No Marketing in the Business Design - Motorola.doc

 PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 4 No Marketing in the Business Design - Motorola Motorola gave Iridium a business design that doomed it to failure. There was no customer voice in the ensemble of technology, manufacturing, advertising, and sales. Analysts will examine the entrails of Iridium for years to come in order to understand all the reasons why this bird could not fly. There will be rich lessons for every field of management - finance, marketing, technology, operations, leadership and organization, and sales . The plate is full for marketers. But one point stands out as a consistent problem for Motorola, the Godfather of Iridium, and many engineering companies. They deeply believe that their company is made up of engineering, manufacture, advertising and sales. Marketing is seen as little more than advertising, and only a support for sales. What engineering creates is what the sales organization must sell. In no way is marketing, which always represents the needs and wants of customers, to influence strategy, product design or price; nor should it question the existing sales organization. As far as real marketing is concerned, Motorola, like Blanche Dubois in Streetcar Named Desire, has always has to depend on the kindness of strangers. The marketing skill of automakers built the fortune of Motorola’s car radio . The marketing energy of mobile telecommunications carriers created the success of the company’s handsets. When Motorola choose to market its own product to users, as in the case of television sets, it failed. In like manner Iridium had no one to carry the marketing water . Motorola is a great company for technological innovation, but it must always find a good marketer to shape its genius to the needs and wants of the customer public. Iridium’s business design doomed the project. Motorola reached out to regional investors who had sales organizations. Japanese, Korean, Venezuelan, and other regional investors were the gateway organizations responsible for