QUESTION 2: Caselet: Northrup & Johnson

When youre selling luxury products to some of the worlds most demanding customers, theres little room for error. For Northrop & Johnson, a premier global yacht brokerage, having the right information for sales and marketing is what keeps it ahead of the pack. Ask anyone who owns one and theyll tell you that yachts arent just boatstheyre symbols of an aspirational lifestyle, a mark of success, and those who can afford to charter or buy one expect the very highest standards. Thats what spending tens of millions of dollars at a time buys you.

For Northrop & Johnson, the United States biggest superyacht brokerage, meeting those standards is all in a days work. Since 1949, the company has supplied luxury vessels to a loyal base of wealthy clients, relying on its reputation for honesty and integrity to grow its business. Today, it delivers every aspect of the superyacht experience, from yacht sales and charters to crew services and insurance, and the company has a global fleet of almost 3,000 vessels and numerous offices around the world.

Catering to a small group of high-value clients who are spread across every corner of the world requires precision marketing and exemplary sales and service.

Marketing technology isnt something the superyacht industry has taken onboarda fact that surprises Daniel Ziriakus, Chief Operating Officer at Northrop & Johnson. Were selling the experience of a lifetime, which means our customers are rare and every deal is worth a significant amount of money, he explains.

In an industry where relationship-building must be incredibly precise, any insight into a customers mindset is invaluable. Theres a point where our charter clients will want to buy a vessel of their own, says Ziriakus. And then later will be a point where, to offset some of the costs of owning it, they might want to charter it out. We recognized that if we could pin down those trigger points, we could significantly increase sales.

Ziriakus expressed that the firm wanted to streamline the costs of maintaining servers in different places and avoiding the astronomical costs of doing so. The firms sales and charter teams need to collate information about yachts to send to clients in just a few minutes rather than hours of hard work. Also, the firm needed other departments involved to create a central hub for all of their marketing, sales, and customer-relationship activities. By having everything in one place, the firm can simplify every area of our operation.

The firm also needed a solution that would help the sales teams seamlessly process the large transactions involved in chartering a yacht, creating everything the accounting department needs to close the deal without any possibility of human error.

The firm also needs a technology solution that would help it create, manage, and distribute the companys Navigator magazine, a glossy and informative resource about yachting and luxury lifestyles that helps strengthen customer relationships and open sales conversations. The magazine currently has a very limited distribution list because the customer lists are scattered in different IT systems in the firm.

In this market, we have high-wealth customers who are considering very high-value purchases, and we cant afford any interactions that leave them feeling anything less than special, says Keith Perfect, Director of Technology and Intelligence at Northrop & Johnson. The firm would like to ensure that their customers get their one copy of our magazine directly from a sales broker, with a much higher degree of personalization.

The firm also seeks an IT solution that will enable brokers to have access anytime, anywhere to details about the companys global fleet of yachts. Marketing and sales teams should also be able to see vital engagement indicators, such as when people open emails and what they click, and they can drill down into customer details that include the names and birthdays of their customers children and grandchildren. These teams should also be able to deliver more targeted content to each customer, make sure customers always get through to the right sales agents, and ensure that every agent is up to speed with exactly what their customers need and expect.

[Source of Caselet: These are actual firm details of a real firm called Northrup & Johnson.]

END OF Caselet

QUESTION 2:

Imagine that you are a consultant who is part of an IT consulting group helping Northrup & Johnson.

What technology solution would you recommend to Northrup & Johnson? Describe your recommended technology/technologies in great detail and justify its use. [HINT: A technology solution could be any or a combination of the following: hardware, software, or a service that makes both available as well. If you suggest a software solution or service solution, make sure you are very detailed in identifying and describing the different components/modules of this software solution.]

Write the following:

1. Identify the technology and define/describe it. (Include in your description the different modules and/or components of the IT solution.)
2. Identify the specific details of the challenge facing Northrup & Johnson. Why do you think specific features of your recommended technology solution match the challenges or problems faced by Northrup & Johnson?