Who is Sonia Couture?
I am a passionate and results-driven global marketing manager at Planbox, the top-ranked innovation management platform provider. Developing, planning, and executing (and iterating) multi-channel tactics to meet the core business strategy, values, and goals = MY EVERYDAY GAME. Relentlessly challenging the status quo is part of my DNA.
Tell us more about your role at Planbox?
By being the top-ranked innovation management platform provider’s global marketing manager also implies extensive responsibilities and liability. As a marketing manager, my role is to do whatever it takes to gain new customer revenue globally and with the best ROI possible — with whichever successful tactics and marketing channels.
What is the most difficult part of your job? But the most rewarding one?
I like to refer to Marketing almost like a “chess game”. You need to be strategic, you need to study and analyze the players, you need to be 2 steps ahead, and you’ll never know if you’ll win them until the end. The most challenging but also most fascinating part of my job is trying new things. As a creative thinker and a risk-taker, I always seek to find new ways to attract and convert potential clients, but seldom, that may not always lead to successful outcomes. Although, nothing is ever lost. We learn, iterate, and grow from our failures.
On the other end, the most rewarding part of my job is knowing that the solutions we market and promote have helped some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Whirlpool, Dow, Novartis, ExxonMobil, Cargill, Bobcat, Honeywell, and Sunlife, accelerate their business outcomes by innovating and experimenting cost-effectively.
Is there anything that you would change about your professional path?
As a new professional in the market (3 years in marketing), there’s undoubtedly a long path to go. In less than a year working at Planbox, I’ve been promoted from marketing coordinator to marketing manager and nominated as 2019’s Top Performing employee. I am beyond grateful to succeed and learn in this fast-paced industry and look forward to seeing what the future awaits me.
What’s your key strategy for the development of your company?
The fundamental strategy for Planbox’s development is strongly focused on customer experience and satisfaction. Retaining a customer is alternatively more important than attracting and converting one. We thrive to provide the best innovation management solution in the marketplace to help our clients prosper at what they do best.
Additionally, on February 20th, we’ve launched this groundbreaking initiative that our team and 23 other thought leaders have been working on for the last two months called “The Future Fit Manifesto.” This declaration proposes a new strategic approach that builds on the Agile movement. The Manifesto for Future-Fit Organizations comprises a set of guiding values and principles that, when adopted as a whole, empowers the organization to achieve future fitness; this leads to an organization that works closely with its Community of employees, customers, partners, academia, and government to repeatedly and sustainably explore new possibilities, seek new frontiers, and boldly create new futures. With over 20 years of innovation expertise, Planbox created Future-Fit best practices to help all organizations achieve this strategic approach.
What do you think about the next period of time, keeping in mind the pandemic and the new business climate? How will your industry be affected?
I firmly believe what we used to know as “normal” will no longer return. Many organizations across the globe had to quickly adapt to new digital tools and working remotely. As a software company in the innovation space, I do believe our industry will significantly positively be affected as the global economy gets back on track. The pace of technology advancements is speeding up exponentially, and it’s getting harder to stay in the game. Increasingly, organizations face immense pressure to stay hypervigilant, be proactive, and discover new ways to reinvent themselves. This is where Planbox comes into play.
Please name a few technologies which have the greatest impact on your business.
- Innovation Central by Planbox, the top-ranked Innovation Management Platform (for internal innovation challenges campaigns)
- Artificial Intelligence (Self-driving innovation for our platform solution)
- Slack (Internal Communication Tool)
- Zoom (for video conference for external and internal meetings and webcast to promote the company)
- CRM – Salesforce (to identify and track all activities and information from a lead, prospect, and client)
What books do you have on your nightstand?
- On my nightstand, I have the following books:
- A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
I also read online articles, blogs, or research from Forrester Research, HBR articles, Innovation Brief, McKinsey & Company, SEMRush, Bloomberg, and Hubspot.
Because of the current economic climate our publication has started a series of discussions with professional individuals meant to engage our readers with relevant companies and their representatives in order to discuss their involvement, what challenges they have had in the past and what they are looking forward to in the future. This sequence aims to present a series of experiences, recent developments, changes and downsides in terms of their business areas, as well as their goals, values, career history, the high-impact success outcomes and achievements.
