acquisitions

　　rganizational seams: strategy and planning; execution; and operations and infrastructure. When marketing works closely with other units to execute key decisions, it can get things done far more quickly and effectively than in the past. But divergent assumptions or a lack of alignment and shared commitment between functions can get in the way. When the authors asked people in marketing and other relevant units what roles they played in a decision, the answers were all over the map. In a classic example, both marketers and product developers in one automaker’s European division believed that they had the final say on which features to include in a new model.

　　 The authors provide a tool for revamping the decision process at the boundaries between functions and describe how Target, Nordstrom, and other large companies have identified important decisions at the seams and increased the impact of their marketing organizations.

　　 HBR Reprint R1407D

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　　CUSTOMER RELATIONS

　　 Unlock the Mysteries of Your Customer Relationships

　　 Jill Avery, Susan Fournier, and John Wittenbraker

　　 Despite the $11 billion spent on CRM software annually, many consumer companies don’t understand customer relationships at all. They aren’t aware of the variety of relationship types and don’t understand what kind their customers want.

　　 Through research in a wide variety of consumer industries, the authors have identified 29 types of relationships. For example, some customers want to be best friends with a brand; others are looking for a passionate fling; still others find themselves as ex-friends and would welcome a closer bond.

　　 To understand the current portfolio of relationships, companies must pick up on signals from multiple sources. Companies can then build a strategic mix of connections by bolstering desired relationships and shifting customers to morevaluable types. There are many issues to consider: For example, some relationship types are more profitable than others.

　　 No actions will bear fruit unless a relationship orientation pervades not just the marketing function but every aspect of the company that touches customers or affects interactions with them. Customers don’t just represent the next upsell or cross-sell opportunity; they are individuals looking for a certain kind of interaction. Companies need to respond accordingly.

　　 HBR Reprint R1407E

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　　Spotlight

　　MANAGING TECHNOLOGY

　　 The Rise of the Chief Marketing Technologist

　　 Scott Brinker and Laura McLellan

　　 Marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most technology-dependent functions in business. In response, a new type of executive is emerging— the chief marketing technologist.

　　 CMTs are part strategist, part creative director, part technology leader, and part teacher. They go by various titles, but they share a common job, intersecting with four key stakeholders in the organization:

　　 The CMO and other senior marketing executives. Here, the CMT supports strategy by ensuring technical capabilities and advocating for approaches enabled by new technologies.

　　 The CIO and IT. The chief marketing technologist facilitates and prioritizes technology requests from marketing, translating between technical and marketing requirements and making sure that marketing’s systems adhere to IT policies.

　　 The marketing team. The task here is to ensure that the marketing staff has the right software and training. Software and service providers.

　　 The CMT assesses how well outside vendors’ technical capabilities meet marketing’s needs, helps integrate the systems, and monitors their performance.

　　 A thumbnail profile of Mayur Gupta, the global head of marketing technology and operations at Kimberly-Clark, shows just how open-ended the CMT role is and why an executive fully at home in both marketing and IT is essential for the job.

　　 HBR Reprint R1407F

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　　Feature

　　 LEADERSHIP

　　 “I Came Back Because the Company Needed Me”

　　 Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing, interviewed by Adi Ignatius

　　 Yang assumed the reins at Lenovo (formerly known as Legend) in 2001, when the company’s founder, Liu Chuanzhi, moved on to become chairman. He served as CEO for three years before succeeding Liu as chairman, and he and Liu engineered the stunning 2005 acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business, which suddenly made Lenovo the world’s third-largest computer maker. In 2009, after the company had begun to falter during the global recession, the board asked Yang to return as CEO, a post he’s held ever since.

　　 Pursuing a strategy the company calls “protect and attack”—defending its core market in PCs (Lenovo is now the world’s number one manufacturer) while moving into new growth areas such as mobile and the cloud—Yang has turned things around. Earlier this year Lenovo spent $2.3 billion to acquire IBM’s low-end server business and $2.9 billion for Google’s Motorola Mobility unit.

　　 He talks here with HBR’s editor in chief about Lenovo’s innovations, competitors, acquisitions, and more.

　　 HBR Reprint R1407J

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　　Managing Yourself

　　 Becoming a First-Class Noticer

　　 Max H. Bazerman

　　 We’d like to think that no smart, upstandingmanager would ever overlook or turn a blind eye to threats or wrongdoing that ultimately imperil his or her business. Yet it happens all the time. We fall prey to obstacles that obscure or drown out important signals that things are amiss.

　　 Becoming a “first-class noticer,” says Max H.Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School, requires conscious effort to fight ambiguity, motivated blindness, conflicts of interest, the slippery slope, and efforts of others to mislead us. As a manager, you can develop your noticing skills by acknowledging responsibility when things go wrong rather than blaming external forces beyond your control. Bazerman also advises taking an outsider’s view to challenge the status quo. Given the string of ethical failures of corporations around the world in recent years—from BP to GM to JPMorgan Chase—it’s clear that lea