Holistic Marketing Management Volume 5, Issue 4

Vol ume5,I ssue4,Year2015

TheodorVal ent i nPURCĂREA

Edi t ori al :Looki ng Ahead t ot he 25t h Anni versary oft he Romani an-Ameri can Uni versi ty

Cos t el I l i uț ăNEGRI CEA I oanMat ei PURCĂREA

Market ers,Chal l enged t o Meet i ng Di gi talPri ori t i es

I r i naPURCĂREA

Cul t uralEnt repreneurshi p.The I mportance ofDevel opi ng Cul t uralCompet ences Wi t hi nt he Framework ofResource Mobi l i zat i on

Moni caPaul aRAȚI U I oanMat ei PURCĂREA

Organi zi ng f or Di gi talMarket i ng Success i n Touri sm

TheodorPURCĂREA

Market ers,Chal l enged t o Prove Thei r New Ski l l s wi t hi nt he Cont extoft he Act ualTrends

Rohi t hVI SHWANATHI YER

Kanban,an Al t ernat i ve t ot he Agi l e ModelofProj ectManagement

TheodorPURCĂREA

The Lat estI ssue ofour Part ner Journal ,„Market i ng Sci ence and I nspi rat i ons” , Comeni us Uni versi ty i n Brat i sl ava,Sl ovaki a

Editorial Board of “Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Editor-in-Chief Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA

Bernd HALLIER

John SAEE

John L. STANTON

Léon F. WEGNEZ

William PERTTULA Levent ALTINAY

Andrew KILNER Dana ZADRAZILOVA Riccardo BELTRAMO Sinisa ZARIC Gabriela SABĂU Hélène NIKOLOPOULOU Vasa LÁSZLÓ Peter STARCHON John MURRAY Kamil PÍCHA Irena JINDRICHOVSKA

Holistic Marketing Management

President of European Retail Academy; President of EuCVoT, Member of the Astana Economic Scientists Club; Former Managing Director EHI Retail Institute, Germany, Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroShop, Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent, Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P. President - Association of Global Management Studies (USA); Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues; Former Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Management Systems, USA; Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology; Member of France’s National Academy of Scientific Research (CNRS); Director - ESB International Teaching and Research Exchanges, Reutlingen University, Germany Professor of Food Marketing, Erivan K. Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, USA; Director, Institute of Food Products Marketing, Editor, Journal of Food Products Marketing Secretary General, International Association of the Distributive Trade, AIDA Brussels; Member of France’s Academy of Commercial Sciences; Doctor Honoris Causa of NUPSPA (SNSPA) Bucharest; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2015 Internet Marketing Professor, College of Business, San Francisco State University, USA Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Research Area Leader, Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business, Oxford Brookes University, UK First MBA Director at the Rennes Graduate School of Business in France; Director of RAFME Research into Management Excellence; PhD (Cambridge), MBA (City, London) Faculty of International Economic Relations, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic University of Turin, Italy University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia Memorial University, Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook, Canada University of Lille 3, France Szent Istvan University, Hungary Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice Deputy Head of Department of Business Economics, University of Economics and Management, Prague, Czech Republic 1

Norbert HAYDAM Constantin ROŞCA Hans ZWAGA Roxana CODITA Dumitru MIRON Valeriu IOAN-FRANC Iacob CĂTOIU Virgil BALAURE Gheorghe ORZAN Luigi DUMITRESCU Marius D. POP Petru FILIP

Ion VOICU SUCALA Virgil POPA Alexandru NEDELEA Olguța Anca ORZAN Ana-Maria PREDA Ovidiu FOLCUȚ Doinița CIOCÎRLAN Marius Dan DALOTĂ Mihai PAPUC Gheorghe ILIESCU Alexandru IONESCU Olga POTECEA Oana PREDA Nicoleta DUMITRU Monica Paula RAȚIU Costel NEGRICEA Elisabeta Andreea BUDACIA

Faculty of Business, Marketing Department, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa President of Romanian Scientific Society of Management - SSMAR Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences, Finland Technische Universität München, TUM School of Management Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy; Romanian Marketing Association; Romanian Distribution Committee Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Management and Economic Engineering Department; University of Glasgow, UK, College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences; Managing Editor, Review of Management and Economic Engineering Valahia University of Târgovişte Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University

Associate Editors Diana SOCA Irina PURCĂREA Dan SMEDESCU Art Designer Director Alexandru BEJAN

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“Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Volume 5, Issue 4, Year 2015

Contents

Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA - Editorial: Looking Ahead to the 25th Anniversary of the Romanian-American University…………………………4

Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA - Marketers, Challenged to Meeting Digital Priorities………………............7 Ioan Matei PURCĂREA

Irina PURCĂREA - Cultural Entrepreneurship. The Importance of Developing Cultural Competences Within the Framework of Resource Mobilization………………………………...15

Monica Paula RAȚIU - Organizing for Digital Marketing Success in Tourism………………………...22 Ioan Matei PURCĂREA

Theodor PURCĂREA - Marketers, Challenged to Prove Their New Skills within the Context of the Actual Trends………………………………………………………………….28 Rohith VISHWANATH IYER - Kanban, an Alternative to the Agile Model of Project Management..36

Theodor PURCĂREA - The Latest Issue of our Partner Journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia…………………………………44

The responsibility for the contents of the scientific and the authenticity of the published materials and opinions expressed rests with the author.

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Editorial: Looking Ahead to the 25th Anniversary of the Romanian-American University As devoted participants at the seasonal academic symphony of the Romanian-American University (RAU), we enjoy waiting for the 25th spring, knowing that each spring comes with its own meaningful palette belonging to the eyes that can see this unique palette. Now is the right moment to look back and look ahead at how far we have come.

Time was on our side… Time as “the longest distance between two places” (according to Tenessee Wiliams), allowed us to better understand the words of the famous Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi – “To see far is one thing, going there is another” – thanks to the unforgettable valuable contribution of the distinguished Founding-President and Rector of the Romanian-American University (1991-2008) Professor ION SMEDESCU, Ph.D. who made a constant and coherent effort to transpose in the academic landscape powerful ideas specific to the „cultural architect” that is his beloved „Marketing”, advocating for „intelligent growth”, and often speaking of the necessity of the conscious sense of the ordinance, of the beauty, in order to perform a task the right way, in joyful communion.

Let us recall that the Court of Law of 1st Sector, Bucharest, issued its Ruling no.

295/17.04.1991 “as per art 32 of the Decree no. 31/1954 and art 84 and the following of the Law 21/1924” and granted legal personality to the Romanian-American University (accredited by law in 2002, and receiving the qualification “High confidence rating” from the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education – ARACIS – in 2010 and 2015). The end of 1991 witnessed the enactment and vote of the Constitution of Romania, by means of each private education was legally recognized as part of the national system of education, and under these new provisions, at the initiative of Professor ION SMEDESCU, Ph.D., on December 11, 1991, the “Romanian-American Foundation for Promoting Education and Culture” (FRAPEC, whose purpose was “the promotion and dissemination of Romanian cultural and civic education values in America and of American values in Romania”) was established (the formal recognition of FRAPEC came by the Ruling no.34/22.01.1992 of the Court of Law of 1st Sector, Bucharest).

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It is worth remembering that within the calendar of events dedicated to the RAU’s 20th Anniversary, on April 12, 2011, an impressive launch of a „Marketing” (english version) book took place, book written by a group of authors under the coordination of Professor ION SMEDESCU. „Respect”, communication”, and „accountability” were the key words on this special occasion. Professor ION SMEDESCU did set himself as a standard becoming voluntarily accepted by his colleagues, bringing all of them renewed trust, hope and inspiration, year by year. Professor ION SMEDESCU did so much for the Romanian-American University and its students, showing an extraordinary intellect, a strong commitment and dedication to providing a quality education, sharing a true love of learning and for the University and bringing a real sense of belonging to all those privileged for participating in the RAU academic life.

Professor ION SMEDESCU, Ph.D. was the design thinker of the holistic marketing management framework which enabled RAU academic community to adequately answer to the challenge of establishing the right goals, and of making the right decisions and monitoring on the way of identifying new opportunities, of creating more promising new values offering, of using capabilities and infrastructure to deliver, year by year, the new RAU offerings more efficiently within the value chain, by proving the commitment in value exploration, creation and delivery.

And as a fact which speaks for itself of RAU proper evolution, allow us to also recall that on October 1, 2015, on the occasion of the official opening of the new 2015-2016 academic year at RAU, held in the Aula Magna, in the presence of students, graduate students, teachers and distinguished guests, RAU Rector Ovidiu Folcut and Professor Dumitru Miron, President of the Romanian-American Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture have reconfirmed: Holistic Marketing Management

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that at RAU knowledge is managed towards wisdom, competing on learning how to build trust and accountability by promoting a better relationship between education and practice, fostering innovation as a multi-dimensional challenge; the continuous RAU’s qualitative preoccupation with a better understanding of students’ rising needs and expectations in academic quality, employability and the facilities offered to them, and delivering further innovation, by making research sustainable, and adequately utilizing technology in integrating and improving administration and student support, while best approaching the increasingly international context and responsibly and accountably teaching students to adequately apply what they have learned.

As we prepare to celebrate our 25th Anniversary, please allow us to express our congratulations to our RAU Academic Family on this wonderful journey the RomanianAmerican University has taken to get here, proving both all of its hard work and determination to continue to express our dreams for the future! We will feel deeply honored and privileged to be able to share again with all HMM Readers the joy and pleasure of this this RAU celebration.

Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor - in - Chief

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Marketers, challenged to meeting digital priorities Dr. Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA Ioan Matei PURCĂREA Abstract There is a real need of talent and leadership to approach digital marketing challenges, by having a more active digital agenda, doing periodic assessments and developing action plans to improve company’s execution, raising awareness for digital marketing among the executive staff.

Marketers must avoid mistakes in the process of realizing digital marketing success, and reflect the brand and consumer interest, also paying attention to right managing their company’s reputation online, fixing the problems signaled by customers and ensuring customers know marketers care and they are just looking for relief. Marketers are also challenged to create an integrated marketing experience across multiple channels, building the proper capabilities to support digital marketing operations accordingly, taking customers’ insights and developing and delivering a seamless omnichannel customer experience.

Keywords: Digital marketers; Digital agenda; Manipurated; Omnichannel customer experience; Digital marketing operations JEL Classification: L86; M15; M31; M37; O33 For a more active digital agenda In our previous article we talked about the emergence of new ecosystems thanks to digital disruption, the marketers’ need of bringing marketing operations into the digital era, by enhancing the customer journey and shifting consumer behavior with the help of the digital tools (while actively encouraging feedback from users, and building a circle of trust with the company’s audience), and by better understanding the connections among business functions and applications and identifying the digital opportunities. (Negricea and Purcarea, 2015) Right after publishing this article we came across the results of “Cracking the digital code: McKinsey Global Survey results”, September 2015.

According to this new valuable McKinsey Global Survey, digital’s promise seems more of a hope than a reality because of insufficient talent or leadership (which tops a longer list of complex challenges), only digital “high performers” having a more active digital agenda, that is confirmed by a triptych: taking more risks in their digital programs; moving faster to implement initiatives; reallocating their resources and their best people to digital work. (Bughin, Holley and Mellbye, 2015) McKinsey’s representatives showed, among other aspects, the following: digital trends are changing fundamental aspects of the ways that companies do business, the digital engagement of customers being the top priority on their agendas, and automation and/or the Holistic Marketing Management

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improvement of business processes climbing (automation being a greater focus in manufacturing, while big data being a top priority in healthcare, for example); in response to digital companies have adapted products, services, and touchpoints to better address customer needs, the review of the portfolio for opportunities and challenges caused by digital trends being the most common change to corporate-level strategy; there is a variety of hurdles reflecting the complexity and difficulty of implementing a successful digital program (a lack of leadership or digital talent – and here especially analytics, data science, mobile development and user experience – as shown above, a limited understanding of how digital trends affect the company and industry, difficulty keeping pace with digital development, an inability to adopt an experimentation mind-set, misaligned incentives between digital and traditional businesses). On the other hand, for developing a successful digital program it is recommendable to learn lessons from high performers, by following practices such as: building a risk-taking culture; putting your money (and resources) where your mouth is; dedicate the best people to digital, and then keep them engaged; move quickly; lead from the top. McKinsey’s representatives concluded by highlighting the companies’ need for perspective on: scaling up digital with an integrated approach; getting the board involved; bringing a digital rhythm to corporate strategy.

Digital marketers, challenged to systematically review key areas while assessing themselves As a recognized valuable digital marketing software company, Silverpop (constantly focused on helping marketers transform the customer experience, increasing engagement and driving revenue) pledges for periodic assessments done properly, comparing to benchmarks where possible and developing action plans to improve company’s execution, raising awareness for digital marketing among the executive staff and helping get budget buy-in for new campaigns. (Silverpop, 2015) In this respect, Silverpop recommends marketers: ▪ to take a closer look at the following areas: Target Market (the “email magnet” - the offer company make to encourage anonymous website visitors to sign up for company’s email list should contain some of company’s best content and educate prospects while providing information about company’s culture and brand); Pipeline (B2B marketers: how many companies and people at each stage in the buying cycle, time it took to progress through each step, new content, incentive or other tactic, new communication channel introduced into the mix etc.; B2C marketers: lifetime customer revenue for every customer, purchase frequency, average time from opt-in to first purchase and from first to second purchase, a scoring model etc.); Content (inventory: content piece name/ stage in buying cycle it’s being used/ who is consuming?/ how often accessed or downloaded this year or time period/ action needed - update, promote, educate, retire; think about content in terms of three considerations: Format - white papers, webinars, videos; Channel - email, social media, SMS; Buying cycle phases - interested, educated, lapsed); Engagement (how well marketers are communicating with contacts, customers and prospects separately; if that is the case, consider initiating an “early reactivation” Holistic Marketing Management

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program that would “listen” for early signs of disengagement, fostering interactions with those contacts; consider taping the power of behavioral marketing to deliver more relevant content); Technology and Skills (current use of marketing department’s digital platform as well as marketers’ skill levels in each of these areas; continuous education for staying on top of both industry trends and technology enhancements); Mobile Marketing (how mobile-engaged is company’s audience; processes in place to capture telephone numbers; how engaged is company’s mobile app audience etc.; mobile worksheet: mobile email experience/ email performance, desktop vs. mobile/ preferred mobile device types); Social Media (processes and resources in place to listen, evaluate and respond to social conversations; encouraging customers to share their experience on social media; using social to drive database growth; social campaigns of the marketing team aligned with other team members’ initiatives ; adding advertising tools that enable marketers to connect with prospects that meet certain key criteria; striking the right balance between promotional and nonpromotional posts); ▪ to sidestepping a few mistakes marketers commonly make when performing a self-evaluation (a list courtesy of Rich Wilson, creative director at Big Scary Cranium): not thinking about overall goals; neglecting to tie features to goals; ignoring the metrics that matter; underestimating company’s database; overlooking the customer’s buying process; not testing assumptions.

Within this framework allow us to also note that right at the beginning of December this year significant mistakes made in the process of realizing digital marketing success were highlighted, such as: lack of audience understanding, lack of planning and focus, unrealistic expectations, unrealistic budgeting, too many social media platforms, forgetting the importance of content and of mobile, forgetting to measure results, using old-school SEO (not providing valuable content and non-creating natural inbound and outbound links), failing to use a combination of offline and online marketing strategies. Today, when print advertising includes digital marketing information, and multilevel campaign not only reach consumers but connect with them on a deeper level, marketers are challenged to reflect both the brand and consumer interest, by developing digital marketing practices accordingly. (Moyers, 2015) In what concerns Mobile Marketing area, let us note that this year, according to eMarketer’s first-ever estimates of mobile phone messaging app usage around the world, nearly 93 million people in Central and Eastern Europe will use such apps at least monthly (up 49.3% over 2014 usage levels), this being the highest growth rate of any region in the world. Central and Eastern Europe region is also characterized by the second-fastest-growing mobile phone internet market overall, with a 16.3% increase in users this year. (eMarketer, 2015) On the other hand, with respect to Content area, it is worth underlining that according to a recent report from Apester (based on data from over 250 million monthly page views, engagements, and social media shares of content from major online publishers), which examined which types of content were most often shared on male-orientated websites compared with female-oriented websites, men are more likely to share online content pieces that are shorter in Holistic Marketing Management

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length, have the potential to spark debate, and are about timely topics. This analysis also found among others that content pieces with a high number of shares on the male-orientated sites tended to ask debatable questions and/or include controversial opinion-driven commentary.

(Nanji, 2015) Another recent report (based on data from an ongoing survey of thousands of Internet users in 34 countries) from GlobalWebIndex (Nanji, 2015) found that men and women are equally likely to own a tablet (44% of each group say they do), 44% of global online adults age 16-64 saying they own a tablet, but only 70% of tablet owners saying they have been online using their device in the past month (compared with 92% of desktop/laptop owners in the past month and 83% of smartphone owners), older age groups leading for tablet ownership.

From “Manipulated” to “Manipurated” According to the opinion expressed on Jul 1, 2012 by a Forbes Contributor, Nir Eyal (Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; blogger about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com; founder of two startups; advisor to several Bay Area companies and incubators), we have all experienced manipulation, which is a designed experience crafted to change behavior, all those involved in the consumer web industry being in the manipulation business. Eyal cited the famed game creator and professor Ian Bogost, who called the wave of habit-forming technologies the “cigarette of this century” and warned of its dangers. Eyal also offered a “Manipulation Matrix” (as a simple decision support tool), which seeks to help you answer not the question, “Can I hook users?” but “Should I attempt to?” Also other two questions to ask are needed in order to use this matrix: “Will I use the product myself?” “Will the product help users materially improve their lives?”

(Eyal, 2012)

Figure no. 1: Manipulation Matrix Source: EYAL, Nir - The Art of Manipulation, Jul 1, 2012, http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/01/the-art-ofmanipulation/

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On December 1, 2015, Daniel Lemin, digital marketing and online reputation strategist (at Convince & Convert), published his book entitled “MANIPURATED”. (Lemin, 2015) Lemin explained clearly that amazing businesses can be permanently damaged with a few bad reviews, managing a reputation online requiring skills and tactics that are not always intuitive to business owners. This book authored by Lemin, “Manipurated”, is considered a manifesto for business owners struggling against an online ratings and reviews industry that is holding their businesses hostage through manipulative practices. (manipurated.com) Next day, on December 02, 2015, MarketingProfs revealed that Lemin was invited by Kerry O'Shea Gorgone (instructional design manager of enterprise training at MarketingProfs; hosts and producer of the weekly Marketing Smarts podcast) to a challenging conversation to Marketing Smarts about online reviews and ratings (episode brought by Experian Marketing Services). This conversation revealed among others that: negative comments must be seen as helpful feedback rather than as unjustified whining; to avoid a bad review, make it easy to get in touch with you and fix the problem first; no response is the worst response to a negative review, just ensure that your customers know you care and you’re just looking for relief; follow the money, because there’s money to be made with fake reviews. (O'Shea Gorgone, 2015)

Digital marketers, challenged to create an integrated marketing experience across multiple channels. The Big Five Capabilities to support digital marketing operations However or whenever customers decide to interact with companies’ brands, marketers have to be ready to offer them a seamless experience, and in today’s data-driven marketing world that means to create an integrated marketing experience across multiple channels, and – pay attention - with a personal touch. Email, Display Advertising, Social, Direct Mail, Mobile, SEO (Organic Search) are already usual marketing channels (of course, in order to get your message across various touchpoints, print advertising, telemarketing, tradeshows, and broadcast may also be effective), the most effective channels varying by industry. (Bedgood, 2015) The market leader in omnichannel customer experience (CX) and contact center solutions in the cloud and on-premises, Genesys, (eBook, 2015) recommends six best practices for a seamless omnichannel customer experience (its Customer Experience Platform powering optimal customer journeys consistently across all touchpoints, channels and interactions to turn customers into brand advocates): Design (identify your target customer segments & what matters to each of them; baseline the current customer journey for each segment; prioritize your focus & map out the “to be” customer journey) ; Implementation (use context; identify the customer experience (cx) & operational metrics to measure success; adjust “the 3rs” - resources, routing and reporting - to operationalize the experience). Just take a look at the “big picture” of how “Genesys delivers a seamless omnichannel customer experience”:

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Figure no. 2: Genesys delivers a seamless omnichannel customer experience Source: Genesis - Best practices for a seamless omnichannel customer experience, eBook, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.genesys.com/about-genesys/resources/best-practices-for-a-seamless-omnichannel-customer-experience, 12/4/2015

And allow us to consider that within this framework it is the proper time and place for remembering “The Big Five Capabilities to support digital marketing operations� according to the vision exposed by McKinsey&Company’s representatives in July 2015, (Edelman and Heller, 2015) as shown in the figure below:

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Figure no. 3: The Big Five Capabilities to support digital marketing operations Source: EDELMAN, David and HELLER, Jason - How digital marketing operations can transform busines, McKinsey & Company, McKinsey Digital July 2015, p. 3.

And as a conclusion…

Indeed, as the above mentioned McKinsey&Company’s representatives concluded: “… it’s never been more important to use data to map customers’ DNA, understand exactly what they want, and then take those insights to develop and deliver a superior (and flawless) customer experience”.

References NEGRICEA, Costel Iliuta & PURCAREA, Ioan Matei, 2015. "Digital Marketer: Facing Digital Marketing Opportunities, “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal, vol. 5(3), pages 20-25.

BUGHIN, Jacques, HOLLEY, Andy, and MELLBYE, Anette - Cracking the digital code: McKinsey Global Survey results, September 2015, retrieved from: http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/Business_Technology/Cracking_the_digital_code?cid=digita l-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1509, 9/26/2015 Silverpop - Ultimate guide to assessing your digital marketing program, Silverpop, an IBM company, retrieved from: http://aml.com.au/downloads/dm_resources/Digital-MarketingAssessment-Ebook-Silverpop.pdf, 11/9/2015 MOYERS, Stephen - The 11 Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make With Digital Marketing, December 8, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2015/28989/thebiggest-mistakes-entrepreneurs-make-with-digital-marketing#ixzz3tqV1GCX9, 12/9/2015 eMarketer - Central & Eastern Europe Is World's Fastest-Growing Mobile Messaging Market, Dec 8, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Central-Eastern-Europe-WorldsFastest-Growing-Mobile-Messaging-Market/1013312, 12/8/2015 NANJI, Ayaz - Content Types Men Share Most, December 8, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2015/28995/content-types-men-sharemost#ixzz3tqVKiz7c, 12/9/2015 NANJI, Ayaz - Tablet Ownership by Age, Gender, and Income, December 2, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2015/28943/tablet-ownership-by-age-gender-andincome#ixzz3tB5WjWh9, 12/2/2015 Holistic Marketing Management

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EYAL, Nir - The Art of Manipulation, Jul 2, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2015/12/13/j-p-morgan-boa-citi-and-wells-spending1-5-billion-to-battle-cyber-crime/, 12/14/2015 LEMIN, Daniel - Manipurated: How Business Owners Can Fight Fraudulent Online Ratings and Reviews, December 1, 2015, Quill Driver Books MANIPURATED, http://www.manipurated.com/ O'SHEA GORGONE, Kerry - When Your Reputation Is on the Line (and Online): 'Manipurated' Author Lemin on Marketing Smarts [Podcast], December 02, 2015, retrived from: http://www.marketingprofs.com/podcasts/2015/28944/online-reviews-daniel-lemin-marketingsmarts#ixzz3tB6DDCCy, 12/2/2015 BEDGOOD, Larisa - Did You Know Multi-Channel Customers Spend 3-4 Times More? Here’s 6 Ways to Get on Board! , November 20, 2015, retrieved from: http://customerthink.com/didyou-know-multi-channel-customers-spend-3-4-times-more-heres-6-ways-to-get-on-board/, 12/4/2015 Genesis - Best practices for a seamless omnichannel customer experience, eBook, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.genesys.com/about-genesys/resources/best-practices-for-a-seamlessomnichannel-customer-experience, 12/4/2015 EDELMAN, David and HELLER, Jason - How digital marketing operations can transform business , McKinsey & Company, McKinsey Digital July 2015, pp. 3, 6.

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Cultural entrepreneurship. The importance of developing cultural competences within the framework of resource mobilization Dr. Irina PURCĂREA, ESC Rennes School of Business, France

Abstract A greater understanding of the relationship between cultural issues and entrepreneurial activity is important because of its implication for national and regional development and growth. This paper looks at cultural entrepreneurship from the perspective of the cultural competences a cultural entrepreneur needs to master with the view to grow their venture, with a special focus on the process of resource mobilization. It begins with providing an overview of literature on cultural entrepreneurship, then moves on to present the types of capital involved in resource mobilization and presents interesting insight on the way cultural entrepreneurs are able to use their competences in acquiring resources and helping their venture grow.

Keywords: cultural entrepreneurship, competences, resources JEL: M 13

Introduction The essence of culture is creativity and creative economies have the potential to foster social inclusion, cultural diversity and human development. Entrepreneurship represents one key element which contributes to the sustainable development of the creative industries. At the same time, differences in entrepreneurial activity among countries, and regions within those countries, are persistent and cannot be fully explained by institutional and economic variables, so that a substantial part of these differences has been attributed to culture.

When referring to cultural entrepreneurship research, there is a recent trend to view culture less in terms of ‘public constraints’ and rather as ‘public resources’ that they can draw on in order to devise strategies in line with their own interests or those of their organization (Weber & Dacin, 2011; Swidler, 2001).

The concept of cultural entrepreneurship Cultural beliefs and attitudes are passed on from generation to generation through vertical (parent and child), horizontal (peers and media) or oblique (teachers and similar sources) Holistic Marketing Management

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transmission channels. The role of the cultural entrepreneur is to coordinate such beliefs and fuse them into a coherent doctrine that others can share and develop and in this way make change effective (Mokyr, 2013).

Useful in understanding cultural entrepreneur is how the entrepreneur concept has travelled from economics to sociology (Fine, 2001). Focault (1991) uses the notion of governmentality to trace how neo-liberalism’s emphasis on markets and active individualism interlace to enhance entrepreneurial subjectivities. Du Gay (1996) refers to the application of entrepreneurial outlooks to the problems of everyday life. Swedberg (2006) views „cultural entrepreneurship” as „the carrying out of a novel combination that results in something new and appreciated in the cultural sphere’’.

Researchers point to the importance of focusing on cultural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial stories particularly in the context of the earliest stages of entrepreneurial venture formation, when entrepreneurs begin to form a picture of who they are, what they want to do, why they are qualified and why they think they will succeed. Aldrich and Fiol (1994, cited in Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001) emphasize the role of culture in entrepreneurship stating that: „founders [of new ventures] who utilize encompassing symbolic language and behaviors will gain competitive legitimacy more quickly than others”. And, as Lounsbury and Glynn (2001) suggest, one mechanism that can be employed is that of storytelling. Lounsbury and Glynn (2001) suggest that stories are an integral part of the construction of new ventures, acquisition of needed capital and generation of new wealth, thus defining cultural entrepreneurship as „ the process of storytelling that mediates between extant stocks of entrepreneurial resources and subsequent capital acquisition and wealth creation”. Using crowdfunding mechanisms, entrepreneurs construct storylines that communicate not only static information, but also establish an interactive narrative through specific online-related features (Frydrych et al., 2014). The video pitch and text narrative provided by the entrepreneur appear to be the main tools for conveying a compelling narrative.

Social and cultural capital Ellmeier (2003) observes that cultural entrepreneurship is a practice that occurs „sans capital”.

The ability to acquire the right finances in a proper way is one of the attributes of a good cultural entrepreneur. To construct ‘buzz’ relatively sans economic capital, cultural entrepreneurs draw on different combinations of social, cultural, symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1997).

Social capital refers to social contacts and networks that that offer recognition and benefits of shared resources. For some cultural industries, social capital can be perceived as the primary form for cultural entrepreneurs (Scott, 2012). Bourdieu’s (1986) influential work explores how various forms of capital reproduce social structures. The notion of cultural entrepreneurship introduced by Bourdieu (1997) includes dispositions such as ways of speaking and acting that are Holistic Marketing Management

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manifestation of historically transmitted cultural knowledge. The concept points to the fact that certain views on human capital ignore how the education system and parental nurturing reproduce social structures. Symbolic capital denotes distinctions such as accumulated prestige, reputation, honour and fame (Bourdieu, 1991). Cultural entrepreneurship requires mobilization and conversion of alternative capitals to construct ‚buzz’. „Social capital creates opportunities for the music producer to convert cultural capital manifest in recordings into symbolic and economic capital” (Scott , 2012) .

The circumstances in which people operate influence whether they qualify as cultural entrepreneurs or not, meaning that cultural conditions matter. In the USA for example, it might be much easier to appeal for private support than in the European continent. European cultural entrepreneurship will, therefore, have a different character and may make for a different narrative.

Entrepreneur competence and resources build up According to Aageson (2008), cultural entrepreneurs are: […] risk takers, change agents and resourceful visionaries who generate revenue from innovative and sustainable cultural enterprises that enhance livelihood and create cultural value for both creative producers and consumers of cultural services and products […]. [They] do have common characteristics around the globe that include being passionate, visionary, innovative, risk takers, net-workers and leaders.

Skilled cultural action is crucial for entrepreneurs in order to attract resources to develop and grow their new organization.

A number of researchers argue that the qualities entrepreneurs bring to new ventures largely depend on resources built up through their education and experience (Mosey and Wright, 2007; Rae and Carswell, 2001; Serneels, 2008). The concept of cultural capital highlights how supportive parents transfer positive values regarding education and hard work, to make learning an enjoyable experience for their children. In doing so, they influence their children’s own perception of the value of education evident in the positive development of their knowledge, skills and attitudes (human capital). Überbacher et al. (2015) developed a theoretical model of how entrepreneurs develop cultural competences in the market domains where they situate their new organizations. The model was based on the findings of their longitudinal, exploratory case study of how Frederic – their case entrepreneur – created and grew the corporate venture BluePublic in the public sector outsourcing market in a large European country.

The model presents two processes of adaptive sensemaking – an approval-driven sensemaking process and an autonomy-driven sensemaking process – as necessary for entrepreneurs to Holistic Marketing Management

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develop their cultural skills. Gaining cultural awareness or becoming aware of one’s external environment is a key component of adaptive sensemaking and necessary for competent cultural entrepreneurship.

Fig.1: Theoretical Model: How Entrepreneurs Develop Cultural Competences.

Source: Überbacher et al. , 2015

Recognizing cultural resources invloves awareness of unexpected similarities between the company and the cultural frames and expectations of public sector authorities and awareness of unexpected contrasts between the company and competing private sector companies.

Recognizing cultural constraints, a component of the entrepreneur’s broader ‘autonomy-driven sensemaking’, creates awareness of unexpected contrasts between the company and the cultural frames and expectations of public sector authorities as well as a joint realization of unexpected similarities between the company and competing private sector companies.

‘Calibrating’ symbolic enactments refer to better adapting and tuning the crafted business identity claims to the contingencies of the cultural context of the targeted public sector authorities. Two concepts appear here: symbolic coupling and symbolic decoupling. Symbolic coupling refers to the gradual process of more tightly ‘aligning’ the symbolic representation of the company with enabling public sector frames via mobilization of analogies to create Holistic Marketing Management

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similarities between aspects of the company and public sector frames as well emphasizing the way in which the company differentiates from competitors. Symbolic decoupling on the other hand, aims at avoiding recognized cultural constraints by symbolically ‘shielding’ the venture from cultural frames that threatened the viability of the company.

Fig. 2: Process model of cultural entrepreneurship Source: Lounsbury and Glynn , 2001

Lounsbury and Glynn (2001) consider two important types of capital acquisition, namely resource capital and institutional capital. They provide a process model of cultural entrepreneurship (fig.2) that looks at how entrepreneurs must tell stories about their stock of capital in order to identify and legitimate their new ventures which will enable enable the acquisition of new capital and, ultimately, the generation of wealth. The authors view resource capital as a broad category that encompasses a variety of more specific kinds of capital such as technological capital, financial capital, human capital, intellectual capital, and social capital that are important ingredients for the success of both entrepreneurs and established organizations. On the other hand, institutional-level capital as consisting of three main industry-level elements: industry legitimacy (the degree to which the products and services offered by organizations in a given industry are accepted as appropriate and useful by broader publics), industry norms and rules, and industry infrastructure.

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Conclusion The aim of our paper has been to investigate on the importance of building entrepreneur’s cultural competences in attracting resources to grow their businesses. Becoming a skilled cultural operator accordingly means that entrepreneurs should gradually become aware and deepen their understanding of context-specific cultural resources, opportunities and constraints, and to translate their evolved understanding into updated and better calibrated strategic actions.

The model proposed by Überbacher et al. (2015) emphasizes the critical role of ‘decoupling’ as entrepreneurs create, locate and grow new organizations in their external cultural environments. Decoupling – and coupling– thus constitute key symbolic competences that entrepreneurs may need to develop and master. As Lounsbury and Glynn (2001) pointed out, „entrepreneurs need to learn to become skilled cultural operatives who can develop stories about who they are and how their resources or ideas will lead to future benefits for consumers and society”. The same authors advocate for detailed ethnographic studies of entrepreneurs at early conception stages for a better understanding of how some entrepreneurs are able to make it to the stage of formal organizational creation while others fall by the wayside, showing that processes of cultural entrepreneurship may be a particularly key element in revealing what separates potential ‘winners’ from ‘losers.’

References Denis Frydrych, Adam J. Bock, Tony Kinder & Benjamin Koeck (2014), Exploring entrepreneurial legitimacy in reward-based crowdfunding, Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, 16:3, 247-269, DOI: 10.1080/13691066.2014.916512 Du Gay, P. (1996). Consumption and Identity at Work. Sage, London Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In: Burchell, G., Gordon, C., Miller, P. (Eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, UK, pp.

87–104.

Ellmeier, A. (2003). Cultural entrepreneurialism: on the changing relationship between the arts, culture and employment. International Journal of Cultural Policy 9 (1), 3–16.

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Swedberg, R. (2006). The cultural entrepreneur and the creative industries: beginning in Vienna.

Journal of Cultural Economy 30 (4), 243–261

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Fine, B. (2001). Social Capital versus Social Theory: Political Economy and Social Science at the Turn of the Millennium. Routledge, London Bourdieu, P. (1997). The forms of capital. In: Halsey, A., Lauder, H., Brown, P., Wells, A. (Eds.), Education: Culture, Economy, and Society. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp.

46–58.

Scott, M. (2012), Cultural entrepreneurs, cultural entrepreneurship: Music producers mobilising and converting Bourdieu’s alternative capitals, Poetics 40 , 237–255 Aageson, T.H. (2008), “Cultural entrepreneurs: producing cultural value and wealth”, in Anheier, H.K., Isar, Y.R. and Paul, A. (Eds), The Cultural Economy, SAGE, Los Angeles, CA, pp. 93-107.

Bourdieu P (ed.) (1986) The Forms of Capital. New York: Greenwood Publishing Dilani J. et al (2014), Entrepreneurial potential: The role of human and cultural capitals, International Small Business Journal, Vol. 32(8), 918–943 Mosey S and Wright M (2007) From human capital to social capital: A longitudinal study of technologybased academic entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice 31: 909–935.

Rae D and Carswell M (2001) Towards a conceptual understanding of entrepreneurial learning.

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 8(2): 150–158.

Serneels P (2008) Human capital revisited: The role of experience and education when controlling for performance and cognitive skills. Labour Economics 15(6): 1143–1161. Überbacher, F. et al. (2015), How Entrepreneurs Become Skilled Cultural Operators, Organization Studies , Vol. 36(7) 925–951 Weber, K., & Dacin, M. T. (2011). The cultural construction of organizational life. Organization Science, 22, 1–12.

Swidler, A. (2001). Talk of love: how culture matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Joel Mokyr (2013) Cultural entrepreneurs and the origins of modern economic growth, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 61:1, 1-33, DOI:10.1080/03585522.2012.755471

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Organizing for digital marketing success in tourism Dr. Monica Paula RAȚIU Ioan Matei PURCĂREA Abstract We are in full mobile revolution and there are increased opportunities for personalized marketing through digital platforms. Customers are continuing to spend more hours a day on a mobile device, still wanting connection, context, and convenience. In order to keep pace with their expectations, there is a real need of investing in mobile, in online distribution channels, being on a continuous test-and-learn loop, attracting online shoppers, increasing conversion rates, and having data mining tools to assess customer choices and understand the customer’s preferences and booking patterns.

Keywords: Mobile revolution; Consumers’ app preferences; Test-and-learn loop; CARE; DCA JEL Classification: L83; L86; M31; O33

The travel-industry landscape is shifting, mobile apps being the way forward In April 2015, Heather Linton (a Ph.D. student in the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration), and Rob Kwortnik, Ph.D. (an associate professor of services marketing) asked a challenging question: “(Cornell Hospitality Report) The Mobile Revolution Is Here: Are You Ready?” (Linton and Kwortnik, 2015) They started in their approach from the fact that the remarkable connectivity of today’s travelers allows them to make travel arrangements and share information before, during, and after their trips, each phase of the travel cycle requiring a distinctive approach for mobile, and (among others) travelers preferring a general multiple firm travel app. They underlined significant questions for future research, such as: what are consumers’ app preferences, their motivations for installing travel apps, and why they are deleting the apps that they do download; why older people are more interested than younger people in handling ancillary activities on their mobile devices.

December this year brought to us an excellent interview – with Lee McCabe, Facebook’s first-ever global head of travel and education strategy – taken by McKinsey’s representatives Alex Dichter and Nathan Seitzman. (Dichter and Seitzman, 2015) They discussed about the actual issues of the increasing importance of mobile, what makes a winning app, and how travel companies can organize themselves for digital success, within the context in which Lee McCabe (a former marketing leader at Expedia Inc., one of the world’s leading travel companies) helps hotels, airlines, online travel agencies (OTAs), and other travel companies connect with the more than 1,5 billion people worldwide who use Facebook, whose fans’ recommendations influence heavily in real time and at scale the travel choices. According to McCabe, people-based Holistic Marketing Management

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platforms will continue to create a catalyst for travel, and as the world has shifted to mobile (in August 2015 one billion people logged onto Facebook in a single day, about 84% of them being on mobile) we will assist at the opportunities’ increasing for personalized marketing through digital platforms. Here below are some recommendations resulted from this clever conversation: ● deeper relationships and real ongoing conversations with customers that drives results; ● a better understanding of customers’ desire of having all the communication in one place, and of being able to respond to messages, looking at special offers, or downloading tickets in a central spot; ● understanding that things are changing: people are now spending more hours a day on a mobile device, including multiscreening; almost everyone has a smartphone, and a lot of services are offered by a third party on a mobile device; ● understanding that businesses: have to be far more sophisticated with both their tracking and data analysis; have to develop the best app possible, and to working with other companies that are doing well on mobile; ● understanding that despite the fact that the marketing landscape is changing, people want the same three things: connection with a company (mobile being absolutely the best way to make that happen); context (a personalized experience); convenience (which might be the most important element); ● understanding the lessons Facebook learned along the way about mobile and apps: ease of access; meeting the objectives quickly; test-and-learn environment and culture; the importance of data science, taking better advantage of big data (better targeting); ● the importance of avoiding ambiguity in the organizational structure, a clean organizational structure being paramount; ● the most important piece of advice for a supplier or an online travel agency (OTA): to invest in mobile and in data science, and to organize to move fast, being on a continuous test-and-learn loop, being clear about company’s, and - perhaps the most important thing - thinking about people first, keeping pace with consumer expectations… and bookings will follow.

Trends in online distribution channels used in the hospitality industry, and the most critical marketing measures At the end of November 2015, Gerry Brown – The Customer Lifeguard, (Brown, 2015) the developer of the concept of the Four Principles of Customer Experience (Culture, Commitment, Communication and Community) as the foundation for launching a successful customer experience strategy, choose to speak about Isadore Sharp, the CEO of Four Seasons Hotels, a builder by trade, who knew from the very beginning the importance of forging close Holistic Marketing Management

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relationships with guests, employees and managers, on the basis of four pillars: quality, service, culture and brand.

Starting from this, Brown made an analysis by highlighting “A Brand-Aid Solution” with four components: Own the brand – Deliver the experience; Everyone is in the customer experience business; Bigger must be Better- the Fred Goodwin School of (miss)management; Bringing the brand to life – Show them that you CARE: Consistency, Authenticity, Responsibility, Engagement.

In our opinion, this is the right framework to make a link between the above mentioned approach and the actual need of attracting online shoppers, increase conversion rates, and have data mining tools to understand the customer’s preferences and booking patterns to be able to develop a long-lasting relationship, as argued on June 16th, 2015, by Juan Duran, an associate with the Vancouver HVS office in Canada, who focuses on appraisals, market and feasibility studies and consulting services for the hospitality industry. (Duran, 2015) According to Duran, in order to retain customers, improve hotel positioning, gain a competitive advantage in markets that are sometimes saturated with hotel supply, and provide marketing exposure to a wider range of market segments, hoteliers must invest in online distribution channels, such as: websites, Global Distribution Systems (GDS), and online travel agents (OTAs), the most critical marketing measures being the customer acquisition cost (CAC - the price a hotel pays to acquire a new customer, which can have a significant impact on RevPAR performance and asset value growth) and the customer lifetime value (CLV - a prediction of the value a business will derive from its entire relationship with a customer), both being valuable metrics not shown on today’s financial statements and having to be analyzed independently.

Duran explained that the first step is to focus on the channels that produce the best customers in terms of loyalty and profit will generate the highest CLV (Gross profit from all historic purchases for an individual customer). In the second step, distribution channels should be optimized based on CAC (Marketing Campaign Costs/Total Customers Acquired) and CLV. He also recommended avoiding a common mistake among hotel operators who optimize based on the gross revenue of the initial guestroom booking. Duran proved also his expertize by underlining the different roles in the hotel’s marketing program played by: ● hotel website (the most critical marketing tool, which reflects and emphasizes the hotel’s image and competitive edge; the hotel’s website could yield the lowest CAC and the highest CLV, if managed skillfully by having a direct interaction with the customer which could lead to a long-term relationship); ● GDS (that connects hotels with consortia - global associations of travel agents that provide hotels primarily with major sources of corporate business, booking airline, car, hotel, and other travel arrangements for their customers; can make a valuable contribution even at a higher CAC Holistic Marketing Management

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and a lower CLV, by offering marketing exposure to a wider range of market segments, and bringing demand during periods of low occupancy; can have a significant impact on the amount of commercial demand captured; an effective way of increasing business from this distribution channel is investing in a targeted GDS and consortia advertising campaign); ● OTAs (which can boost occupancy in need periods and help diversify a hotel’s client base by introducing guests that otherwise might not have considered staying at that particular hotel; has the highest cost for hotels; can also make a valuable contribution even at a higher CAC and a lower CLV; to position and rank hotels in the results screen each OTA uses a slightly different algorithm).

Investing in profitable customer relationships, and improving company’s ability to predict by better understanding customer choices Five years ago, while making predictions for the new decade (2010-2020), Chekitan S. Dev (Cornell University School of Hotel Administration), John D. Buschman (Florida International University), and John T. Brown (University of Houston) argued that the primary focus of the hospitality marketers needs to be on investing in profitable customer relationships (a key measure being lifetime value, and the basis for deciding how much to invest in each relationship being estimating the net present value of future cash flows from each customer or customer account), which involves: looking at marketing as an investment; looking at profit per customer as the key goal; moving from customer transactions to customer relationships. (Dev, Buschman, and Bowen, 2010) A year later, in 2011, Rohit Verma, Ph.D. (a distinguished professor of service operations management at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration; now he is the Executive Director for the new Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures, officially launched on November 2, 2015, as a cross-campus collaboration between the School of Hotel Administration, SHA and the College of Human Ecology, CHE) pledged in a consistent manner for better understanding and predicting customer choices made among the many lodging and dining options, arguing that the more the host can learn about what factors their guests take into account when they make a decision accordingly, the better the host is able to meet those decision criteria and boost tourism statistics. Within that framework, Professor Rohit Verma recommended: assessing customer choices by using the discrete choice analysis (DCA: identify choice criteria; develop choice experiments; collect responses and estimate choice models), and conducting extensive analyses (using decision support systems); obtaining managerial insights from discrete choice modeling, and developing the insights and strategies suggested by the resulting information. He expressed his belief that it is essential for hospitality marketers to have a sophisticated customer choice approach in order to achieve the success, by using DCA so as to improve company’s ability to predict three things: market share; their customers’ willingness to pay; how desirable customers consider company’s hospitality services. (Verma, 2011) In what concerns the above mentioned recently launched Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF), allow us to add that we totally Holistic Marketing Management

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agree with the idea of integration of the disciplines to promote a more holistic view of healthcare (bringing hospitality principles to health policy, management, and design, and improving service in healthcare, wellness, and senior living), as argued by Professor Rohit Verma. (Webb, 2015) In fact, at SANABUNA International Conference we expressed our belief in the development of health and wellness tourism. (Avram and Raţiu, 2014) As shown within SANABUNA framework, we face today, both at the national and global level, a real serious challenge with “Health, Nutrition, Fitness and Wellbeing”, this philosophy of action requiring a more rapid adaptation to changing economic trends and new thinking. (Purcarea, 2012) In the same year, 2011, while approaching the topic of “New Media: Connecting with Guests throughout the Travel Experience”, Lisa Klein Pearo and Bill Carroll (also from Cornell University) showed that hospitality marketers are challenged to identify when a consumer is ready to move from one stage to the next, and to supply the appropriate tools, their constraints with new media (which represent opportunities to acquire and retain customers) involving only access and engagement. In the authors’ opinion, in order to encourage company’s loyal customers to recruit new customers through social media, and find new customers directly through the interests they express, hospitality marketers can use new technologies. (Klein Pearo and Carroll, 2011) And as a conclusion: gathering guest feedback in real-time from multiple channels Coming back in 2015, allow us to highlight that GfK, at the beginning of December, (GfK, 2015) just brought to our attention its successful partnership with a leading hotel group (which uses GfK Echo solution to gather guest feedback in real-time from multiple channels and viewing this feedback on a single dashboard) aiming to bring relevant and current data and analyses to its hotel operators so they can use it to improve the guest experience. And in this respect, this hotel group extended the gathering of feedback beyond the traditional mechanism of surveys to include social listening intelligence from channels such as web reviews and social media, and on the basis of the specific analysis distributes actionable customer experience information to employees and managers at each hotel.

References Linton, H., & Kwortnik, R. J. (2015). The mobile revolution is here: are you ready? [Electronic article]. Cornell Hospitality Reports, 15(6), 6-18, Retrieved [12/16/2015].

Dichter, A. and Seitzman, N. - Facebook and the future of travel, December 2015, retrieved from: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/travel_transportation/Facebook_and_the_future_of_travel?ci d=other-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1512, 12/12/2015 Holistic Marketing Management

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Expedia - http://www.expediainc.com/ Brown, G. - A Brand-Aid Solution: If your name’s on it make sure your heart’s in it, Nov 26, 2015, retrieved from: http://customerthink.com/a-brand-aid-solution-if-your-names-on-it-makesure-your-hearts-in-it/, 12/4/2015 Customer Lifeguard - http://www.customerlifeguard.com/about/ Duran, J. - Website, GDS and OTA: the right mix in distribution channel investments, June 16th, 2015, retrieved from: http://ehotelier.com/insights/2015/06/16/website-gds-and-ota-the-rightmix-in-distribution-channel-investments/, 12/152015 Dev, C. S., Buschman, J. D., & Bowen, J. T. (2010). Hospitality marketing: a retrospective analysis (1960-2010) and predictions (2010-2020). Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51(4), 459469. doi: 10.1177/1938965510376353, Retrieved [12/16/2015].

Verma, R. (2011). Understanding and predicting customer choices[Electronic version]. Retrieved [12/16/2015], from Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration site: http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/563 Mike Webb - Launch of new Cornell institute combining hospitality and health policy, November 11, 2015, retrieved from: https://sha.cornell.edu/blog/2015/11/11/launch-of-newcornell-institute-combining-hospitality-and-health-policy/, 12/16/2015 Avram, E. M., Raţiu, M. P. - Healthy tourism - a real need in today’s challenging society, Journal of Medicine and Life, Vol. VII Special Issue – 2014 Purcarea, T. (2012). “Health Value for Sustainable Development, a Real Challenge,” Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine, Romanian Distribution Committee, vol. 3(4), pages 03-13, October.

Pearo, L. S., & Carroll, B. (2011). New media: Connecting with guests throughout the travel experience [Electronic version]. Retrieved [12/16/2015], from Cornell University, School of Hospitality Administration site: http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/articles/252 GfK - Using guest feedback to improve the customer experience, 01.12.2015, retrieved from: http://www.gfk.com/ro/success-stories/success-story/using-guest-feedback-to-improve-thecustomer-experience-1/, 12/16/2015

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Marketers, challenged to prove their new skills within the context of the actual trends Theodor Purcărea Abstract Marketers are today more focused on driving business growth, pursuing with diligence the essence of being customer-focused, connecting with the customer with commitment and research in focusing on its values and priorities, remaining relevant to existing customers and also introducing marketers’ company to new customers by developing values-based personas. They must prove their new skills within the context of the actual well-known trends, understanding better the need of interacting with customers on a one-to-one basis on social media, and the direct link between customer experience and profitability. As customers want something authentic, B2B marketing leaders must invest in the next big thing, which is Advocate Marketing that amplifies word of mouth recommendations. And as the volume of available data will continue to grow, marketers also need to integrate technology, people, and practices to help take advantage of the wealth of data available today. They are really challenged to create unbreakable bonds between their brands and customers, while keeping in mind the impact of the customers’ last, best interaction with a brand.

Keywords: Business growth; Mobile marketing; Social interaction; Advocate Marketing JEL Classification: M31; M37; D83

Marketers are increasingly challenged In the last two years we noted in our “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal that: ▪ the face of the marketing function is struggling to keep pace with major changes, by assuming its strategic and systemic leading role, marketing being challenged to be more and more creative and accountable, more personalized with respect to real-time offering, content delivered across channels, and to engage CEOs and the top leadership to valorize the ability of the marketing function to help drive organizational change, focusing on what is important to customers, consumers and users, within the rise of social media, big-data analytics, and smart mobile devices, differentiating social media marketing from social business; marketers need to know what exactly they should measure and if their analytics are actionable, balancing their inbound and outbound marketing, mastering the latest technology, assimilating vast quantities of data, engaging and delighting their more connected and empowered than ever before customers, and delivering products and services that surpass their expectations, combining technology and teamwork and using technology and teamwork to listen accordingly, creating a vision for an exceptional customer experience and connecting everyone in the organization to the delivery of Holistic Marketing Management

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that seamless experience, stimulating a more collaborative working relationship between CMOs and CIOs; marketers also need a good understanding of the fact that the content is the fuel for company lead generation and nurturing programs (driving leads through the marketing funnel to become customers), and of not relying too heavily on analytics, but on the so-called “both-brain” approach (by making the right balance between creativity and analytics), and also to constantly reevaluate the marketing strategies (by acting with speed and agility in addressing key customer needs and expectations); (Purcarea, 2014) ▪ marketers are increasingly challenged: to make sure they have the correct data on customers they are trying to reach, to make every interaction count by matching content and device with the customer and their context, to ensure the orchestration of the six A’s of marketing performance management; to understand the role of marketing technologists and to increase their ability to link different technologies (being aware that marketing moves at the speed of technology), to ensure a successfully intersection with their audience across channels and devices (building a lab marketing culture enabling an understanding of the real value and impact of customer information), the availability of key customer insights in all parts of the enterprise, and also that customers are getting the deserved personalized attention (by merging data acquired across multiple channels into a single customer profile and producing better targeted personalizing messages); (Purcarea, 2014) ▪ on their continuous way of becoming more engaging and effective, marketers also need: professional development on marketing topics, a better understanding of the marketing predictions and of the direct relationship between marketing’s value and impact and marketing’s alignment to the business, viewing marketing and sales as a company’s investment, and getting the process of transforming marketing and sales capabilities to drive growth moving in a fruitful direction; to learn to cut through the noise existing in today’s wonderfully rich content world, and to secure relationships by translating a level of honesty to the customer and earning trust, to refresh and realign company’s marketing objectives on the basis of an outside perspective that also helps those outside the accountable marketing department understand the whole picture; to create connected experiences between their companies and the audiences they need to reach, while synchronizing all the channels so as to send the right message to the right person every time; (Purcarea, 2015) ▪ marketers also need: to go beyond the retention marketing and customer development efforts, to rediscover the invisible consumer (while loving both the invisible and visible consumers), to create a remarkable brand in the habits and minds of very ordinary people; to consider digital marketing as part of the bigger whole that is marketing, and to embark on a journey “with” customers (by sharing purpose which is what powers brand value), continually updating a comprehensive view of their customers, helping their customers to quickly get guidance and make decisions on critical matters, ensuring a higher quality faster interaction and searching for ways to meet their customers’ changing needs and evolving life stage requirements, developing multiple points for their customers’ feedback and using marketing to educate not just promote; to Holistic Marketing Management

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harness the power of new technologies, attracting the next generation of talent to build engaging brands and content, personalization of digital experience being at the heart of the efforts to overcome around how they create intimacy and relationship in the digital world of customers overwhelmed by a lack of time and too much choice; (Purcarea, 2015) ▪ in the era of the “Nonstop Customer”, marketers need: to rethink the businesses by acting at the same pace as consumers act now and putt a greater emphasis on personalization and relevance; to know the secret behind successful B2B marketing, better understanding the real value of “Account-based marketing”, reinventing the marketing department of a B2B organization by achieving a tangible transformation and delivering the types of insights that the market wants, better understanding the relevance and role of CMOs in the C-Suite under the pressure of data and measurement, preparing for the next era in marketing while understanding that the game changer for marketing transformation is the reciprocity of value equation. (Purcarea, 2015) Marketers, more focused on driving business growth According to the most recent ANA Marketer's Edge study (the “Marketing Disruption II” research whose results were debuted at the 2015 Masters of Marketing conference on October 16, 2015 in Orlando, Florida, USA), done in conjunction with McKinsey and GfK, (Disruption ANA, 2015) there are 5 red flags that marketers need to address to deliver on this promise and become a true engine for growth: lack of focus (the starting point for setting a clear agenda of investment being a clear focus on where the value is and how to address customer needs); on the hunt for capabilities (by actively investing in new technologies and hiring new talent, and also by investing in new partners); customer experience (by having clarity about what matters to customers, or the ability to articulate that as a strategy); data-driven (by using insights into customer behaviors and feeding them back into the organization to improve performance); slow pace (hence the need to have flexible organizational models and agile ways of working so that things get done fast).

Marketers must strive to be winners by choice, not by chance, pursuing with diligence the essence of being customer-focused (by asking their customers what they can do to make their lives easier, adding value to what they supply), thoroughly understanding, for example, the “mobile moments” (anytime that customer pulls out a mobile device). Because the concept of immediacy rules mobile marketing, and (according to Forrester) marketers must understand their customers’ journey and identify their needs, then design the mobile application so as to quickly provide just what’s needed in the “mobile moments”. (Roman, 2015) Within this context of mobile being a prime access point to sales, Ernan Roman made some recommendations, such as: to consider mobile and its nuances a lifestyle connection; to develop a new mind-set of delivering a satisfying experience with an aspect of immediacy; to incorporate mobile marketing into every aspect of touch points and interaction; to understand that the success on this evergrowing platform will be determined ultimately by innovation and, most of all, relevancy.

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Marketers, more focused on social interaction It is well-known that marketers use a marketing strategy such as inbound marketing (social media marketing - a tactic that uses social media to promote the brand, content marketing - creating and publishing content, blogging, calls to actions etc.) to attract and bring people to their websites, by targeting consumers who are looking for goods and services that marketers provide, while providing useful and quality content (using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc., offering incentives , having direct communication with the consumer by using the social media presence) to entice these consumers into finding out more. On the other hand, companies with larger resources are trying to reach a wider audience using outbound marketing (“interruptive marketing”, a marketing strategy in which a business advertises its goods and services by presenting information to consumers even if they are not looking for those goods or services), by using television, print ads, direct mailers, radio etc. (Goodwin, 2013) At the beginning of December this year, an authority on making social media sell (cofounder of the Google Affiliate Network in 1999; adjunct digital marketing faculty at Loyola University’s business school; a social sales trainer and author of the first social selling book) challenged any sales person to reach, teach, educate and engage a prospect without, first, interrupting them (considering the difference between: Sales Rep - email, call, email, call, email, call; Buyer - delete, ignore, delete, ignore, delete, ignore; Social Selling - reach and teach/educate and engage). Social selling is marketing, not selling at all, shows this authority. If B-to-B organizations, for example, are to survive and thrive, inbound marketing is needed but is not enough, these organizations needing people who actively prospect for new business. (Molander, 2015) A director of marketing for a global Fortune 500 company argued recently (Fan, 2015) that cutting through the noise in an advertising and content-cluttered digital landscape involves connecting with the customer with commitment and research in focusing on its values and priorities, building an accurate picture, and then acting on that information. This is the proper way for marketers to build a lasting relationship with their customers, remaining relevant to existing customers and also introducing marketers’ company to new customers by developing values-based personas.

According to the opinion of the above mentioned director of marketing there are seven actions considered fundamental building-blocks to a customer-centric strategy: getting inside the heads and hearts of the customer; aligning offers with consumer values; mixing it up, thinking omnichannel; video is powerful; matching the message to the medium; checking in, early and often (earning valuable insight and new opportunities); timing is everything (relevant content, timely, and easy to introduce into trending social themes, social interaction being as much timing as it is good content).

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Also recently, the CMO of Vidyard, a video marketing platform that helps transform viewers into customers, underlined that next year, in 2016, the toughest decision of all may be deciding which videos (great for engaging audiences and getting their attention in a crowded market, enriching the customer journey at all stages, being more effective than other content at converting buyers, visual content offering the perfect mix of snackable and actionable) to produce and how to get the most from them. (Lessard, 2015) Within the context of actual wellknown trends (marketing clouds, account-based marketing, predictive analytics etc.), video marketing will allow marketers to prove their new skills (by expanding to new applications, creating better content experiences and telling their stories with more impact etc.), in 2016 being expected: that video will play a larger role throughout the customer journey; that more companies will do it themselves having more ways to use video; that marketers will continually optimize content programs thanks to video which provides the opportunity to measure success much better than text-based content, video (video length, imagery, voice-over, graphics, music, personalization); the rise of interactive (overlaid data collection forms, mid-roll surveys and questionnaires, choose-your-own-adventure style videos) and personalized (“1-to-1 personalized video” and “content individualization”) video content.

Another opinion expressed recently, on December 11, 2015, highlighted that interacting with customers on a one-to-one basis on social media makes them more loyal, these customers spending more with you, staying with you longer and telling their friends about you. (Stelzner, 2015) That is why it is recommendable for marketers to take an extra moment to think about something from the customer’s point of view, including better understanding: the direct link between customer experience and profitability; that complaints tell you a lot about what’s going on with your business; that by resolving customers’ problems you can often turn these unsatisfied customers (watching and saying a lot when you don’t respond to the complaints) from being unhappy to happy; that it’s important not to sound robotic when you respond and vary your posts.

B2B marketing leaders must invest in the next big thing: Advocate Marketing.

What Makes a Marketer Great?

On December 9, 2015, (Williams, 2015) an email message from the VP Marketing of Influitive (which has a vision for the future of B2B marketing, its number 1 priority being the advocate experience, thinking that advocacy should be self-service, and integrating advocate marketing with the rest of a marketing organization, by providing a complete advocate marketing solution) highlighted that advocate marketing is the next big thing and B2B marketing leaders must invest in advocacy now, because all analysts (from Forrester, Gartner, SiriusDecisions, and Altimeter Group) agree with it.

Within this framework the common question to ask is: Why advocate marketing? A good answer to this question is that: if Marketing is about creating customers, Advocate Marketing Holistic Marketing Management

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(AM) is about creating customers that create more customers, the AM helping you amplify word of mouth (a low cost channel) recommendations to drive more business (maximizing the value customers bring to an organization, by recruiting and motivating customers to provide references, business referrals and feedback), because customers want something authentic. And that is why is important to: encourage enthusiastic customers to make more recommendations and generate customer content having a serious impact on sales and revenue; create dialog between customers themselves by building a brand community which gives you a vital resource you can tap for intelligence and assistance; activate your employees as a social media army; manage any type of community (customers, employees, partners) with complete freedom to create challenges and rewards; connect your Advocate Marketing Program with CRM and other marketing tech to share data across one easy-to-use API; track activity to drive continual improvement of your Advocacy Program and demonstrate ROI. (Customer Advocacy) But another common question to ask today is: What Makes a Marketer Great? This question was asked at the beginning of October this year by the Editor of Target Marketing, (McGee, 2015) starting from the fact that today marketing is essential to the business strategy, and that social media may have made word-of-mouth more important than ever but it is a marketing-driven kind of word-of-mouth. And the above mentioned Editor ended with another challenging question: Is it the technology, the results, the circumstances or how you react to them?

Within such an environment let us remember that the CEO and founder of Fliptop (a leader in predictive analytics applications for B2B companies) argued that there is a need for integrating technology, people, and practices to help take advantage of the wealth of data available today, and taking advantage of all that data-driven Marketing has to offer, taking into account that the ones that will ultimately thrive will be those that prepare themselves now for the forthcoming shift in accountability. (Camplejohn, 2015) He underlined the importance for the data-driven marketers of having the proper foundation to collect, merge, analyze, and act on that data as the volume of available data will continue to grow.

And as a conclusion: marketers are challenged to create unbreakable bonds between their brands and customers, while keeping in mind that customers’ last, best interaction with a brand becomes their minimal expectation for every future interaction with any brand Quite some time ago we recalled that innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. At the beginning of December 2015, a new feature, of the widely read blog Ernan’s Insights on Marketing Best Practices was launched, called: “4 Questions for Marketing Innovators.” (Roman, 2015) These 4 Questions for Marketing Innovators were: What is one marketing topic that is most important to you as an innovator? Why is this so important? How will the customer experience be improved by this? How will this improve the effectiveness of marketing? The person interviewed this time was Justin Norwood, chief strategist for the IBM Watson Trend app, an executive in IBM's Commerce business. (Roman, 2015) Holistic Marketing Management

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IBM Watson, the leading example in cognitive computing, engages with people in a way that helps them quickly discover new things that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. The above mentioned chief strategist showed that customers (shoppers) don’t want to be known as a segment or cohort, but as an individual (by the companies they buy from). He gave the example of the new iOS app, IBM Watson Trend (which can be downloaded for free) used by the shoppers to understand why people are buying certain products or brands this holiday season. On the other hand, this downloaded for free app can also tell what products will be hot next (before they sell out), by distilling sentiment of tens of millions of online conversations (found in 10000 sources across social media sites, blogs, forums, comments, ratings and reviews). The challenge for marketers (facing dismally low conversion rates in today’s world of mass marketing and segmentation) is to create unbreakable bonds between their brands and customers, better knowing their customers and exceeding customers’ expectations.

References PURCAREA, Theodor, 2014. "Marketing’ s Continuous Rise And Shine, " Holistic Marketing Management” Journal, vol. 4(3), pages 06-25.

PURCAREA, Theodor, 2014. "A Review of the Different Marketing Opinions on Marketers’ Maturity and Challenges in the Second Half of 2014," Holistic Marketing Management Journal, Holistic Marketing Management, vol. 4(4), pages 05-14, December.

PURCAREA, Theodor, 2015. "Marketing as a center of constant improvement and change," Holistic Marketing Management Journal, Holistic Marketing Management, vol. 5(1), pages 3039, 03.

PURCAREA, Theodor, 2015. "At the confluence of customer knowledge, delivery and engagement forming a challenging evolving delta of marketing, technology and management," Holistic Marketing Management Journal, Holistic Marketing Management, vol. 5(2), pages 2129, 06.

PURCAREA, Theodor, 2015. "Rethinking the Business by Ensuring Marketing Transformation," Holistic Marketing Management Journal, Holistic Marketing Management, vol.

5(3), pages 13-19, 09.

The Marketer Strikes Back: Leading the Disruption, State of the Industry Survey, Pivot to Growth, http://disruption.ana.net/ ROMAN, Ernan - Marketers Must Understand The New Mobile Mind-Set Of Immediacy, October 5, 2015, http://www.erdm.com/blog.php?utm_source=Ernan%20Roman%20Direct%20Marketing&utm_ medium=email&utm_campaign=6285202_oct22-forbes-brandHolistic Marketing Management

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promises&dm_i=10O1,3QPOY,FQ6838,DGVWM,0#ufh-i-147375397-marketers-mustunderstand-the-new-mobile-mind-set-of-immediacy GOODWIN, Theresa - Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing: Understanding the Differences, September 06, 2013, retrieved from: http://boldthinkcreative.com/inboundmarketing-vs-outbound-marketing-whats-the-difference/, 8/15/2014 MOLANDER, Jef - Did Social Selling Kill Prospecting? December 3, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/post/social-selling-kill-prospecting/all/, 12/4/2015 FAN, Bobby - Seven Building Blocks of a Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy, December 9, 2015, retrived from: ttp://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/29000/seven-building-blocksof-a-customer-centric-marketing-strategy#ixzz3tqN2LL6r , 12/9/2015 LESSARD, Tyler - The Year in Video Marketing and What to Expect in 2016, December 8, 2015, http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/28997/the-year-in-video-marketing-andwhat-to-expect-in-2016#ixzz3tqUmOvFr, 12/9/2015 STELZNER, Michael - Social Customer Service: How to Care for Customers With Social Media, December 11, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/socialcustomer-service-how-to-care-for-customers-with-social-media-dangingiss/?awt_l=3Z9UPF&awt_m=3Xhk.3kEMwr.ILT&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium= NewsletterIssue&utm_campaign=New, 12/11/2015 WILLIAMS, Jim - Analysts agree: This is the next big thing in B2B marketing, Influitive, Boston, December 9, 2015, jim.williams@influitive.com Influitive - We’re the advocate marketing experts, retrieved from: http://influitive.com/company/, 12/9/2015 How advocate marketing works..., retrieved from: http://customeradvocacy.com/, 12/9/2015 McGEE, Thorin - Editor’s Notes: What Makes a Marketer Great? October 1, 2015 , http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/makes-marketer-great/#utm_source=today-%40target-marketing&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=2015-1016&utm_content=what+makes+a+marketer+great%3F-8, 10/19/2015 CAMPLEJOHN, Doug - Three Ways It Pays for Marketers to Be More Data-Driven, August 28, 2015, retrieved from: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/28352/three-ways-it-paysfor-marketers-to-be-more-data-driven#ixzz3k7ceaXX1, 8/28/2015 ROMAN, Ernan - IBM Chief Strategist for Watson Trend App Answers 4 Questions for Marketing Innovators, December 7, 2015, retrieved from: http://ernanroman.blogspot.ro/2015/12/ibm-chief-strategist-for-watson-trend-app-answers-4questions-for-marketing-innovators.html, 12/12/2015 Holistic Marketing Management

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Kanban – An Alternative To The Agile Model Of Project Management Rohith VISHWANATH IYER ESC Rennes School of Business, France ABSTRACT Project Management has been used in various industries across all domains and it is necessary to follow some model to achieve the required results to involve all the stakeholders in the team, increase the efficiency of the team and also meet up the deadline set for the project.

Traditional project management are used in most of the corporations in the world to achieve the required result, but over the years many other systems were developed in place of traditional ones to increase the productivity and also experiment with the projects in order to achieve the desired result, one of them is AGILE and it is one of the successful systems in the world especially in service based companies and also many other lesser known systems like KANBAN is also available to manage the projects and also plan it with the best mechanisms to develop and make the project more productive and successful with also increased participation of the stakeholders in the team.

In this article, we will see how KANBAN is different from other systems and how it can be used to increase the productivity of the team by its application.

In the last section of the article, I am referring to my professional experience as a Scrum Master while working on a project in a multinational company using the Agile methodology.

Keywords: AGILE, KANBAN, Project, stakeholders JEL classification: M1, M15

INTRODUCTION Traditional project management tools were part of the industrial revolution from a long time mainly to maintain the required deadlines and due to the emergence of various other industries and application of the project management for all their projects, mismatch between the traditional project management techniques and the goals for the projects especially in IT Service Sector which involved some client based operations, a new system of project management mechanism was introduced called AGILE to facilitate the smooth movement of the tasks among the team members and delegation of the work and post-analysis of the team work to improve or include any new tasks for the team.

Traditionally AGILE has been in use in IT Sector for a very long time and it has been very successful also in managing the projects for a while but a new system in accordance with AGILE Holistic Marketing Management

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called KANBAN is currently being experimented to more efficiently manage the tasks and also break up the required tasks with respect to the designated project.

Traditional Project Management Lifecycle Solution Traditional project management structures focused on the paradigm of the project manager as controller Traditional project management often was driven by formal reporting and hierarchical structures Other features of it are given below:  Centralization of Control  Top-down planning  Authoritarian environment  Implied structure  Limited/Restricted Access to the plan  Local Access to information  Limited Communications within team  Separate projects  Overly complex tools  Rigidity of tools A new solution called Project Management 2.0 was proposed to reduce the cons of the Traditional System and the differences between the two are given below: Table no.1: Differences between traditional Project Management and Project Management 2.0 Traditional Project Management

Project Management 2.0

Centralization of control

Decentralization of control

Top-down planning

Bottom-up planning

Authoritarian environment

Collaborative environment

Implied structure

Emergent structures

Limited/Restricted Access to the plan

Organized/Unlimited Access to the plan

Local Access to information

Global/Live Access to information

Limited Communications within team Unlimited Communications within team Separate projects

Holistic approach

Overly complex tools

Easy to use tools

Rigidity of tools

Flexibility of tools

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban

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We saw from the traditional methods that the team did not have any co-ordination among them and project manager had the power to control each of them which leads to lot of confusion and deadline misses for the project. This called for a pro-team project management system which emphasizes on team players and non-hierarchical environment and also autonomy for the team members to execute the work delegated to them in their own way with minimal intervention of the project manager.

What Is Agile?

Agile methodology is an alternative to traditional project management, typically used in software development. It helps teams respond to unpredictability through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. Agile methodologies are an alternative to waterfall, or traditional sequential development.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is the most popular way of introducing Agility due to its simplicity and flexibility.

Because of this popularity, many organizations claim to be “doing Scrum” but aren’t doing anything close to Scrum’s actual definition. Scrum emphasizes empirical feedback, team selfmanagement, and striving to build properly tested product increments within short iterations.

Doing Scrum as it’s actually defined usually comes into conflict with existing habits at established non-Agile organizations.

Scrum has only three roles: Product Owner, Team, and Scrum Master. These are described in detail by the Scrum Training Series. The responsibilities of the traditional project manager role are split up among these three Scrum roles. Scrum has five meetings: Backlog Grooming (aka Backlog Refinement), Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum (aka 15-minute standup), the Sprint Review Meeting, and the Sprint Retrospective Meeting.

Where Did Agile Come From?

In 1970, Dr. Winston Royce presented a paper entitled “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems,” which criticized sequential development. He asserted that software should not be developed like an automobile on an assembly line, in which each piece is added in sequential phases. In such sequential phases, every phase of the project must be completed before the next phase can begin. Dr. Royce recommended against the phase based approach in which developers first gather all of a project’s requirements, then complete all of its architecture and design, then write all of the code, and so on. Royce specifically objected to this approach due to the lack of communication between the specialized groups that complete each phase of work.

It’s easy to see how the “waterfall” methodology is far from optimized compared to agile methodology. First of all, it assumes that every requirement of the project can be identified before any design or coding occurs. Put another way, do you think you could tell a team of developers everything that needed to be in a piece of software before it was up and running? Or would it be easier to describe your vision to the team if you could react to functional software?

Many software developers have learned the answer to that question the hard way: At the end of a project, a team might have built the software it was asked to build, but, in the time it took to Holistic Marketing Management

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create, business realities have changed so dramatically that the product is irrelevant. In that scenario, a company has spent time and money to create software that no one wants. Couldn’t it have been possible to ensure the end product would still be relevant before it was actually finished?

Why Agile?

Agile development methodology provides opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout the development lifecycle. This is achieved through regular representation and monitoring of work, known as sprints or iterations, at the end of which teams must present a potentially shippable product increment. By focusing on the repetition of abbreviated work cycles as well as the functional product they yield, agile methodology is described as “iterative” and “incremental.” In waterfall, development teams only have one chance to get each aspect of a project right. In an agile paradigm, every aspect of development — requirements, design, etc. — is continually revisited throughout the lifecycle. When a team stops and re-evaluates the direction of a project every two weeks, there’s always time to steer it in another direction.

The results of this “inspect, assess & adapt” approach to development greatly reduce both development costs and time to market. Because teams can develop software at the same time they’re gathering requirements, the phenomenon known as “analysis paralysis” is less likely to impede a team from making progress. And because a team’s work cycle is limited to two weeks, it gives stakeholders recurring opportunities to calibrate releases for success in the real world.

Agile development methodology helps companies build the right product. Instead of committing to market a piece of software that hasn’t even been written yet, agile empowers teams to continuously re plan their release to optimize its value throughout development, allowing them to be as competitive as possible in the marketplace. Development using an agile methodology preserves a product’s critical market relevance and ensures a team’s work doesn’t wind up on a shelf, never released.

AGILE has its own advantages to steer the team towards success, but pushing in too many tasks at a time might be a risk and it is always necessary to understand from the team members about the roadblocks and also help each other perform the task in a more effective way, so KANBAN was introduced to reduce this as the teams work on only certain achievable tasks based on priority with deadlines defined for each and also understand the difficulty levels of the same and in case any of the task is completed before schedule, next task to be handled and if anything is getting stuck due to a roadblock, help the team negotiate with the blockage and close it before taking the next task.

KANBAN Kanban is a new technique for managing a software development process in a highly efficient way. Kanban underpins Toyota's "just-in-time" (JIT) production system. Although producing software is a creative activity and therefore different to mass-producing cars, the underlying mechanism for managing the production line can still be applied.

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Figure no.1: Software development process description Source: http://kanbanblog.com/explained/

In the representation above, the software development process is thought of as a pipeline with feature requests entering one end and improved software emerging from the other end.

Inside the pipeline, there will be some kind of process which could range from an informal ad hoc process to a highly formal phased process. It is assumed a simple phased process of: (1) analyze the requirements, (2) develop the code, and (3) test it works.

The Effect of Bottlenecks A bottleneck in a pipeline restricts flow. The throughput of the pipeline as a whole is limited to the throughput of the bottleneck.

Using the development pipeline as an example: if the testers are only able to test 5 features per week whereas the developers and analysts have the capacity to produce 10 features per week, the throughput of the pipeline as a whole will only be 5 features per week because the testers are acting as a bottleneck.

If the analysts and developers aren't aware that the testers are the bottleneck, then a backlog of work will begin to pile up in front of the testers.

Figure no.2: Development pipeline example Source: http://kanbanblog.com/explained/

The effect is that lead times go up. And, like warehouse stock, work sitting in the pipeline ties up investment, creates distance from the market, and drops in value as time goes by. Inevitably,

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quality suffers. To keep up, the testers start to cut corners. The resulting bugs released into production cause problems for the users and waste future pipeline capacity.

If, on the other hand, we knew where the bottleneck was, we could redeploy resources to help relieve it. For example, the analysts could help with testing and the developers could work on test automation.

But how do we know where the bottleneck is in any given process? And what happens when it moves?

Kanban reveals bottlenecks dynamically.

Kanban is incredibly simple, but at the same time incredibly powerful. A Kanban system consists of a big board on the wall with cards or sticky notes placed in columns with numbers at the top.

Limiting work-in-progress reveals the bottlenecks so you can address them.

The cards represent work items as they flow through the development process represented by the columns. The numbers at the top of each column are limits on the number of cards allowed in each column.

The limits are the critical difference between a Kanban board and any other visual storyboard.

Limiting the amount of work-in-progress (WIP), at each step in the process, prevents overproduction and reveals bottlenecks dynamically so that you can address them before they get out of hand.

KANBAN with AGILE – SCRUMBAN We can combine KANBAN with SCRUM and achieve better results by introducing the KANBAN board for AGILE and listing down the tasks as per priority with the task owner and moving the required tasks from one column to another without any bottlenecks created in between and also analyzing the task as per sprint in the regular sprint rules.

This has many advantages:     

Reduced backlogs of the tasks Regular sprint reviews with excellent time availability for other tasks in priority Task Owners are given enough autonomy to decide the severity of the task and prioritize them as per their requirement Better participation of the team in managing the project and setting, reaching the goals on time.

Reduced participation of the project manager in the running of the team

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My Experience as a Scrum Master I was working in an MNC and my project was working as per agile methodology. I was Scrum Master of the team for 8 months and I was focused on making my team more productive as per requirements of the project and my tasks.

My key responsibilities: I was involved in taking the availability of the team members for that sprint.

I was also involved in the delegation of the work as per availability of the team and allotting to the concerned task owner as per background and caliber.

It is always necessary for the scrum master to understand each team member’s positives and negatives to delegate the exact work to that person to ensure that project is meeting deadlines and there is 100% employee skill usage for the project.

I was in charge with the prioritization of the tasks and putting it in the right order and also ensure they are finished in same order.

I conducted the Retrospective session to understand the good and bad part of the sprint and also review the sprint.

I was also collecting few important updates in the market related to our project that could be incorporated in the future sprints and also ensure continuous learning in the team with the project they are working on.

We as a team shifted to Scrumban and we on a demo basis, moved some of the tasks in the Kanban board and we started of this evaluation by putting the high time consuming tasks on the Kanban board and also ensured that in the daily scrums, we discussed the same as a highlight point to see what was the individual learning from this exercise.

I, as a Scrum Master, learnt a lot from this exercise and we as a team were successful in completing some high priority tasks but it takes a lot of time to switch from a conventional agile to Kanban system and it also depends on the mindset of the team to see that the flow is smooth.

CONCLUSION Project Management is a big ocean and it is always necessary to draw the required water from it and also use it effectively – AGILE, KANBAN helps it to be done in a systematic way and it also depends on various factors such as type of application, team size and complexity of the tasks designed for the project and always stake holders are very necessary for a successful implementation of the project and every team member with a stipulated autonomy for him/her makes the project more easy with equal participation and adaptation of new market trends to

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make the flow more productive in nature for all. Combining 2 frameworks will definitely give a good feedback and constant learning is the key to success of the project.

References

James, Michael (Software process mentor), “The Scrum Reference Card, and Other Articles”, retrieved from: http://scrumreferencecard.com/ “What is Kanban?”, retrieved from: http://kanbanblog.com/explained/ “Agile methodology – understanding agile methodology“, retrieved from: http://agilemethodology.org “Kanban”, retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban “7 agile certifications to take your career to the next level”, retrieved from:

VIDEOS

Intro to Kanban in Under 5 Minutes (What is Kanban, Learn Kanban), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8dYLbJiTUE How to Build a Kanban Board, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3BoLRVXoI0 The Kanban System, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdYdIMe0Sl8

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The latest issue of our partner journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Theodor PURCĂREA

JEL Classification: Y30 We are happy to receive by post the latest issue of our partner journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Vol. X, 2015, Number 2. „Marketing Science and Inspirations” is an academic journal addressed to academics and practitioners. The latest issue of this journal covers challenging topics in the marketing research field: “Tools of quality management in the secondary school of Slovak Republic. Part II” (Peter Paska, Katarina Gubiniova); “Sustainability in behavior of generation Y – research study of values and behavior. Part II” (Dana Vokounova, Janka Kopanicova); “Reflection on issues of trade mark law in the Court’s case” (Katarina Gubiniova, Jan Putz); “Repeated marketing researches in Brno in the frame of the project Partnership for local development” (Miroslav Foret); “Knowledge and main factors of brand success” (Katarina Puckova).

The „Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal also includes other sections such as: “Marketing Briefs” (Pavel Strach – “Think BIG: How big data transforms marketing”); “Captured us” (“Czechs and advertising 2015”; “Czechs Marketing Association celebrated 25 Holistic Marketing Management

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years of its history”; “Marketer of the year contest 2014 has its winner”; “Honorable marketer of the year”); “Reviews” (Martina Drahosova, Frantisek Olsavsky – “Emilia Charfaoui: “Communicative-pragmatic characteristics of the lingvocultural script”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, 2014), “Dictionary of Useful Marketing Terms” (Dagmar Weberova).

The Editor-in Chief of the „Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal is Professor Peter Starchon, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, who is also Member of the Editorial Boards of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal and of the “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”. It is our pleasure to always remember our meeting in Koln, Germany, in 2011, on the occasion of the working meeting of the European Retail Academy (ERA) organized by Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier.

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