Most people agree: every business is a digital business. Once that meant business processes had become digital; now it means the customer interface has moved into the virtual world, but without abandoning the real world either. It's a sea of change that requires response at the most profound level of the company.
IT has truly become the marketing enabler par excellence.
More specifically, marketers and IT professionals need to move out of their discrete worlds, and develop an integrated perspective that brings together marketing and information technology - the chief information marketing officer (CIMO) perspective.
The real game-changer has been the movement of customers online. The phenomenal take-up of smart mobile devices (phones, tablets and the like) has literally revolutionised the way people work and interact with each other. It has turned the traditional, linear sales funnel on its head, creating the 'always-on' customer, who is constantly discovering and evaluating - and, most importantly, reporting back on his or her experience to the online community. These customers are looking for a highly personalised experience that is relevant to their current needs, and that's consistent across all channels: mobile, PC and even in-store.
This trend does not just apply to the typical B2C customer relationship, but also in the B2B space. Sixty-two percent of businesses research social media before contacting vendor representatives, and 41% of them rate the product or service they have received on those same social media.
In response, companies have to develop ways of interacting with their customers across multiple digital channels, and of delivering highly personalised messages and offers at scale. It's a departure from the traditional brand-building, broadcast approach of the past. Luckily, while technology gave rise to the challenge by empowering customers, it also provides marketers with the data and analytics tools they need to meet it, as well as the ability to interact with customers on their preferred channels.
Horse and carriage?
In other words, IT has truly become the marketing enabler par excellence. The challenge here is that too often, outdated organisational structures inhibit the close collaboration that is needed for marketing to get the technology support it needs.
Traditionally, marketing is often seen as a profit centre, so it is focused on growth, and its imperative is getting products and services to market as quickly as possible. By contrast, IT is cast as a cost centre, so CIOs are focused on efficiency, cost-saving and security - that's already a major clash, something that shows up in the research. As a result of this disconnect, many CMOs have become frustrated and are taking advantage of the increasing array of cloud services, without reference to the internal IT department or its strategy.
This kind of "shadow IT" is becoming a significant factor given the increasing amounts CMOs are spending on IT. Thirty-seven percent of corporate IT spend is controlled by departments outside of IT - with marketing the most prominent. In fact, Gartner's Laura McLellan has gone so far as to predict the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO by 2017![1]
There are many reasons why this isn't an ideal way to address this new business reality, not least of which is that companies typically already own infrastructure that can meet 70% of these needs. It just hasn't been deployed correctly, or at all. Creating a network of point solutions can enable agility over the short term, but complexity creates long-term problems.
To bridge this gap, CMOs and CIOs need to find ways of working together in order to allow the company to organise around the customer: collect customer data, analyse it for insights and then respond appropriately, often in real-time.
The CIMO is not a role, but a shared point of view and approach to creating a unified digital vision, and thus, a more positive, personalised customer experience. The research shows that in companies that are getting this right, CMOs and CIOs are collaborating together much more formally, and are hiring people into their companies with broader skills: data scientists in the marketing department and marketing strategists on the IT steering committee.
Companies that get this right will be best positioned to deliver what their customers want, and so will be successful.
[1] Laura McLellan, "By 2017 the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO", Gartner webinar available at http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt%3Fopen%3D512%26objID%3D202%26mode%3D2%26PageID%3D5553%26ref%3Dwebinar-rss%26resId%3D1871515.
Share