Episode Four (English): Agile Marketing Around the Globe with Beatriz Pinto

Transcript Of Podcast with Beatriz Pinto & John Cass

00:00:07 John Cass 

Welcome to the deep dive into agile marketing with John Cass. I'm your host, John Cass here in Boston, MA. Today I'll be interviewing Beatriz Pinto digital marketing consultant for Accenture in Colombia. Today's podcast is a little different from my brand podcast. Instead of interviewing Beatrix, she talked about her work as a marketer and using agile. The focus is on the state of agile marketing in Colombia. Welcome Beatriz thanks for joining us. 

00:00:38 Beatriz Pinto 

Thank you, John. Glad to be here talking about ideal marketing with focus in Colombia and business agility support. 

I haven't done podcast in another language before. This is a challenge for me, but I try my best. I'm happy to share my experience here. 

00:00:53 John Cass 

Excellent. You know, I think we should start with how you got started with agile and marketing. Can you tell me a bit about that? 

00:01:02 Beatriz Pinto 

OK, well done talking a little about me. I am assistant engineer and project management specialist with more than eleven years in managing projects in different sectors, applying different methodologies and I began with agility adoption 6 years ago in the telecommunications industry and there I applied fundamentals in many initiatives in areas like customer experience marketing, among others.

Now regarding digital marketing, I started in 2017 and that time I began working in the consulting sector where I faced a big challenge. Agile adoption into marketing teams in areas like media conversion, SEO and e-mail marketing. 

00:01:52 Beatriz Pinto 

John, at that moment, most agile adaptations were focused on software and not in marketing. Therefore, the real challenge was to support different company's digital transformation, which involved in a volatile and complex environment, and they needed more frequent deliveries. In that occasion, that wasn't very easy at the beginning and there was a lot of churn resistance by the team because this type of adaptation didn't have much recognition in Colombian marketing and also they consider agile as a push. 

On Adaption I work closely with Ricardo Gonzalez, marketing manager, consultant at that time and the beginning. He was very, very skeptical about agile marketing, but today he's a good promoter due to good results in speak to market, not rework on our ability to continuous changes, he considers agile marketing as a digital transformation pillar, but now working as a digital hub lead in any level. 

00:03:03 Beatriz Pinto 

John, by the way, in in in 2019, I look for different certification of courses for me. And here I found Andrea Fryrear, an agile marketing pioneer with Agile Sherpas where I got certified as an agile marketing professional this year. In in in the last year in 2020, I interact with Melissa Reese too, Marketing VP at ScaledAgile, with whom we made two workshops for testing the SAFE marketing certification in the Alpha and beta version which is now available on the market. It was a very, very enriching experience for me and for my coworkers so young. That's how I started with agile marketing. 

00:03:51 John Cass 

Excellent. Do tell me about the business culture in Colombia. How open are marketers and businesses to the agile approach? 

00:04:01 Beatriz Pinto 

Well, John, I like to tell you my personal point of view as an agile marketing promoter. This is based on my experience, knowledge and one research that I have done with different marketers. 

And now about the business culture in Colombia in agility way is a continuous solution where the companies used to focus on their strategies on cloud or services just for selling them. But now it's more frequent that the strategies are more customer centric that are driven and agile mindset. I mean these strategies helping the needs of user and behavior satisfaction. 

00:04:42 Beatriz Pinto 

For this I have done with as a marketer with different market existing marketer in Colombia. I have done research with whom I have some direct and not direct contact. This survey is focused on client companies where 50% of the marketer work in these kind of companies and the other person are from consulting or agency in the same company this will be included business sector such as banking, Airline, CPG, technology, Internet communication and among others at the same time we found 50% of the people believe Agile is one of the digital transformation process. 

00:05:28 Beatriz Pinto 

And the 30% see agility as a reflection of technology and the other areas in the company, John, in Colombia and your marketing is in a very structured practice and we don't have a lot of documentation about it. But even so 40% of the marketing consultant. We want to know how this practice can help to solve their pain points in the in the marketing department. I consider this this so promising for the agile marketing culture in Colombia. 

00:06:00 John Cass 

Well, that's a great assessment. So, can you tell me about some of the companies who've adopted agile marketing in Colombia? 

00:06:09 Beatriz Pinto 

OK, well, despite the lack of documentation, 60% of the marketing survey see your marketing as a new initiative in the area and 20% of that number have been using it for more than a year. 

Here then I consider this is a good indicator for the beginning for this practice in Colombia, is is relevant to say that to agility, many companies have been able to improve their processes and create online solution to the changing marketing needs we should increase. 

I consider we should increase the agile marketing diffusion in order to make the mindset stronger and showing the real benefits for the market, business and user. 

Mission in in in this way I think the company can lead top down versus bottom up guaranteeing success cases to replay in in the future. Now in in this way checking account this I believe we should implement first the value and principles. 

To the team and company instead of their management tools at the beginning. Moreover, I quit quick win I recommend is to internalize the other marketing manifesto and then experiment, iterate and learn with that. 

00:07:33 John Cass 

And what about finance companies? Do you see any adoption there? 

00:07:39 Beatriz Pinto

About the finance company. Well, John, regarding this sector, about 30% of the survey belong to the banking in in Colombia. One of the insight is along marketing adoption can be different between traditional banking versus Fintech, if we talk about traditional banking, the agile adoption has been unnecessary process and is on continual evolution because the business needs to adapt more to marketing changes. Here we see how big banks in Colombia like the vivienda one, Colombia and one others have advanced in their digital transformation process making the different versus other one.

00:08:19 Beatriz Pinto 

Nowadays they promote more customer centric collaboration over hierarchies and silos, delivering more value to the user in a personalized way and in in, in the other way with about Fintech, the adoption process is a little different. It's innate. Because these kind of companies are from a digital environment with innovation and age. 

Therefore, agile marketing adoption, not big complex because concept like working bicycles, cooperation, collaboration, frequent experiments and limit to work in progress is is there today in these types of companies currently and we are a good way banking in Colombia every day is more agile. 

00:09:06 John Cass 

How are companies deploying agile in Colombia? What different types of adoption have you seen between Scrum, Kanban or hybrid? 

00:09:15 Beatriz Pinto 

OK, John, when talking about implementation, we should start by adopting the mindset through value and principles and support on the agile marketing manifesto. After this we can move on to management. To achieve this is important for me, it is important to have a role like I'll coach or I tailor, who not only has knowledge and manage in earlier practices but has basic knowledge in marketing specialist. For me this is so important in order to solve the business needs with empathy with the marketers. 

00:09:52 Beatriz Pinto 

About the survey, we found 60% of the people have adopted hybrid practices in many initiatives, which include a mix with Lean, Kanban and Scrum. This data is so aligned with the last report, the full report from was released yesterday, where more than 50% of the survey more than 600 marketers. They use hybrid practices. I think in in the in the same way in in Colombia with surpass report. According to this, I share the same vision hybrid implementation instead of applying scrum to everything. 

And for example, one for example in your strategy conversion and personalization we can use for example Linus Columbian in a in analytics and SEO we can use for example lean and Scrum and showing the other areas. It's important to clarify, this could vary and depends on the business. 

I here I need to add a relevant and differential factor is to identify that actual marketing goals beyond mindset and management, understanding that we can implement it in terms of strategy, marketing, architecture and technical delivery. This is the holistic. 

As your marketing view applied to the business, one of the promoters with whom I shared that that vision is Daniel Arbelas, one of the main marketing leaders in the country. We are convinced by introducing these elements we can achieve the business goals and user satisfaction in the wait. 

00:11:30 John Cass 

And how are C-Suite leaders reacting to the adoption of our job market in Columbia? Is there any more transparency and communication between the marketing department and C-Suite leaders? 

00:11:43 Beatriz Pinto 

OK, John and currently in Colombia are marketing has been implemented mainly under a bottom up structure. 

Where this is a continued learning process as an incipient practice in the country now, and this is due to the way implementation in some companies is focused exclusively on tools, frameworks and goals instead of showing that through this practice strategy solution can be achieved for the company. 

Now a good example of top down adoption is Bank Colombia company, which promote agility, more strategy than operational vision. 

To confirm this, I am about the the survey. I can say that 50% of the marketer survey, including leaderships, director, managers, different consultant and analyst consider the best strategy for implementing around marketing in Colombia, should be top down. 

In this way, according to that, I think that one way to link the sea level vision with Asian marketing is by integrating all PR objective key results which help to connect and coordinate the company objectives with operational areas. 

00:12:58 Beatriz Pinto 

And teams and in. In this way we disconnect at success case is on the level who integrating all cars and agile marketing promoted into the company to working and alliance and prioritize weight with a common purpose. 

And so, to complement, I'd like to talk about some marketing pain points about the the the survey by 60 of marketing survey says for example, 11 pinpoint, the lack of online and prioritization, the business goals high bureaucracy in and out marketing and teams working with inadequate methods. In this way, I believe the transparency plays an important role. Starting from the sea level to the marketing leaders and thus to the operational teams here and the most important is to know. 

00:13:52 Beatriz Pinto 

Why and what for all Members? With the initiative. The same is with communication. It helps to increase cohesion and confidence in order to commit to results and at the final joining the pain points with communication and transparency, I consider again, marketing is crucial because it promotes and collaborative and flexible mindset. Their leaders empower their teams and learn in day-to-day. 

00:14:22 John Cass 

In Colombia, what organizations are supporting agile marketing? You know what podcasts and other organizations are available. 

00:14:31 Beatriz Pinto 

OK, some consulting companies in Colombia are including agile marketing in the sales proposal to clients. That means we have a growing each in order to make a different kind of digital marketing in the same way some client companies are also adopting agile mindset. 

Thanks to the initiative of leaders by previous experience of of conviction, yeah, also the companies such as Google, IBM, Forbes, among others have published articles and reports related global agile marketing. And due to these companies have a big influence in Colombia. Good practices have been in this way already there are some certifications available on the market with IC Agile and safe for marketing. I recommend them because they're included not only myself and management included technical execution and scalability for marketing point of view. 

00:15:31 John Cass 

What do you think is the future for agile marketing in Colombia? 

00:15:36 Beatriz Pinto

John and I like this question. Colombia has a lot of potential for growth in this practice, especially when 85% of of survey have curiosity in, in their learning more about agile marketing benefits. The insight this is is encouraging because it shows that more companies will adopt the agile marketing guided by CMOS or leaders due to the impact on business.

Therefore, for finally, I would like recommend so quick wins for for this practice. OK, it could be for example have an agile marketing community in the social media made of marketer agilests or anyone else that wants to know or contribute to expand this practice in the country. 

For that currently in Colombia, there are more people with knowledge and formal training. One for them is marketing, learning with whom to run this community. 

The other could be for example promote agile marketing, integral mindset management, strategy architecture and others which but through the bill of success cases from different industry in Colombia and the end one call to action for CMO's could be for example. 

And small groups of marketers into the companies that wants to learn about that with official courses or different certification, which is agile or say for marketing. 

So this could be a star with agile marketing manifesto or Kias and see. But look for example my purpose here, at least only only market 1 market, at least one marketer that has a curiosity to research. I am marketing in Colombia today with this stock for me is done if curiosity is the beginning for. 

00:17:30 John Cass 

Well, that's excellent. Me. Thank you so much for doing all the research into the state of agile marketing in Colombia. I really appreciate the the interview today. Thank you so much. 

00:17:43 Beatriz Pinto 

Well, John, thanks to business Agility Institute and you for this invitation, I hope we talk in the future about higher marketing maturity in the country. So just one in Colombia, John, thanks again. 

00:17:54 John Cass 

Absolutely. So thanks for joining us on the deep dive into agile marketing with John Cass. My thanks to Beatriz, and we'll see you next time.