Traditionally, CMOs and CIOs are two separate individuals playing their significant role on separate fields. However, slowly the scenario is changing; more than ever marketing is using technology. In fact many studies have shown that the average companies marketing budget spend on technology is more than the overall IT budget! Smart Marketers are asking their CIO how they can help make the marketer more successful with their technology while smart CIO’s are asking their CMO’s how they can help and are proactive in proposing solutions for Marketers.
Today it’s not a question of just being ‘online’; it’s about whether you are present across various digital touch points that are now an integral part of your consumer’s life. ‘Digital’ has today become a critical enabler that helps you connect with your consumer on real-time basis. What this does is to add to your responsibility of always being answerable for available products and services; thereby making it imperative for CMOs and CIOs to work closely. The digital gamut encompasses a wide range of digital technologies: mobile (smart phones, tablets and apps); social media; cloud computing; analytics to mine business data and turn it into actionable insights; and digital platforms to interact and share information. These technologies can be applied across the entire customer value chain. Having said that, digital also poses the toughest challenge - that is of transforming consumer behaviour and subsequently business models. It requires a different set of skills, culture and measurement. Hence it’s no longer about ‘digital’ being part of the ‘marketing strategy’. In fact marketing strategies now have to be built based on these continuously emerging digital phenomenon. Sandeep Kothari, Vice-President (Information Technology), Travel Food Services said, “The CIOs are no longer evaluated only on the efficiency of the data centers but also on how a CIO can use his technological knowledge to gain competitive advantage for businesses.”
In the era of newer technologies like Cloud, Big Data and Mobility, it is believed that the CMO and CIO must partner on a marketing-technology strategy that will maximize ROI and drive revenue growth in an organization. Done correctly, CIO’s and CMO’s working together can help the company’s agility and speed to market along with driving increased revenues. Explaining it further, Pankaj Kankar, Director - Engineering, Vdopia India comments, “In an ultra-competitive digital-mobile-social ecology where fickle customers are armed with instant information, brands and marketers are racing to get to them first. It's critical to be nimble in a fast-moving digital world, and the digitalization of Marketing is impossible to ignore.” Agreeing to this, Dharmesh Godha, President and CTO at Advaiya exerts, “CIOs and CMOs can bring innovation to multiple aspects of a business if they work in tandem – quicker turnarounds to fulfill customer’s needs, rapidly bringing out newer products and services to the market.”
Changing marketing requirements…
“Like most senior executives, the roles of the CMO and CIO have been evolving over the years. To a large extent, this is due to market and technology changes that are driving pervasive change. The volume and variety of data is increasing rapidly as businesses try and understand customer behavior throughout the lifecycle of the relationship”, explains Sandeep Pal, Vice President of Marketing, Qlik Asia Pacific. CMOs are using analytics to design customer-centric strategies, measure campaign performance and return on marketing investment (ROMI), and identify gaps as well as opportunities. This is due to continuously happening advancement in technology and devices where the new primetime is ‘Mytime’ - my device, my choice. And when technology drives consumer reaction, emotion and behavior, companies are hard pressed to have specialists with both marketing and IT knowledge to help brands connect on a personal level.
One of the significant expectations from a CIO is to be a change agent within the organization. The role of IT has just changed over the years. It is now perceived as a key business driver, rather than being only an enabler for technologies. V. C. Gopalratnam, CIO – Globalization and Vice-President – Information Technology, Cisco, said, “These are tough times and businesses globally are looking at ways to innovate holistically to gain a competitive edge from every aspect possible, including IT. Keeping this perspective in mind, the CIO not only has to be on the constant lookout for emerging technologies but also ensure whatever they are adopting gels with the organization as a whole, including its people and business, and help unlock the company’s full potential.”
The golden rule for CIOs, CMOs to become ‘Smart Partners’…
The basic rule is ‘collaborate’. CIOs and CMOs have to work together as one team with the same objective. This could be a business goal of driving a certain amount of business and/ or of delivering a set standard of customer experience. Mohit Rochlani, Chief Business Officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance has shares his views that whatever the objective, it’s important to be able to look at the larger picture and ‘deliver’.
CIOs and CMOs should have shared balanced scorecard metrics. And that’s easily achievable – as long as the CIO moves from being a “gatekeeper” to a “storekeeper”, providing CMOs and other business users with technologies and services that are fast, simple and natural to use. The benefits of this strategic partnership can be cascaded to the rest of the organization. CMOs can demonstrate the power of the platforms that IT has provided to the rest of the organization, encouraging enterprise-wide adoption. Roy Dubé, Head of Digital Services & Solutions, UST Global said, “In general, Omni Channel Presence, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Customer 360/Hyper Personalization are just a few of the areas where a CIO can help a CMO be successful by applying technology to achieve success in Marketing.” Perceive IT as a strategic partner, rather than just a service provider, and should involve IT executive officers in strategic planning for marketing investment and business development and strategy approach.
Marketing and IT executives must both become “experience Officers” by striving to understand the consumer experience and by helping to implement consumer-centric measures. User interface, technology platforms and operating models must be interconnected and meet with flexibility and market intelligence; in order to do that CMOs must work closely with CIOs to create multichannel strategies that will create an effective consumer experience. Organizations should create hybrid teams beyond the cubicle walls; organizations should be cross trained so that marketing executives become more tech savvy and IT professionals have a better understanding of market demands and strategies.
With a program of interdependence, trust and transparency, combined with technology and data analysis, marketing and IT chief officers would be able to utilize the digital opportunity to create and deliver the relevant, smooth and satisfying experiences that consumers command. Venkatesh Swaminathan, Country Head, The Attachmate Gr oup India, exerts, “Companies are required to be inquisitive to look at things and have a couple of alternatives for the solutions which are running. However, they have to decide it wisely what applications are required to be used by them, which can offer maximum benefits by using lesser resources.”
The Road Forward…
CMOs need to get closer to the data and customers – focusing not only on the customer experience, but the entire customer lifecycle and its various stages of the lifecycle. Being able to dive into data analytics will enable CMOs to become more customer-centric. This doesn’t mean that CMOs need to be technically trained to become ‘data scientists’. Every business user, whether you are a CMO or a designer, should be able to explore data freely with little or no training.
Experts believe that there's tremendous opportunity for CIO and CMO partnerships to be reimagined or reinvented. Newer technologies like Cloud Computing, Data Analytics and Mobility are undoubtedly to offers newer horizons of growth to achieve. These technologies are really changing the landscape of how companies are doing business and are still in many cases at an emerging state. CIOs have a huge opportunity to understand these technologies not only from the technology perspective, but also from a business perspective that how these technologies can help their enterprise to fulfill customer’s needs, rapidly bringing out newer products and services to the market and faster realization of revenue. Sanjay Mehta, Technology Entrepreneur & CEO, MAIA Intelligence opines, “I believe that CIOs are not just ready but are bringing the change in the organization, from Mobility to BYOD and from Business Intelligence to Big Data. They are the Change Warriors who are driving business innovations and new technologies while allowing the flexibility and managing IT independence.” The new generation is progressive and extremely tech-savvy. Thus, IT would become totally object oriented. Chandan Sinha, CIO, Jindal Saw Ltd, opines, “Information revolution has been a constant phenomenon and technologies like Cloud and Big Data need to evolve to provide information ‘Right Here and Right Now’.”
To achieve this, CIOs need to provide the enabling technologies and services that help the business and the CMOs to achieve this while ensuring enterprise manageability and governance. For this partnership to get results that improve the business, CMOs and CIOs must:
1. Shift their focus to align on the right things
2. Speed-up the implementation timelines
3. Develop a joint, customer-focused tech strategy
4. Create a suitable game plan for advancing a collaborative agenda
