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Meyer envisions Acxiom as global company, Ark. as 'spiritual HQ' Sunday, Aug 3, 2008 By Jason Wiest Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - His first full quarter as the CEO of Acxiom Corp. complete, John Meyer has global aspirations for the 39-year-old information marketing company that started in Conway before moving to the state's capital city. "This will always be the spiritual headquarters, probably the technology headquarters of the company and where we have the people that are the most experienced, but we're going to become a global corporation, and not just a multinational or an Arkansas corporation," Meyer told Arkansas News Bureau columnist and Talk Business host Roby Brock last week. Acxiom currently serves clients in 120 countries that speak 40 different languages, he said. Company centers are being set up in Poland, and there is talk about doing the same in China. "Those are markets that are going to grow," Meyer said. "You really can't sell them from Little Rock. You've got to be there and you've got to have people that can talk Acxiom there." Building a sales presence abroad also means building a sales culture for the company, which formerly was more technology-driven, Meyer said. The lack of that culture has cost Acxiom in the past. Many customers were not utilizing marketing products they might have if the company suggested it, he said. Some clients do well acquiring customers that Acxiom targets for them, while others do well retaining customers with the data marketer's help, but Meyer said he believes Acxiom should encourage and help its clients do both. Meyer said he had employees pull together a matrix of information documenting what products the clients used, and what products they didn't but might be interested in. "I think it was the first time anybody ever pulled that information together," he said. Additionally, Acxiom previously didn't focus on measuring and selling the value customers could reap from its products, according to former employee Garland Dunn, now director of sales for Softwyre, a Maumelle-based tech firm. "Customers want to know what type of return they're going to get off of it (the technology), and there wasn't really a story crafted about that," Dunn said. Meyer agrees. "Now ... it's measurable and you know what you get for it, and so it's not just throwing a bunch of money at it and thinking that you gain something from it," Meyer said. Implementing that sales culture will be a difficult challenge, according to Barry Goldberg, managing director of Entelechy Partners, a Little Rock firm that specializes in leadership coaching. "Yet it would be consistent with a culture of accountability," Goldberg said. "Probably no one is more accountable for a measurable outcome than a salesman." The son of an Air Force colonel who says his life has been defined with military-like discipline, Meyer said he laid out guidelines and values for employees accustomed to the management style of his predecessor, who went by "company leader" instead of "chief executive officer." Done successfully, Meyer said he believes the changes will grow Acxiom into a global company, not necessarily to the detriment of Arkansas, although some jobs might leave the state. "We have to realize that we're in a very big marketplace and there are parts of the world where technology is leapfrogging," Meyer said. "Arkansas will still be a place where some of the innovation gets created, but not all of it." Customers want more for less, and some jobs likely will be outsourced to give them that, he said. But Arkansas could see additional jobs of other types. "I expect they're going to be higher-value jobs," Meyer said. "We have a lot of experienced people here." Acxiom ended its fiscal first quarter last week with net earnings of $10.6 million. Shares of the company (NasdaqGS: ACXM) closed Friday at $13.05, up 21 cents. ------ Talk Business airs on Fox 16 in Central Arkansas on Sunday at 10 p.m.; Fox 24 in Northwest Arkansas on Sunday at 9 a.m.; and Sudden Link Channel 22 in Jonesboro on Monday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. |
