BPM FORUM MEMBER BULLETIN

New Initiative Underway: “Improve The Return on Resource Burn”
Sponsored by BPM Forum and the CMO Council

With billions of dollars expended annually on sales and marketing, corporate leaders are taking a more penetrating look at the business value, performance and compatibility of both these functional areas. They’re among the largest line items in operating budgets yet rather than being synergistic, they’re frequently at odds. Sales complains about the volume and caliber of leads; marketing questions the ability of sales and channel groups to effectively access, engage, cultivate and convert customer prospects. Result: Vast numbers of leads that are generated at great cost often end up in untouched or fragmented repositories.

Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum is teaming with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council to undertake a major study of Lead Lifecycle Management (LLM) and Lead Conversion Economics (LCE), dubbed “Improve The Return on Resource Burn: Gauging the Cost of What’s Lost.” This news-making, Authority LeadershipT initiative will examine the value that still resides in wasted, dated, unused, or unrealized opportunities, as well as the upside business benefits of proper Prospect Harvesting Practices.

The joint study will:

• Drill into organizational, cost and business performance issues around lead waste and prospect conversion
• Identify the scope and range of problems faced by each company
• Identify and categorize the challenges, problems, concerns, characteristics, consistencies, commonalities, etc.
• Quantify views, opinions, implications, awareness, costs, prevalence and concern, around the availability, quality, and criticality of using, managing, maintaining and refreshing business leads across the organization
• Look at the resource requirements, dynamics and variables of acquiring, managing, and acting on leads, as well as factors influencing lead rejection and waste.
• Lead to the development of an LCE auditing tool and LLM best practices matrix
• Increase executive management sensitivity to ways in which LCE can be improved and marketing ROI enhanced.

The results of the study will be published in November reported to the media, and presented to members through an interactive web conference, webcast and content syndication and presentation over the Web.