A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

102 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
each case it operated as staff to the senior project managers, all of whom
were engineers. In fact, virtually all of those involved in marketing in these
companies were professional engineers, not professional marketers. These
marketing departments provided insights into what the customer might
want, managing relationships between project personnel, etc. They did not
operate as the central dimension of the business. I recall one senior engineering
manager saying proudly just before a major loss to a competitor,
“Marketing doesn’t have much clout around here.”
My Research into Marketing
My work led to dissertation research in this area. My boss was Paul Smith,
then legendary vice president of marketing for McDonnell Douglas Astronautics
Company. My assignment was as a marketing manager to one of two
divisions of our high technology. In this I supported several hundred people,
mostly PhDs, in their bidding research and development contracts, generally
under three million dollars, <strong>with</strong> a variety of government agencies.
In most cases we responded to Requests for Proposals (RFPs) in which
the government specified the technical objectives, some criteria that must
be met, and due dates. We responded <strong>with</strong> a proposal detailing how we
would do it, and what it would cost. My input as a marketing manager was
advisory only. Engineering called the shots. The conventional wisdom at
the time was that we won against our competition by being the low bidder
or because of our technological wizardry or some combination thereof.
I wasn’t so sure.
Paul Smith gave me permission to do the research, to use the resources
of the company to complete my dissertation, and to investigate the influence
of marketing in these bidding results. I investigated all wins and
losses over the previous year. I examined records of phone calls, travel,
and all other contacts <strong>with</strong> the customer by the PhDs who later bid the
contracts. Through interviews, I identified who each government engineer
met <strong>with</strong> and why, noted what was discussed, the objectives of the contact,
and the outcome and perceived quality of the meeting.
I discovered that the total number of contacts was a far better predictor
of success or failure in winning these contracts than either the price bid
or the technological innovation, or even how well the engineer thought
the meeting went! To note the extreme, there were a few bids where there
was no prior contact <strong>with</strong> the customer in the preceding year. Even if our