Ever since the start of our international company, the country teams have never had a clear, comprehensive overview of the activities and results of our company-wide marketing efforts. Nor have they shared knowledge and best practices so they could learn from one another. This had to change.
That’s why an international project team was established. This multi-country team (Germany, Netherlands, France, Russia and Spain) has been working for months on designing a marketing database that will form a reliable ‘single point of truth’ for the company. The database will be the source for all reports and, in the future, it will be linked to other systems, for example our CMR/Direct Marketing applications.
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Peter Dingemanse (yield manager) and I (direct marketing) represent the Netherlands in the project team. We’ve been going to Hamburg every month since the summer of 2016 to brainstorm with the team about queries, database fields, file imports and reports. The workshops take three days. For me, this means waking up early on Wednesday, drinking coffee at Schiphol, taking a one-hour flight followed by a taxi ride to the Kehrwieder office.
Working together in an international group is not only important for the success of the project; it’s also incredibly interesting, educational and fun. While the countries share many similarities in how they work, they also have just as many differences. When sitting around the table we seek points of agreement, make concessions and share our best practices.
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On Friday evening I arrive tired but happy back at Schiphol airport. Working on a complex IT project takes a lot of energy, but in the Netherlands we’re already using the database to make our daily sales report, which gives me a great feeling of satisfaction. I’m looking forward to the time when we are all working with and benefiting from the information that the marketing database provides.
Direct marketing
Stage Entertainment The Netherlands
