Today's CMO sits at the apex where business and technology forces collide. They're expected to be part social anthropologist, part digital technologist and part futurist. Harnessing the power of technology and big data can help CMOs deliver greater customer insight, improve marketing effectiveness and offer new competitive advantage in a highly competitive and rapidly changing environment. They need to think beyond analytics and help architect tomorrow's future business models. How do you stay ahead?
According to Gartneri, by 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO. Faced with a confluence of trends, today's rapidly evolving digital, mobile and social media landscape is changing the way businesses and CMOs operate. The CMO role is at a tipping point. CMOs must understand the new dynamics, relationships and skills required to master the Big Data minefield. CMOs must adopt a whole new set of skills to forge the future.
Business models are becoming more dynamic and decentralized. CMOs are increasingly taking the lead role in engaging and deploying technologies to leverage the immediate benefits of speed, agility, flexibility and control in driving new initiatives to market. Again according to Gartner, on average, nearly one-third (30 percent) of named marketing-related technology and services are bought by marketing already, and what's more, marketing influences almost half of all purchases.ii
IT is no longer a separate entity that functions independently from other business units, it is the backbone of business, improving the effectiveness of business processes and delivering cost efficiencies.
Yet according to an Accenture studyiii, there is still a deep disconnect between CMOs and CIOs. While they generally agree they need to be closely aligned, CMOs and CIOs o¬ften have completely different priorities. The study found CMOs tend to be more aligned with the Chief Sales Officer, while CIOs are typically more aligned with the CFO. CMOs rank access to customer insight and intelligence as their number one priority, while CIOs rank it number 10 on their list. CIOs rank advancing platforms to aid in marketing measurement and campaign optimization as number one, while CMOs rank it number eight.
Despite this, there are two things CMOs and CIOs agree on: the need to implement solutions that improve marketing effectiveness while overcoming solution complexity and integration obstacles.iv
In today's digital age, neither can afford to work independently. A company's digital marketing capabilities represent a platform for customer engagement, market differentiation, business growth, and profitability; bridging the gap between these two roles is critical for success.
How can CMOs work with technology experts to efficiently and seamlessly combine their efforts into a powerful transformational force? Tune into part 2 next week!
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i "By 2017 the CMO will Spend More on IT Than the CIO", Gartner, 2012
ii "By 2017 the CMO will Spend More on IT Than the CIO", Gartner, 2012
iii "The CMO-CIO Disconnect", Accenture Interactive, 2013
iv "The CMO-CIO Disconnect", Accenture Interactive, 2013
