Driving Marketing Transformation at Fujitsu 

In our second B2B Spotlight Series, we sit down with Andrea Clatworthy, Director, and Head of Europe Marketing Transformation at Fujitsu. Andrea chats with our founder and CEO Ruth Jones about how marketers can drive success with transformation projects, the boldest project she has delivered and her top tips for building a high performing global ABM function. 

What’s your role at Fujitsu? And how has it evolved over the last 17 years?  

My focus is on building, driving, and evolving a high performing European marketing team. And,  leading all of our transformation efforts. A large part of this focuses on pushing the boundaries of what we’ve delivered before, analysing our efforts, and elevating them even further. Prior to taking on this role, I designed the Account Based Marketing (ABM) function for Fujitsu in Europe. And, helped to cascade it out globally. 

I continue to be an evangelist for ABM.  My passion is to help drive improved business results by ensuring the ABM’ers work closely with sales and account managers to devise and execute strategies and campaigns. The purpose of my team today is to drive initiatives that open doors and deepen engagements with strategic and high growth customers across the globe. 

Marketing transformation is difficult – how do you drive success?  

The first step to marketing transformation is to set benchmarks – where you are now and where you want to be. For us, it was helpful to define that across twelve categories and 38 subcategories. And then forensically analyse the maturity level in each category. This helped us create a gap analysis. And segment that analysis across our ten markets in Europe.   

Over the years, I’ve learnt that having everyone in the team engaged and trusting in the process is critical to the success of any transformation project To do that, it’s important to establish upfront, that transformation is not a cost cutting exercise, but an exercise to push the boundaries of what’s possible. That means getting everyone to take a good hard look at their existing marketing efforts, but without judging performance. It is about documenting and then prioritising what needs to be done.   

What’s the boldest marketing transformation project you’ve delivered to date?  

At our annual event in 2017 in the BMW Museum in Munich, we brought together 60-plus Fujitsu customers and 20 executives from our team, to co-create the world’s largest animated tablet computer mosaic. 

The world record attempt was adjudicated by the Guinness World Records. And, the dinner guests witnessed 220 carefully positioned Fujitsu STYLISTIC R726 tablets play an animation of an origami-style landscape that was continuous across the 11 rows of screens.  

Everyone involved in the world record (which Fujitsu still holds today) came away with a positive brand experience, to share with friends and colleagues. And, the event produced a pipeline value of over $1billion.  

That’s an excellent example of engaging target accounts. How do you build a high-performing ABM function?  

The first step is to put yourselves in the shoes of the customer. Understand how they work today – are they adopting hybrid working for example. And, does that impact how they want to be communicated with.    

The second step is to start with a small team and a proof of concept. The number of accounts should be determined by how big the marketing team is, how many target accounts you have, how long the sales cycle is and the value of your deals. And finally, consider if you are looking to secure a renewal or gain net new customers.    

The biggest mistake is not engaging the sales team at the start. If marketing is seen as a growth partner by sales, then harmony between marketing and sales can be created. Often this should start with a friendly account team and the best marketer in the team, to become the Account Based Marketer.  

What is the best way to measure ABM? 

We measure our ABM investment on three metrics – relationship, reputation and revenue. Starting with establishing a relationship – i.e., if ‘Bob’ from Barclays is the key decision marker and you don’t know him, how will you create a relationship? If there is an existing relationship, does Bob have a positive view of your organisation? If the relationship is not positive, how do you change that perception? In one case, we worked with the PR team, to engage the customer to shift perceptions.  

The crucial part for Account Based Marketers is really understanding Bob and his needs – this will determine the next step on his journey. Should it be an invitation to an event, or a sales call? Who else is in his decision unit and should they be engaged.? The final metric is crucial – what’s the pipeline and what has converted into revenue – be it revenue retained, or net new.  

ABOUT  

Andrea Clatworthy, Director, and Head of Europe Marketing Transformation at Fujitsu 

Andrea Clatworthy is a B2B marketing transformation leader, and an evangelist for Account Based Marketing (ABM). Her role at Fujitsu has seen her lead the co-creation of the world’s largest animated tablet computer mosaic, design and roll out the global ABM function and drive marketing transformation efforts across Europe. 

About Fujitsu and its passion to go beyond the conventional business model.   

Fujitsu is a billion-dollar Japanese global information and communication technology company, founded in 1935. It declared its intention to become a “digital transformation” (DX) company in June 2019, with an eye on creating new value, based on the criteria of Aspiration, Trust, and Empathy – the foundational values of the Fujitsu Way. 

In 2023, its CEO, Takahito Tokita, set-out its mission in a single message, “By achieving “growth with scale,” we will complete the transformation of the Fujitsu Group’s business model and take on the challenge of creating new value.”  

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