Marketing can no longer be considered a "secondary" role in any company."A Marketer's greatest opportunity today is to capitalize on how organizations are starting to recognize the value that Marketing can generate to various lines of business and to a company's bottom line, says Roberto Ricossa, Marketing Vice President for Avaya in an interview with the Internationalist Magazine.
Roberto Ricossa is responsible for defining and leading the Marketing Strategy throughout the Americas International Region, which includes Latin America and Canada.
Top executives from CEOs, CFOs to Sales Leaders are realizing the impact that a well-oiled marketing engine can have on all company results. It is our role to maximize this and clearly articulate the value proposition that marketing can demonstrate when aligned with the sales organization."
Interestingly, with almost two decades of experience, Roberto Ricossa believes that priorities of marketing have changed today. Although branding continues to be of tremendous importance, he sees "managing innovation" and "understanding the opportunities and expectations of sales" as now critical to delivering on Return on Marketing Investment.
In his marketing role at Avaya, Roberto Ricossa reports into the sales department. He has demonstrated how a strong alignment between marketing and sales can produce measureable results. His work has not only accelerated key revenue growth, but it has raised the perception of marketing within the company. Yet this kind of successful internal relationship comes with constant dialogue; shared vision, strategic direction and tactics; meticulous planning; and, of course, budgeting with ongoing assessment.
"Today," says Ricossa, "Top-level executives from the CEO to the CFO have had more exposure to good marketing and can recognize a beneficial plan when it's presented. However, when you help sales produce double-digit growth, marketing is no longer viewed as playing a support role, but is seen as an essential function in contributing to the company's overall well-being."
"If I could change anything in business today," he asserts, "I would start with a company's P&L and move marketing from an expense to an investment. This is more than semantics. ROI is at the heart of any successful business; effective marketing operates today with the expectations of an investment within a given timeframe."
He also believes the marketing is playing a leading role as the Latin American market experiences overall growth. The key, though, "is realizing that even though every market is different, we have to be able to identify the similarities among countries and maximize our efforts by obtaining economies of scale on pan-regional initiatives with a core essence, but with a local flavor tailored to the pertinent audience."
Roberto Ricossa, born in Mexico City, has 17+ years in the international telecom industry with such leading companies such as Avaya, Nortel and Anixter. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the Ibero University in Mexico, and has several management diplomas and certifications from renowned institutions like The Kellogg School of Management. In 2011, he was named one of The Internationalist's LATIN AMERICAN 50.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Italian fashion adapts to changing media world
Andrea Tremolada, Worldwide Communications Director of Salvatore Ferragamo, is one of the most respected media experts in fashion advertising. It's also clear that he possesses boundless stores of energy. At the 10th Annual Connect Alliance Conference in Lago Maggiore, he provided an overview of the luxury giant's media strategy -- directly after landing at Malpensa from South Korea and before rushing back to headquarters for meetings with Mrs. Ferragamo. (The Founder's widow, Wanda Ferragamo, is also amazingly energetic. Although in her '80's, she continues to come to work daily.)
Salvatore Ferragamo, a family empire built on a heritage of fine craftsmanship, now sells its products in 75 countries and through 573 stores bearing its name. The company produces two different major ad campaigns each year. "We are proud to make products that are totally produced in Italy," says Tremolada. The current Ferragamo campaign was filmed at Lake Como's famed Villa d'Este—just an hour north of the company's Milan office -- to underscore the brand values of a "Made in Italy" label.
Andrea Tremolada admits that he knows much more about the Ferragamo consumer than ever before -- largely due to the exchange of information through social networks. "In last 3 years, we've found that consumers have become more involved than in the past. Those who are very interested in our products offer tremendous feedback about our quality and share opinions that are helpful to our brand.
We have come to see key differences between those who buy online and those who shop in stores. And given the number of people who use their phones to take photos of products they'd like to find, we are looking forward to the mobile aspects of e-commerce in the near future."
As a rule, luxury and high-fashion brands have been slow to embrace digital media as they seek media environments associated with wealth, good taste and those tactile qualities found with elegant print vehicles. Yet Tremolada is convinced that Ferragamo should invest more in its online activities. 'This is not just for advertising, but to continue the strong relationship we have with our consumers." He also admits that there are times when an iPad application is better than a glossy magazine—particularly when video can be embedded and the brand story expanded.
He also recognizes the need for the company to become a publisher. "We need to be a content producer, particularly if we want to keep our Facebook presence meaningful to customers every day. When people are interested in the label, they always want to know more."
Although still largely invested in print, Tremolada's media strategy varies by country and the brand's median age is changing. For example, Ferragamo runs its advertising in a teen magazine in South Korea—something that he says "would never happen in Japan or even Italy." South Korea also boasts one of the highest shares of the company's internet spending. China has a portion of its budget dedicated to Outdoor, a medium now associated with luxury when placed adjacent to upscale shopping malls accessed largely by those who can afford to visit by cars. Ferragamo also runs television advertising in the US and Brazil with some limited spots in Japan for its fragrances.
Sales by region now reflects the overall trend found by most luxury marketers, which underscores the huge significance of the Asia Pacific region, followed by the US -- which has now outpaced Europe. Top countries include Japan, China South Korea and Taiwan, while fast-growth markets now include Mexico and Brazil. - The Internationalist Magazine
Salvatore Ferragamo, a family empire built on a heritage of fine craftsmanship, now sells its products in 75 countries and through 573 stores bearing its name. The company produces two different major ad campaigns each year. "We are proud to make products that are totally produced in Italy," says Tremolada. The current Ferragamo campaign was filmed at Lake Como's famed Villa d'Este—just an hour north of the company's Milan office -- to underscore the brand values of a "Made in Italy" label.
Andrea Tremolada admits that he knows much more about the Ferragamo consumer than ever before -- largely due to the exchange of information through social networks. "In last 3 years, we've found that consumers have become more involved than in the past. Those who are very interested in our products offer tremendous feedback about our quality and share opinions that are helpful to our brand.
We have come to see key differences between those who buy online and those who shop in stores. And given the number of people who use their phones to take photos of products they'd like to find, we are looking forward to the mobile aspects of e-commerce in the near future."
As a rule, luxury and high-fashion brands have been slow to embrace digital media as they seek media environments associated with wealth, good taste and those tactile qualities found with elegant print vehicles. Yet Tremolada is convinced that Ferragamo should invest more in its online activities. 'This is not just for advertising, but to continue the strong relationship we have with our consumers." He also admits that there are times when an iPad application is better than a glossy magazine—particularly when video can be embedded and the brand story expanded.
He also recognizes the need for the company to become a publisher. "We need to be a content producer, particularly if we want to keep our Facebook presence meaningful to customers every day. When people are interested in the label, they always want to know more."
Although still largely invested in print, Tremolada's media strategy varies by country and the brand's median age is changing. For example, Ferragamo runs its advertising in a teen magazine in South Korea—something that he says "would never happen in Japan or even Italy." South Korea also boasts one of the highest shares of the company's internet spending. China has a portion of its budget dedicated to Outdoor, a medium now associated with luxury when placed adjacent to upscale shopping malls accessed largely by those who can afford to visit by cars. Ferragamo also runs television advertising in the US and Brazil with some limited spots in Japan for its fragrances.
Sales by region now reflects the overall trend found by most luxury marketers, which underscores the huge significance of the Asia Pacific region, followed by the US -- which has now outpaced Europe. Top countries include Japan, China South Korea and Taiwan, while fast-growth markets now include Mexico and Brazil. - The Internationalist Magazine
Monday, September 12, 2011
Bad spelling opens up security loophole
A missing dot in an email address might mean messages end up in the hands of cyber thieves, researchers have found, says a BBC report.
By creating web domains that contained commonly mistyped names, the investigators received emails that would otherwise not be delivered.
Over six months they grabbed 20GB of data made up of 120,000 wrongly sent messages.
Some of the intercepted correspondence contained user names, passwords, and details of corporate networks.
About 30% of the top 500 companies in the US were vulnerable to this security shortcoming according to researchers Peter Kim and Garret Gee of the Godai Group.
The problem arises because of the way organisations set up their email systems. While most have a single domain for their website, many use sub-domains for individual business units, regional offices or foreign subsidiaries.
Dots or full stops are used to separate the words in that sub domain.
For example a large American financial group may take bank.com as its corporate home but internally use us.bank.com for staff email.
Usually, if an address is typed with one of the dots missing, i.e. usbank.com, then the message is returned to its sender.
But by setting up similar doppelganger domains, the researchers were able to receive messages that would otherwise be bounced back.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It's striking that the researchers managed to capture so much information by focusing on just one common mistake”
End Quote Mark Stockley Sophos
"Doppelganger domains have a potent impact via email as attackers could gather information such as trade secrets, user names and passwords, and other employee information," wrote the researchers in a paper detailing their work.
Only one of the companies being impersonated noticed that spoofing was taking place and tracked down the researchers.
Man in the middle
A clever attacker could cover their tracks by passing on the message to its correct recipient and relaying back any reply.
By acting as a middleman the likelihood of more messages being mis-sent using the "reply" function increases.
Follow-up work by the researchers revealed that some cyber criminals may already be exploiting keyboard errors.
A search uncovered many addresses resembling corporate sub-domains which were owned by individuals in China or linked to sites associated with malware or phishing.
Writing on the blog of securityfirm Sophos, Mark Stockley said: "It's striking that the researchers managed to capture so much information by focusing on just one common mistake."
"A determined attacker with a modest budget could easily afford to buy domains covering a vast range of organisations and typos," he said.
By creating web domains that contained commonly mistyped names, the investigators received emails that would otherwise not be delivered.
Over six months they grabbed 20GB of data made up of 120,000 wrongly sent messages.
Some of the intercepted correspondence contained user names, passwords, and details of corporate networks.
About 30% of the top 500 companies in the US were vulnerable to this security shortcoming according to researchers Peter Kim and Garret Gee of the Godai Group.
The problem arises because of the way organisations set up their email systems. While most have a single domain for their website, many use sub-domains for individual business units, regional offices or foreign subsidiaries.
Dots or full stops are used to separate the words in that sub domain.
For example a large American financial group may take bank.com as its corporate home but internally use us.bank.com for staff email.
Usually, if an address is typed with one of the dots missing, i.e. usbank.com, then the message is returned to its sender.
But by setting up similar doppelganger domains, the researchers were able to receive messages that would otherwise be bounced back.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It's striking that the researchers managed to capture so much information by focusing on just one common mistake”
End Quote Mark Stockley Sophos
"Doppelganger domains have a potent impact via email as attackers could gather information such as trade secrets, user names and passwords, and other employee information," wrote the researchers in a paper detailing their work.
Only one of the companies being impersonated noticed that spoofing was taking place and tracked down the researchers.
Man in the middle
A clever attacker could cover their tracks by passing on the message to its correct recipient and relaying back any reply.
By acting as a middleman the likelihood of more messages being mis-sent using the "reply" function increases.
Follow-up work by the researchers revealed that some cyber criminals may already be exploiting keyboard errors.
A search uncovered many addresses resembling corporate sub-domains which were owned by individuals in China or linked to sites associated with malware or phishing.
Writing on the blog of securityfirm Sophos, Mark Stockley said: "It's striking that the researchers managed to capture so much information by focusing on just one common mistake."
"A determined attacker with a modest budget could easily afford to buy domains covering a vast range of organisations and typos," he said.
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