Marketing and IT leaders are more interested than ever before in working together to achieve digital transformation.
This is a key finding of the new Accenture Interactive 2014 CMO-CIO Alignment survey, which reveals that 83% of CIOs want to align and interact with CMOs, while 69% of CMOs feel the same way.
Conducted online with more than 1,100 senior marketing and IT executives, the survey spans 11 countries and 10 industries (Banking, Insurance, Life Sciences, Consumer Goods & Services, Retail, Telecommunications, Automotive, Electronics & High Technology, Media & Entertainment, and Travel & Tourism) and aims to capture the opinions, challenges and points of view of senior marketing and IT executives on the impact of digital on their business.
So what’s driving this new wave of collaboration? As marketing becomes increasingly enabled by digital technologies, CMOs and CIOs agree that greater alignment and interaction between the two functions is needed to create a truly integrated enterprise centered on the customer experience.
The benefits of working more closely together include better sharing of techniques, strategies, tools and resources, and a fuller utilization of technologies to deliver delightful customer experiences and take advantage of digital transformation opportunities. More than half of CMOs (52%) and CIOs (53%) put marketing IT at or near the top of their priorities with nearly equal recognition on which initiatives make the biggest impact; customer experience, customer analytics and social media. Meanwhile, both functions are seeking ways to improve collaboration – CMOs are hiring more digital talent while CIOs are hiring more technology employees with marketing experience.
However, implementation barriers persist. The survey indicates that some marketers have declining confidence in their IT departments’ ability to keep up with evolving demands of marketing in a digital environment. At the same time, 43% of CIOs say that marketing requirements change too often to keep up. Also, both CMOs and CIOs are struggling to overcome the multi-channel challenge, with 42% of marketers concerned that technology is too difficult to use for delivering cross-channel experiences.
What can CMOs and CIOs in Belgium & Luxembourg learn from these results? Accenture’s recommendations include:
- Invest time in establishing a shared vision and collaborate to bring it to life. Work together strategically to create new products and services that reflect a digital business model and mindset.
- Unify around the customer experience. Focus on the customer first and seamlessly orchestrate the customer experience across all channels.
- Rethink the operating model. Integrate customer-focused skills throughout the company; strengthen data analysis and customer experience skillsets; and incentivize employees to support digital transformation.
- Reorient the marketing model and budget to align with a new ecosystem of marketing services. Integrate technology, data and marketing services in the cloud to respond quickly to evolving customer needs and accelerate new service launches.
To learn more about how digital is driving a new wave of Marketing and IT collaboration, visit our 2014 CMO-CIO Alignment survey microsite
To discover how Accenture Interactive in Belgium & Luxembourg can help you, click here
