Inspiring Good Business
  

In the nineteenth century,‘good’ business was mutual, providing homes, good food, education; lifting people from slums where an average death came age 14.In the twentieth century, ‘good’ business learnt marketing; running savvy, competitive operations, selling goods to tribes of unknowns.In the twenty-first century ‘good’ business is both mutual and savvy; attuning to social visions, creating reciprocal networks.

Now is the age for Mutual Marketing Now it is the time for
inspiring / market / thinking

The challenges

Customer relationship management, social networking, social responsibility - of both the corporate and personal kind - all are major market shaping forces in the private, public AND third sector. The business of business is getting far more social, far more collaborative, and if organizations are going to be sustainable, they need to understand their markets and respond with innovative new business practices. Inviting customers to collaborate in building their own ‘experience’; understanding how product packaging should be responding to trends in green consumerism; engaging employees in a unified corporate culture around brand values.

We used to work individually with clients on these issues, but found ourselves tackling similar problems with different departments. Very little was ‘joined up’; so much energy and resource was being wasted causing stress and frustration. Yet, all the time people were gamely trying to change things, be innovative and think differently.

A mutual response

We found that if we joined forces to entwine both our subject-matter expertise and business disciplines (research, strategy, facilitation, business design) together, we were much better able to support clients:-

• Explore the market trends in relationship marketing and social responsibility they needed to respond to

• Work together cross-functionally, recognizing inter-dependencies
• Face outwards and work in a co-ordinated fashion with stakeholders - customers, partners, community organizations and shareholders.
• We decided to call this way of working Mutual Marketing - drawing on historical precedents. The word mutual reflecting both the growing social response required of business, and the need for cross-functional, outside-in collaboration.

How it works to support you

Our research and client services are now co-ordinated and build on mutual principles; so developing a fresh and inspirational, yet pragmatic, answer to dealing with the complex business challenges we all face today.

As business analysts our ongoing research programme provides insight and thought leadership to inform the actions of our clients. We then act as advisors, facilitators and tutors, undertaking tailored client research if necessary, to help re-focus, re-think, and re-model business practices. By working on real business problems together with clients; integrating their business understanding with our subject matter expertise and experience, then together we inspire market thinking and develop innovative action.

This is not confined to the marketing department, corporate strategy or CRS manager. Through mutual practices we cross the functional and group boundaries that hold organizations back. We believe that marketing, the practice of anticipating and providing for customer needs effectively, is a discipline that everyone in an organization should have. Through our methods of skills development we help everyone to think about business problems and support the creation of inspirational ideas that capture market opportunity.

For a further understanding of who we are and what we do here are two other relevant sections; a flavour of how we can help and the Benefits of our services.