“Perfect Vision, Personal Touch” – How does this CMO enable his firm to constantly grow throughout the years? [Monday: Marketing Marvels]
Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more.
A Note from Miles Everson:
Hello, everyone. Happy Monday!
We hope you all had a good rest over the weekend.
Let’s start the week motivated by talking about our “Marketing Marvels.” In these articles, we highlight outstanding individuals in business and marketing, along with their industry-related experiences, contributions, and insights.
Today, we’ll focus on the Chief Marketing Officer of Shamir Optical Industry.
Read on to know more about this “Marvel’s” life story and 20+ years of experiences in the business world.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Marketing Marvels
Marketing is one of the driving forces behind successful enterprises. Its impact spreads across the board, B2B corporations, professional services organizations, and engineering and logistics firms.
In fact, marketing is evolving into a more powerful and resource-rich company function nowadays.
… and one of the leaders who has witnessed this evolution over the years through his extensive expertise in global strategic marketing and regional marketing strategy?
Bruno Decreton!
Photo from shamir.com
Decreton is the Chief Marketing Officer of Shamir Optical Industry, one of the most well-known lens makers in the world. The company’s goal is to help enhance people’s eyesight, as this plays a crucial role in improving their quality of life.
As CMO, Decreton’s responsibility is to build and deliver an effective marketing strategy that supports the overall business strategy of the brand. His work consists of connecting with various departments and entities such as regions, markets, research and development (R&D), operations, finance, and human resources (HR).
Growth as a Leader
As a biomedical engineering graduate, Decreton always wanted to develop new technologies that would improve people’s lives. He spent 13 years in R&D and learned from being in various job positions in a different ophthalmic company.
Afterwards, he had the opportunity to move to strategic marketing and manage several product lines. He said:
“Thanks to the different managers I had and the trust they put in me, I grew in marketing. I could capitalize on what I learned in my previous positions about products and explore new fields of marketing strategy and step by step, become a leader in marketing in the group.”
Today, at Shamir, Decreton is inspired by the idea of his firm pushing the entire industry in a different direction, and changing the game for the benefit of clients and consumers. He believes every marketer should be looking for a disruptive idea that will make his/her company different from the others.
However, creating value also comes from small steps. According to Decreton:
“As a marketer in an established company, you have to work on improving the current business, thanks to better offers and better services, and at the same time, explore routes for disruptive models.”
He also believes thinking like consumers leads to integrity for marketers. Through this, they can change small things or build the most ambitious projects with the right mindset.
Seeing Eye to Eye With His Target Audience
Decreton says the ophthalmic market is growing nowadays because new needs are emerging constantly as people’s new ways of living change… and as CMO, he agrees with Shamir’s goal that it can improve people’s everyday lives by improving their vision.
He states Shamir’s principles are the driving force for activities, keeping eye care professionals at the company’s core. In fact, every Shamir representative is dedicated to their clients’ vision and to providing the greatest service and support possible, all while maintaining a personal connection.
Shamir’s customers include eye care professionals from all over the world. Its R&D department is always working on new technologies, staying true to the tagline, “Perfect Vision, Personal Touch.”
What are some of Decreton’s beliefs and principles that enable Shamir to grow and expand its reach?
- Connecting with the target audience. Decreton believes meeting consumers where they are is one of the best incentives marketers can get because it shows the route or the next step to take in their strategies. He states customer interactions can either be pleasant or difficult, but there is always something to learn from these instances.
- Living on values. For Decreton, success is determined by what a leader builds and leaves behind. From a professional standpoint, he considers success to be the creation of a strong and balanced team, and the development of that team. From a personal standpoint, he considers success to be making decisions that are consistent with one’s personal beliefs.
- Constantly moving forward. Decreton believes in “constructive instability”—meaning, building foundations in one’s career that are made of experiences, know-hows, and relationships. In his words:
“Strong foundations allow you to go for big changes. These changes will destabilize you, but your foundations will keep you standing and moving forward.”
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As you can see from Decreton’s story, marketing adds value to your company by establishing a brand, developing a product strategy, connecting with consumers, generating leads, and laying the groundwork for your sales force.
However, always keep in mind that since people’s lifestyles are changing, your marketing methods must adjust and adapt. As a marketer, you must feel the pulse of the market and observe what is going on around you to provide the right offerings for your target market.
In Decreton’s case, his personal objective is to help Shamir stay ahead of the curve and relevant in an ever-changing industry. He ensures he and his team understand their target audience while also utilizing emerging technologies to make smart choices for the firm.
… and his message to all emerging business and marketing leaders?
“Take your time! You need to know yourself, learn from every position you hold, and build strong personal foundations. This is what makes you stronger, connected to people, and ready for big challenges.”
We hope you find today’s feature inspiring and helpful!
(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.)
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Monday Marketing Marvels”
Too often, industry experts and the marketing press sing the praises of some brand or company’s marketing strategy.
… only for the audience to later find out that its product was a flop, or worse, that the brand or company went bankrupt.
The true ROI in marketing can’t be separated from the business as a whole.
What good is a marketing case study if one can’t prove that the company’s efforts actually paid off?
At the end of the day, either the entire business is successful or it isn’t. And the roles of marketing and communication are always paramount to that success.
Every Monday, we publish a case study that highlights the world’s greatest marketing strategies, marketers, and communicators.
However, the difference between our articles and the numerous ones out there is that we will always make certain that the firm really did generate and demonstrate earning power worthy of study in the first place (compliments of Valens Research’s finance group) in keeping with a person’s leadership skills in the area of marketing and/or communication.
We’ll also study the greatest marketing fails and analyze what they did wrong, or what they needed to improve. We all make our mistakes, but better we learn from others’ mistakes—and earlier, rather than later.
Hope you found this week’s marketing marvel interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next week’s Monday Marketing Marvels!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
Powered by Valens Research
www.valens-research.com
