Is your marketing department taking advantage of MOM and MRM? Do you haveBAM and DAM systems in place? Do you know how to measure NPV? Do you evenknow what I'm talking about?

If so, you may not be a "Quant" (a marketing scientist or specialist in marketinganalytics) but you're certainly ready to seize a leadership role and spur yourcompany into the new world of Marketing Operations.

Marketing Operations (AKA MOM or Marketing Operations Management) seeks toimprove performance and measure ROI through sustainable processes, bestpractices and clearly-defined metrics. Admired technology companies (like Intel, IBMand Adobe) are hiring VP or director-level individuals to refine and fine-tune theirmarketing organizations to run with an operational focus. Market research firms likeGartner and Forrester are also rolling out new research services with a heavy focuson Marketing Operations. And the first U.S. conference on Marketing Operations washeld in New York this past May.

Marketing operations tackles:

(1) measuring the performance of marketing effectiveness;
(2) ensuring appropriate marketing organization;
(3) deploying marketing processes, tools and infrastructure;
(4) managing marketing skill development; and
(5) building a sense of community across the marketing discipline.

Why should you care?

For starters, Marketing Operations is a great vehicle for becoming more strategicand less buried in task. It equips you to talk the language that C-level executivesappreciate, take control of your destiny and ultimately become more valuable toyour organizations. Best of all, you can address head-on the issues that affect youdirectly and also represent corporate America's biggest challenges, including howto:

(1) define meaningful success metrics from which performance can be measured(one type of measure, NPV or Net Present Value, calculates the present value of aninvestment's future net cash flows minus the initial investment);

(2) optimally leverage resources in increasingly thinner marketing departments(MRM or Marketing Resource Management focuses on workflow, role definition,project management, planning, budgeting and other resource allocation strategies);

(3) more effectively manage shared knowledge so insight is retained even after keyemployees move on, enabling more informed decision-making (knowledgemanagement strategies include BAM or Brand Asset Management, and DAM orDigital Asset Management); and perhaps most importantly

(4) replicate successful marketing programs so marketing best practices areinstitutionalized (and you aren't).

Gary M. Katz, APR, is president and CEO of CommPros Group, a Santa-Clara, Calif.-based firm that provides marketing operations services to help companies leveragetheir marketing investment, plus a variety of outsourced marketing programmanagement services to support lean marketing departments. Gary is a 23-yearveteran in the technology industry where he directed has corporate marketing,communications, public relations, lead generation and qualification, investorrelations, and employee communications programs. He has served as director ofcommunications for ShoreTel, director of corporate marketing for AplixCorporation, senior manager of corporate communications for InsigniaSolutions, and also worked with a variety of public relations and marketingcommunications agencies. A past president of Silicon Valley PRSA, heholds a master's degree in organization development from the University of SanFrancisco and a BA degree in public relations from San Jose State University.

Formore information, visit CommPros Group at http://www.commprosgroup.com