3 questions for TrinityP3 strategic alignment expert: Nathan Hodges

This post is by Darren Woolley, Founder of TrinityP3. With his background as analytical scientist and creative problem solver, Darren brings unique insights and learnings to the marketing process. He is considered a global thought leader on agency remuneration, search and selection and relationship optimisation.

As TrinityP3 continues to grow, so does the team of professionals within the company and so does the depth of experience and expertise. Therefore I want to take this opportunity to introduce some of the core team members and their expertise, before having them answer three questions on what they do being:

1. What are the challenges facing marketers today in their area of expertise?
2. How does TrinityP3 assist marketers in this area?
3. What advice would they give to any marketer facing these challenges?

First up is our General Manager, Nathan Hodges. Nathan has many years of experience with the challenges of co-ordinating cross functional agency teams both as a marketer and to deliver a marketer’s requirements. He has led many major accounts both in Australia and in the UK (but note, he is Welsh, not English, with a sense of humour to match).

He leads and oversees many of the projects undertaken by TrinityP3, but his strong strategical skills means he is particularly effective in assisting marketers to align their agency roster to their strategic requirements. This process is our Strategic Alignment process. The process was initially developed to align agencies and suppliers, but increasingly we are engaged to align the internal structures, resources and processes within organisations to increase both effectiveness and efficiency.

We find the biggest challenges for marketers is a very simple set of challenges and it is all around speed of change, and it’s about how fast your marketing structure and your marketing processes and your marketing skill sets can adapt to that change.

As quickly as the market is changing, the consumer is changing, the communications options that we have are changing, and all of that stuff that we read about all the time. It’s also about how fast and how flexible the change can be in your roster partnerships as well.

So what the skill sets are there, what the centres of excellence are there and how well suited they are to the requirements that you have.

Structures, processes, people’s careers, people’s investment in their skill sets, they’re very difficult things to change very quickly and it’s very hard to do that when you’re inside an organisation. It’s much easier to see it when you’re outside. It’s also much easier to see that when you’re not inside the organisation, trying very hard to cover your day job at the same time.

We assist at TrinityP3 by keeping it very simple. Our task is no harder than this. We simply look at what the marketing requirements are currently and what they are likely to be in the future. And we see what the roster capabilities and skill sets are and what they could be in the future.

And what we then do is match those two things up so you’re looking at where those requirements are being fulfilled effectively and efficiently and creatively and inventively and then we highlight where those things are working well and matched, where there are gaps, and where there are opportunities.

And then we sit with the marketing team and we look at what the gaps are, what the good matches are and work with them in order to optimise that roster, the way it works with the marketing organisation and in the end, produce something that’s more effective, more efficient, more creative and strategic than what was there before.

The biggest piece of advice would be to get very very clear about what those requirements truly are and how well they are genuinely being fulfilled by the structure that you have, the processes that you’re running and then the roster of agencies that are working with you.

This market is moving so fast, the options out there for all of us are changing so quickly and it’s really important not to fall into that whole, too much invested to quit syndrome which just means you ossify, you paralyse in the face of change. And when you’re looking at that, it’s very difficult to separate the personal and your own perspective from what is really going on.

So getting some kind of third party perspective on that is often invaluable.

To read more of Nathan’s insights and knowledge on strategic alignment and more, check out his posts on the TrinityP3 blog here.