In recent years, there has been a big push to get marketing and sales aligned to improve quality of leads provided to sales and therefore improve revenue and productivity of sales teams.
The proposed solution to achieve alignment was really to sell lead management software which was necessary but not sufficient to achieve alignment. Process redesign is also required along with the refinement of roles and responsibilities.
For the last two years, we have been saying we need alignment between the marketing and technology organizations. Surveys of CMOs and CIOs indicate there is a 40% achievement of CMO/CIO alignment.
While there are similarities to the solution for marketing and sales alignment, the alignment of marketing and IT requires much more strategic thinking instead of tactical improvements.
Understanding how marketing has evolved over the decades sheds light on how we got to current state. It began with the role and engagement of ad agencies. As digital disruption began, we required agencies to create and manage websites and digital creatives. Marketing has been a big buyer of agency services and now is a big buyer of technical services for mobile, social, big data and analytics which are all driving forces in customer engagement.
Also, historically, information technology did not understand enough about the marketing processes to help them select needed technologies. Moreover, marketing was a step child for investment and the last to mature in the old three legged stool of sales, service and marketing.
As the spend on technology for marketing increases, it creates a tension and competition for the overall technology spend of the enterprise. This spend is becoming more strategic to empower digital business rather than tactical and supportive of marketing initiatives.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/marketings-new-digital-role-is-shortchanging-it/
The question begs. How do we allocate scarce resources and determine investments in marketing or, more importantly, in making the enterprise a viable contender in the digital world?
Stay tuned for discussion of solutions.
