Marketing Planning and Control Systems: From Agency Style to Nerve Center

Introduction
PMI Corp is a century-old firm that pioneered the use of direct mail sales for life and health insurance. Over the past century, PMI Corp has evolved from a firm that focuses solely on direct mail into a multi-channel firm, selling insurance through agents, brokers and (still) through direct mail. Growing in tandem with PMI Corp’s sales force is the insurance regulatory environment, which has also become increasingly complex.
To respond to the complex regulatory environment—and to support the firm’s internal sales processes—PMI Corp decided to refine the process by which it generates, distributes, and manages sales opportunities (i.e. leads). PMI Corp purchased and implemented a lead management system to ensure that qualified and unqualified leads had all necessary data for delivery to a specific agent. Additionally, the lead management system contained rules to ensure that leads could be distributed effectively, with minimal human intervention. Data pertaining to managing the lead (when the person was contacted, when the lead was closed, whether it resulted in a sold policy, etc.) was stored in a Decision Support System (“DSS”) in the lead management system for analysis. PMI Corp used the lead management system as a framework for planning (by using the data in the DSS) and control (routing rules ensured compliance with government regulations and internal policies).
By implementing a lead management system, PMI Corp took its first significant step from management by agency to management by nerve theory. Traditionally, PMI Corp relied on a hierarchical structure characterized by the tight control of information and authority. With the adoption of a system that facilitates access to information, PMI Corp (unconsciously) approached a nerve center approach to management. The use of reporting analysts to develop ad hoc reports, as well as the focus on information to drive decisions at the marketing manager level, indicates this move.
About the Firm’s Planning and Control Systems
Controls
PMI Corp’s control requirements were driven by regulatory obligations and internal business policies (which had evolved to the point that they were perceived as law). While the regulatory and internal requirements never resulted in conflict, the need to satisfy both led to an environment characterized by detailed, complicated controls, and planning that addressed the needs of a balkanized organization with divisional attitudes of blatant self-interest. Consequently, planning had to address the performance of each business unit in considering the future allocation of marketing dollars, while accounting for markets traditionally “owned” by each division.
PMI Corp’s lead management system absolutely needed to have lead routing rules that recognized the regulatory obligations imposed on the insurance industry. Thus, the lead management system needed to facilitate control of the following elements:
• State Authorization: leads from states in which PMI Corp was not licensed to sell insurance could not be distributed to agents
• Agent Licensing: agents could not receive leads for products that they were not licensed to sell
• Do Not Solicit: leads regarding prisoners, the deceased, and people asked not to be called (unless they initiated this request for service) could not be distributed to agents, and a list of these people had to be maintained
Thus, clear regulatory requirements led to specific controls that had to be enacted. PMI Corp had an obligation to its agents to follow these rules as well. Giving agents these leads would erode the relationship between the sales force and the home office.
PMI Corp’s sales channels—quite territorial in nature—developed a series of internal policies over time (resulting from ongoing “negotiations” ). In distributing leads to the different sales channels, PMI Corp had to develop controls in the lead routing rules to ensure that leads were distributed to the appropriate channels. PMI Corp’s internally-driven controls included:
• Payment Means Ownership: the division that paid for the marketing campaign is entitled to all leads that come from that campaign
• Except When Trumped: a lead from a customer that belongs to a vested agent overrides the notion of payment (described above)
• Division Managers Have Autonomy: a lead is distributed to a division manager (who runs a field office and the division manager distributes the leads to his agents at his discretion.
The lead routing logic had to ensure that these internal rules were enforced. In some cases, these rules came from traditions and victory in political battle. In other cases (such as the vested agents rule above the rules resulted from contractual obligations between the firm and the sales force.
Planning
The lead routing logic directly addressed the role of controls in the organization. The data generated by the interaction of users with the lead management system contributed to the planning component of PMI Corp’s PCS. User interaction with the lead management system yielded the following information:
• Field Office Performance: sales success by field office (sales rate, sales by product, average time to close, sales by campaign)
• Agent Performance: sales success by agent (sales rate, average time to close, preferred products)
• Channel Performance: lead closure rates by sales channel (direct marketing, agency, brokerage)
• Product Performance: sales by product across the firm
• Campaign Performance: the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns
Using this information, the division managers and home office (especially the marketing department) were able to understand how well PMI Corp was doing in the market, and what changes should be made in the future in order to compete more effectively.
PMI Corp mined this data using a series of planned and ad hoc reports, generated by reporting analysts who focused specifically on these tasks. In addition to analyzing performance, PMI Corp studied agent and field office activity, in order to identify ways to streamline the ways that agents conducted their business. The notion of ad hoc reporting signaled the move to a “nerve center” approach to managing the sales force. Information became primary for decision making, which helped reduce the balkanization across the firm.
The Technology Solution
In order to manage this increasingly complex planning and controls environment, PMI Corp recognized the need for technology to play a central role in managing the distribution and tracking of leads. Traditionally, these controls had been delegated to the office administrators in each of the field offices. Lower level, non-sales employees assumed the responsibility for ensuring that leads were distributed within each office in accordance with the internal and regulatory controls in place. Lead distribution to channels and offices occurred at the home office, using simplistic and inaccurate software tools. Leads were frequently lost or inappropriately distributed. PMI Corp realized that they could no longer rely on the “human touch” to enable proper and effective lead distribution.
Controls
The controls framework in the lead management system existed as lead routing logic in the lead management system. Essentially, the routing logic provided rules for delivering leads to the different users’ “inboxes”. There were two types of rules: routing and suggested assignment. Rigid controls were met using the routing rules. These rules ensured that a new lead, as it entered the system, was routed directly to an agent. Suggested assignment rules delivered the leads to a field office, and the division manager could see to whom the lead should be delivered, but could disregard the recommendation if he chose.
Lead routing logic provided controls at all levels of the organization. At the home office (where leads entered the system routing logic addressed the specific sales channel to which a lead should be sent. Typically, routing at this level was defined by the division that paid for the lead. Additionally, filtering at the home office level facilitated removing leads for those who could not be serviced (such as the deceased leads from states in which PMI Corp was not licensed, and leads for inactive products.
At the channel level, the lead management system had controls specific to each channel. The agency channels routing logic was most rigidly defined, because there were more regulatory and internal policy controls in the agency channel than in direct marketing and brokerage. Within agency, leads were routed to field offices based on state, and by zip code when a state had multiple offices. When a lead arrived at an office, an agent-specific assignment was recommended based on controls defined at the field office level. Consequently, there were hard and soft controls at both levels within agency. Agency executives (at the home office) determined how leads would be distributed to home offices, agency division managers (at the field offices) would decide how leads were distributed to specific agents.
Planning
The lead management system contributed to simpler management of a complex planning and budgeting process. PMI Corp’s marketing budgeting process occurs over a six-month period. Discussions begin in June, and a preliminary budget is created by September, which is reviewed by October and finalized by year-end. The planning and budgeting process accomplishes:
Determining which major marketing campaigns to run
Identifying the types of media to use in these marketing campaigns
Assigning budgets to each campaign
Allocating campaigns to sales channels
Setting goals and measurement techniques for success
PMI Corp’s planning process was quite detailed, and provided a detailed blueprint for marketing throughout the year.
Throughout the year, the marketing plan is adjusted as necessary, based on feedback from the marketplace. Reporting analysts used a variety of data interpretation techniques to determine the changes necessary. Analysts typically developed ad hoc reports to provide detailed information regarding specific marketplace feedback. This data was used to validate hunches, confirm changes of direction, and determine the possible outcomes of different changes. Planning, in this case, changed from overall strategic planning to tactical planning—planning to address specific needs as they arise.
Organizational Change
The drastic change in PMI Corp’s approach to lead management triggered the need for organizational change. To ensure that the various lead management system controls were working effectively, and to support the management process, PMI Corp decided to create a lead management team in the marketing department. The role of the lead management team was to ensure that the rules in the system continued to meet the organization’s evolving needs, as well as to find ways to continue to streamline the lead management process. The lead management team also addressed strategic and tactical reporting requirements, and developed solutions to ensure that the requisite data was fed to the DSS to be used in reporting tasks.
The lead management team became the nerve center of the lead management environment across the entire firm. They gathered, managed, and interpreted lead data from all sales channels, and provided guidance to marketing and sales channel executives based on their interpretations of the data. This team’s mission was to acquire and store information, and recall that information to solve problems and capitalize on opportunities when the needs arise. This maps perfectly to Macintosh’s characterization of nerve center theory, which has the manager constantly learning from a variety of sources (many anecdotal and recalling that information when something in the business environment triggers a recollection.
Conclusion: Technology Takes PMI Corp from Agency to Nerve Center
PMI Corp will always retain characteristics of a traditional agency organization. While most “agency” firms operate via implicit contracts between individuals (owners and management, management and employees PMI Corp relies in some cases on explicit, well-defined contracts. This clearly “agency” characteristic does not preclude the transition of PMI Corp to a nerve center organization. In fact, nerve center management enables PMI Corp to uphold its contracts with agents and brokers more effectively. The implementation of the lead management solution has enabled PMI Corp to gather and interpret more information, for use in granular analysis as well as strategy definition. Using this information, the marketing department becomes a repository of information on how PMI Corp has worked with each of its customers. Every element of the sales cycle for every lead is captured in this system, and these granular details can be gathered into general information on campaign, product, and channel performance. With the marketing department as a clearinghouse for information, PMI Corp begins the move from an organization built on structure to an organization built on information and decision enablement.