Creating advantage through research and understanding
The Unmarked Path
Marketing channels are typically inefficient, complicated and underperform...but many firms cannot survive without them.
This is the story of how Oracle started from "scratch" to develop a new marketing channel across 25 countries and multiple time zones in Eastern Europe and CIS.
Written by Michel Clement, VP at Oracle and co authored by Richard Gibbs, it is the story of the people and the problems and challenges they confronted and how they overcame them.
Crucially it is a case study that all operational channel marketing and management people should read. Unlike other case studies it is written as a narrative showing the personalities of the people involved, describing the difficulties as part of the story line.
It covers the practicalities of personnel issues and forecasting as well as the strategic decisions that Michel and his team made. It is also interspersed with commentaries that "lift the case study up" from the specific to enable general principles to be understood and appreciated.
