CSC Smart Business UK Edition April - Marketing: IT's future?
Marketing: IT's future?
The growing overlap between marketing and IT is threatening many traditional organisational boundaries
Digital marketing and information analytics have put the marketing department in the best position to find out more about a business's customers and potential leads. Not only are modern campaigns created, planned, bought and distributed through online systems, the internet feeds back hugely valuable real time data on what worked and what did not. From social media to mobility to the as-a-service economy, marketing has become the central focus of many IT initiatives.
David Moschella, Global Research Director of CSC's Leading Edge Forum, believes this is creating major new opportunities, but also growing tensions between marketing and enterprise IT that are not easily resolved.
"It's still the early days, but we're already seeing the emergence of CMIO-like roles in many firms because marketing is at the forefront of gathering and assessing data about customers," he says.
"Marketing and IT are trying to sustain a healthy relationship, but they often seem like a dysfunctional family, fundamentally disagreeing about the past, present and future."
Closer ties needed
The good news for businesses is that the emergence of digital marketing is a huge new opportunity. The wide availability of social media, CRM, location awareness and related analytics and tools means that organisations can gather and make sense of customer data as never before. Unfortunately, according to Moschella, many marketing professionals are not prepared to keep pace with the ever-changing tools and technologies; IT can help but only if marketing's and IT's roles, relationships and incentives can be effectively aligned.
"Often marketing departments are not very technically literate and don't see the potential downsides of simply buying new capabilities from third parties," he says.
"They'll often use a third party marketing agency to do a lot of this work. The trouble is, they've not considered the rest of the business. When they try to assimilate the really valuable data they have gathered on customers and prospects, and combine it with other company data, they often find it can't be done.
"When things don't work out and their data is sitting in a silo, it's very tempting for the IT guys to turn round and say 'told you so'. This just perpetuates the problem."
Dual skills required
Just as the gap between marketing and IT needs to be bridged, there is a corresponding wider requirement for executives in all fields to become more IT-literate. Moschella explains that people who want to improve their career prospects are finding that just being very good at what they do is no longer enough.
"We're in the age of what we call the 'double-deep' professional," he says.
"In the past, you could be 'single deep' and be very good at what you do – be it accounting, engineering, HR or whatever -- and you'd get along fine. But today, the big opportunities are for those workers who can combine this professional expertise with the relevant IT know-how. Such people are in very high demand, even in today's environment.
"It's the same for people within IT. While specialised IT skills are still in demand, the even bigger demand is for those IT professionals who can combine their IT knowledge with particular business skills – be it marketing, finance or business process management."
Business impact
So, just as marketers must realise they need to be more technically adept, there is a corresponding realisation among IT professionals that they need to learn more about marketing. In the end, this will be good for all parties, but in the meantime there is lot of uncertainty, and the approaches of different organisations will vary widely, Moschella believes.
"How this scenario will pan out will depend on the individual organisation," he says. "Some may find that their digital marketing people are very IT literate while others realise their IT people have been effectively leading digital marketing projects and have the necessary skills to play the CMIO role. What is inevitable, though, is that forward-thinking organisations will need to increasingly position more people, teams and resources at the growing intersection between marketing and IT."
For the future, Moschella suggests that perhaps the most interesting question is whether companies will continue to seek ways to get marketing and IT to work more closely together? Or will they essentially abandon this approach and set up a dedicated marketing technology group separate from both corporate marketing and enterprise IT. In this scenario, the CMIO would likely head up the new unit, with the CIO and CMO staying within their more traditional domains.
Learn more
"How is the relationship between Marketing and IT viewed in your organisation? Complete the LEF's short Marketing and IT Harmony Assessment and receive a copy of the results. To learn more on this topic, visit the LEF research project page, Socially Awkward - Preparing for the Co-evolution of Marketing and IT".
Learn more about CSC’s work in: Leading Edge Forum