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eControl Strategy First, Then Tactics

Picture this: You’ve just discovered your products being sold by unauthorized sellers, below preferred price, and across multiple online marketplaces. Your immediate reaction? “We need a MAP policy!” or, “Let’s hire a monitoring service!” or, “Get legal on the phone!”

Sound familiar?

If you’re like many brand leaders, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of losing control over your product sales in online channels. The knee-jerk reaction is understandable—but it often leads down expensive paths that yield disappointing results.

Searching for Answers to the Wrong Questions

While brands look for ways to monitor channels, implement policies, and enforce against sellers, they often focus on the wrong questions, like, "Which is the best MAP company?" We frequently see:

  • Brands spend months comparing MAP monitoring providers, sign annual contracts, then discover their biggest problems come from unauthorized sellers who simply ignore MAP communications.
  • Companies invest hefty legal fees in crafting exhaustive MAP and reseller policies that prove ineffective in the real world.
  • Teams get buried in RFP processes for "brand protection" services, only to end up with mountains of reports and minimal impact on actual growth or compliance.

Ask the right questions, and the answers will always reveal themselves.


– OPRAH

The Power of Asking the Right Question

Many quotes, attributed to renowned figures from Einstein to IBM's Thomas J. Watson, highlight the importance not of having immediate answers, but on asking the right questions. In The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Carl G. Jung famously wrote, "The right question is already half the solution of a problem."

After 10 years of designing and implementing eControl programs to help hundreds of global brands regain control of their online channels, we've identified this fundamental question every brand leader should start with:

"What specific combination of control actions will enable our brand to achieve our desired success in the omnichannel market?"

There are several factors that must be considered in answering this question:

  1. Business Impact Assessment
    • What are our eCommerce business goals?
    • How is lack of digital sales control directly hurting these goals?
    • What's the root cause of these issues?
  2. Action Planning
    • What legal options are at our disposal?
    • Which solutions align with our business model and can effectively and efficiently address the issues in a legally compliant manner?
    • What KPIs will have the most impact on the business?
    • How will those KPIs be driven?
  3. Organizational Alignment
    • Who will champion this initiative?
    • Who are our key stakeholders and leaders across departments and what resources can they commit?
    • Who internally will lead this initiative and provide cross-functional support?
  4. ROI Potential
    • What is the expected return on your investment?
    • How will you measure success and track progress?

The Path Forward

Before crafting and implementing an eControl solution or rushing to establish new policies, we guide brands through a strategy design process focused on answering each of these questions in detail. We collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, present tailored recommendations, and integrate the brand’s feedback—and only then do we finalize our action plan. By thoughtfully engaging in this process, our experience is that brands are much more likely to efficiently align on the best approach to solving their online control problems, including the right tactics to use, the right tools to support them, the right sequencing of activity, and so on.

Next Steps

Take a step back from the urgent fires you're fighting and reactive activities. Invest time in thoroughly answering the fundamental question we've outlined above. This strategic pause will help you identify the most effective path forward—saving time, money, and resources while delivering better results for your brand.

Remember: The right question isn't just half of the solution—it's the foundation of your online channel control strategy.

Want to learn more about developing an effective online channel control strategy? Contact Daren Garcia for more information.

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Sources:
What Oprah Knows for Sure About Asking The Right Question
C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Routledge)(2023)

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