Career Opportunities
Marketing Bridges the Maker-User Gap Highly competent men are needed to sell in a buyer's market
LOUIS FERNANDEZ, Director of Marketing, Inorganic Chemicals Division, Monsanto Co., St. Louis, Mo.
A successful career in marketing is the result of combining technical knowledge with a variety of other abilities. These talents are developed in such sessions as this sales training class in operation at Monsanto
In the decade following World War II, marketing in the chemical industry played a secondary role to research, engineering, and manufacturing as the industry concentrated its efforts on building plants and making products to satisfy the large pent-up demand. In short, for a prolonged period a seller's market existed. During this period the industry encouraged promising technical graduates to pursue careers in research, manufacturing, and engineering. Out of this grew the image that a technical graduate entering marketing was less competent and less important than his colleagues who pursued careers where they "could use their technical training." In the mid-fifties, the chemical industry moved from a seller's to a buyer's market. Customers began to demand better products, more technical service, and lower prices. Business was awarded to companies that were perceptive in understanding their customer's needs and skillful in using the entire resources of the company in filling these needs. The situation called for a new caliber of marketing men. It required men with a high level of technical competence. It placed a premium on a marketing man who could generate and communicate new ideas to his customers and his counterparts in other departments of his company. Today, the marketing man in the chemical industry enjoys a position of professional respect fully equal to his associates in research, engineering, and manufacturing. What happens when a young man joins a chemical company's marketing department? At Monsanto, for example, we begin with a planned orientation program designed to give the new employee knowledge of the over-all corporate structure, policies and procedures, and beginning selling skills. This takes about six weeks. Next the recent graduate is given additional training in the division he will work for. This training emphasizes product knowledge. It will include working with research and manufacturing personnel and may include carrying out special marketing projects. Generally this takes three to six months. Finally, the man is given his initial starting assignment. Some typical jobs are as follows: Field Sales Representative—He is responsible for all marketing relations with selected customers or industries within
24A
C&EN
MAY
2 4,
1965
a given territory. To this extent, he is like an independent businessman who must plan his time and direct his energies and talents to maximize the sale of products within his area of responsibility. The field sales representative is also responsible for gathering and reporting information and ideas gained from his day-to-day experience in the field, especially information of significance to the company's marketing effort. He must show the broad interest and enthusiasm expected of all members of the company's management in the progress and growth of his company, above and beyond his own specific responsibilities. This is what makes a company grow. This is what makes an executive! Product Specialist—He keeps abreast of all relevant technical and commercial developments relating to his assigned markets and products, along with their industrial applications. The product specialist calls upon this ever-expanding knowledge to prepare technical bulletins, literature, and training programs. He provides technical and commercial support to the field sales force. He participates in planning market and product strategies, market surveys, advertising and sales promotion campaigns, and sales planning. Marketing Research Analyst—He supervises and executes market studies of company products. He delineates and outlines historical information of product availability, consumption, geographical distribution, price and consumer industry trends, and conducts field surveys. He keeps abreast of the competitive situation, and analyzes the general economic framework of industry. He assists functional groups such as product sales groups, sales management, and the like in the use of market information to identify and maximize the opportunities for improving sales in a specific area. Customer Technical Service—Men assigned to this area provide technical assistance to the company's customers. Travel and liaison with research laboratories are normally part of the job. Some problems may call for actual laboratory work. This function is developmental in nature in that new applications and products, as well as old products and applications, are considered. What makes a dynamic marketing man? This is difficult to answer, specifically because different qualities make different marketing men successful. However, you will generally find some combination of the following traits in an effective marketing man: the ability to think analytically and logically, verbal facility, persuasiveness, self-confidence, self-control and discipline, perseverance, aggressiveness, tact, maturity, social sensitivity, ambition, enthusiasm, good personal bearing, creative ability. What are the career opportunities of a technically trained man in marketing? First of all, he has a chance to apply his technical knowledge to solve other people's problems in a way that brings profit to the company and professional satisfaction to him. He has an opportunity to bring about innovation and improvement in products because, as he knows the customer's needs, he suggests, stimulates, and encourages innovation and product improvement. He has an opportunity to influence decisions that are made in product lines. Secondly, a man in the marketing department has an opportunity to maintain technical proficiency by constant
contact with new products and new end-uses. Planned training programs give the technical man an opportunity to keep up-to-date with developments. Thirdly, he has an opportunity to learn the management through intimate contact with all functions. As he watches management in his customers' companies, he sees the management process in different perspectives. Also he works at all levels in his parent firm. Finally, because the marketing man has the advantage of being seen by all kinds of decision makers, ranging broadly across the company and the industry, he has opportunities for promotion which are not always as readily available to others. The marketing man has a golden opportunity to demonstrate the full range of his abilities in terms of the contributions he can make. Marketing
Opportunities
For the chemist and chemical engineer who are money motivated, opportunities are excellent in marketing, both for the professional marketer as well as the manager. In marketing, the individual is compensated according to his efforts or contribution to the over-all company growth. One of the reasons for this reward is the willingness of the chemical engineer or chemist who goes into marketing to undertake long hours of travel, to accept time away from home and family, and to live with the pressures which come in attempting to persuade fellow technical men in customer companies to buy one's products. Yes, your career decision is a big one and you must think it through carefully. Consider your background, personality, and ability to determine whether you can fill a responsible marketing position. For technical graduates there are many reasons to encourage you to enter marketing. Although it is hard work, you will find the job challenging—full of opportunity. Perhaps the most important reason for a man to enter industrial marketing, however, is the satisfaction that a person in marketing gets from his job. He can see at first-hand the results of his contribution, virtually on a day-by-day basis. This day-by-day satisfaction is not always possible in many of the aspects of staff work, and it is not always true in other functions of business. But the chemical marketer has this satisfaction, and he enjoys the prestige and financial rewards that come from being a personal contributor in a major way to the success of the company.
Dr. Louis Fernandez is director of marketing for the Inorganic Chemicals Division of Monsanto Co. He received a B.A. in chemistry in 1945 and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1949 from Western Reserve University. Dr. Fernandez joined the research department of Monsanto's Phosphate Division in 1949 and was promoted to research group leader in 1951. He transferred to the technical sales department as a sales specialist in 1952, and was made director of sales and technical service in 1959. In 1962 he became director of development for the Inorganic Chemicals Division, and continued in that position until 1964, when he was made director of marketing. MAY
2 4, 1 9 6 5
C&EN
25A
