Training

I have just received The Chartered Institute of Marketing's Learning and Development brochure for 2010-11.  There is hardly any training around for Marketing Procurement folk (except the very good ISBA courses that is taught by real practitioners).  So this brochure was quite interesting as it covers topics such as Digital Marketing, Metrics, Insights and Innovation.  Sadly there is no training on procurement (for the marketeers of course).  But it is worth a look if you are looking for any category specific training for your procurement teams.

Back to Skool

I have been sent an email by the Chartered Institute of Marketing - the subject heading was 'Marketing and Sales Standards'. Interesting I thought and I read on. Their vision is for a comprehensive and robust qualification structure for the marketing profession (like our CIPS?).



One of their 5 reasons for looking at this is address any skills gaps and this includes commercial/business awareness (good point as I think it is an area that Marketing could develop as long as it doesn't do procurement out of a job !).



But my thoughts were that I hear more and more agencies asking the procurement person if they are CIPS qualified and indeeed I think quite a few agencies have become associate members of CIPS to get the 'inside track' on us. I only know of one agency that has a procurement person and he is going through his CIPS qualification.



My point being that procurement are asked and perhaps judged on the industry qualification, what about Marketing ? Is CIM a current must for marketing people ? I know many excellent Marketing people and I bet that they are not CIM qualified. Are CIM trying to drive the qualification structure for the good of the marketing industry or for CIM ? All comments welcome and I have the link to the survey, if anyone would like it.



Interesting stats in the mailer

• The marketing profession, which includes marketing communications, is a significant professional group within the UK economy across all four nations


• It employs approximately 592,000 people, which represents around 1.9% of the UK’s workforce


• It is estimated that approximately 90% of the marketing workforce is employed in England, 6% in Scotland, 3% in Wales and 1% in Northern Ireland

Is that a glimmer of hope I see?

In this week's issue of Supply Management (page 8), there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

Ray Jones, who is head of communications at the Chartered Institute of Marketing said and I quote "the onus is on marketers to appreciate the value buyers can add to their projects. It is up to us to keep up to date with business and to be numerate enough to work closely with procurement to prove there is a good return on investment".

Sounds great. Now they just need to communicate that to their membership and all the marketeers in the UK maybe the world that have a block about engaging with their procurement teams. Here's hoping.