Marketingboss Interview with group member Peter Winther.

Q: What has been your greatest success as a CMO?

A: Being able to create coalition between sales and marketing, and implementing ultimate loyalty programs, nominated to several awards. For further insight please read this article:

Q: What were the key marketing ingredients?

A: In fact every aspect of and discipline considering CRM, DM and multi channel marketing, but also a great deal coaching.

Q: In your opinion, how important is branding in the years to come?

A: Branding is important, but not just as a buzz word. It is all about having focus on bringing emotional and technical loyalty into consideration, and create an understanding about how we see ourselves, how others see us and how we want to be seen in the future.

Defined in concrete words that can explain the brand idea described in one sentence and values that partner, co-workers, and customers can identify the company with. In my opinion it is much more important to understand the need for focus on loyalty development and LTV than using too much time on branding issues, but neither of the two things must be forgotten.

Name:	Peter Winther
Position:	Sales and Marketing Director
Xing profile:	https://www.xing.com/profile/Peter_Winther/
Nationality:	Danish
Languages:	Danish, English, Swedish, German
Company:	Andersen & Martini A/S
URL:	www.a-m.dk
Industry:	Automotive
Currently working in:	Denmark
Years of CMO experience:	16
Do you have a blog?	no
Which blogs do you read regularly?:	Anything interesting

Q: If you were to mention a few areas within marketing, in which you consider yourself to be a specialist, which are they and why are they important?

A: I have always been a very result oriented entrepreneur focused on ROI and ROMI which always has helped me achieve bottom-line results. One of my main forces is a holistic approach to all problems. For that reason I consider myself to be a good benchmark partner to any board of directors, managers, agencies and co-workers.

Many years in varies jobs and industries has skilled me in developing business plans, marketing plans, strategies, budget, economic follow-up, forecast, coaching, MBO and personal sales towards Key Account Customers. Things that is very important to keep focus and set up goals and consequence if they are not fulfilled.

I have great experience and the results to prove it in leadership and coaching of Business managers, Sales managers, Sales staff, Marketing staff, Customer service staff, Information staff, Logistic manager and staff plus PDI-staff.

Rather than talking about it I make things happen, when ever, where ever, even if the systems or the cultural mindset speaks against it. I have always lived after the saying: “we should always strive to be best with what we have”.

In my opinion too few CMO´s fully understand the need for a strong connection between sales, marketing, backup, production and all the other things that is needed to bring a product from production site to consumer site. This I have learned, as a consequence of a holistic overview and many years of successful work with every aspect of the different disciplines of sales and marketing. I like to think that I look at any obstacle as a possibility and not a problem.

If I should mention some key words it must be my experience with personal sales, dialogue and DM marketing, loyalty management, CRM, multi branding, multi channel marketing, web-development, strong creativity also on command and I have agency experience both as a contact manager and AD. When you are a holistic thinker, it is hard to keep it to one or two disciplines.

Q: How do you see the internet come into play for your industry in the future, and which role do you see your company take in it?

A: The Internet will play a tremendous role in the years to come and we will try to be developing best in classes solutions in favour of our customers. In fact we already try to let our best customers have a saying in our development of our web-site.

Q: It is a fact, that marketing instrumentation has changed dramatically over the past 5-10 years. In your opinion, is the general marketer in need of an educational upgrade, or a competence lift?

A: Definitely, as I see it there is no ONE marketing education that can give a total overview of all the disciplines needed to be a great marketer of the future.

Q: If you compare the internet with that of the automobile industry, how far have we come? (i.e. the automobile industry is 100 years old, the commercial internet industry around 10)

A: We have come far in a very short time, but I believe we have only just begun. In a few years most of the retail business will be moved to the internet. The big issue is logistics. If you can’t get the goods in due time you will still rather go get them your self.

Another issue is security and visibility. Will you buy a car over the internet without having tried it or spoken to a professional who could help you? Some will, others wont, but the winning companies will be those, who understand the different needs of different customers, and gives access to different solutions tailor made and automatically customizes it one to one.

Q: What are you thoughts on networking – virtually and physically?

A: Networking can be very rewarding. You need to give and take if you want something out of joining a networking group.

Q: If you look 5 years ahead from now, where would you like to see yourself in terms of marketing competence?

A: It is hard to say, but I hope I have followed time and are able to keep up with all the new stuff we will experience in the next 5-10 years.

Q: If you were to pinpoint any Marketingboss in particular you would like to get connected with, how would you describe him/her?

A: Somebody who shares my passion for loyalty development and holistic focus on marketing issues.

You can connect with Peter Winther from his Xing profile here: https://www.xing.com/profile/Peter_Winther/