Efficient collaboration
Marketing competencies also involve effective coordination with other departments of the organisation as you work on your product. This may require you to sit with the design team to prepare your product design/logo for promotion, or spending time with the research team to analyse consumer survey data.Since all of these activities form a part of marketing, it’s a good idea to have a working knowledge of all these essential skills so as to qualify for senior management roles.How Can Executive Education Help?Marketing is the backbone of any company today. Your product literally has no value until it’s promoted effectively in the market. And this is exactly why each department needs to possess marketing skills to stay in and beat the competition.To help the ambitious professionals of the 21st-century sharpen their marketing skills and make their way to the senior management roles, the prestigious IIM Kozhikode has introduced its Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Marketing Management (EPGCMM) programme. The one-year Interactive Learning course is aimed at providing specialised marketing management training to executives, helping them grow into senior management positions in their respective organisations. The Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Marketing Management (EPGCMM) programme can be attended in any of the Times TSW centres across India, and the sessions are delivered live via a technology platform by none other but the senior faculty from IIM Kozhikode. So come and join the EPGCMM programme to augment your marketing skills and rise as the best in the field.
Augmenting the Marketing Competencies Can Help Pave the Path to Senior Management Roles
Project Management Skills Come From Adequate Training
Project management staff can be encountered throughout large corporations in almost every department. Operations managers may sometimes perceive project management as less important than regular business operations. Managers are the individuals that take notes, write reports, prepare presentations and keep projects running smoothly. They often perform these duties but project managers’ overall responsibilities are much more important, requiring sophisticated preparation, and all management staff may benefit from a course or two in project management training.Basic training will help management understand the complexities of managing major undertakings, even if they do not opt for full project manager certification. The models that govern special ventures provide tools such as time management, problem solving, people management, flow-charting and many other skills that are beneficial to all managers in an organization. Specialized software can help provide solutions to typical management problems.Operations leaders may fail to appreciate the importance of skills for managing projects correctly. They feel that the effort is a duplication of work already performed by others. The truth, however, is that these managers are appointed to head specific temporary projects that have been identified as vital to corporate health by senior management officials. At every level, managers need the training to perform their duties in order that the undertakings they supervise will achieve their goals.Training in managing projects is generally quite comprehensive and will enable managers to solve problems and allocate resources and personnel effectively to achieve budgetary goals or improve a company’s return on its investments. Business models will provide tools that help managers solve problems that develop in any business undertaking and keep progress on track. They will be able to implement changes that steer things more closely to the desired outcome.Many regular company managers feel they know how to solve these kinds of problems based on their experience and knowledge of the company and its clients. Even the best managers can draw erroneous conclusions when they attempt to solve problems outside of a structured methodology that considers all the consequences of one action on other areas impacting business ventures. Sometimes the moist experienced managers are most susceptible to this erroneous kind of thinking. Their experience and knowledge in one area blinds them to repercussions an action may have somewhere else. Snap decisions can be costly mistakes when all parameters are not considered.Project management training provides a structured way of considering problems and seeking solutions that advance the ultimate outcomes that are desired. The analysis may seem tedious, but careful consideration can pinpoint the best solution before unnecessary expenses are incurred and valuable time wasted. Operations managers may not need all the steps and tools formal training provides, but can benefit from increased organization. They will be better able to achieve their own objectives or exceed goals.