In our client engagements, we find that retail marketers & merchants have wildly differing views on the functionality and desired operational change they expect from MSM, EMM & MRM solutions. Understanding the differences between the solutions is key to recognizing the value they deliver to retail organizations. We’ll start with examining the variations in functionality between the suites, and then describe the corresponding impact retailers can expect from these tools.

Before diving into the differences, let’s cover some background information. Here’s what the three acronyms mean:

• • MRM (Marketing Resource Management) typically focuses on project, expense management & the execution of jobs.

• • EMM (Enterprise Marketing Management) adds to MRM with performance measurement, promotional management & optimization.

• • MSM (Marketing Strategy Management) takes EMM and layers on the ingredients retail marketers need to build and tweak their strategies; define competitor strategies, media mix, customer insights, marketing and merchandising plans.

Now let’s analyze the impact the different solutions can have on a retail organization.

Marketing Resource Management primarily impacts operational efficiency by allowing the marketing department to automate their processes with workflows. These workflows can be used for approvals on event budgets, and creative.

Enterprise Marketing Management builds on the process automation that MRM delivers by letting marketing operations plan their promotional activity and optimize it across all channels. A key point of emphasis for retailers should an EMM solution’s ability to support the versioning of offers by market, SKU, and deal type.

The big gap for many retailers is tying the processes, activity and promotions back up to a strategy. That’s where Marketing Strategy Management comes in. A good MSM system provides marketers an avenue to layout their strategic plan for the year and then drive EMM and MRM activity from that strategy.

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