IBM has released its Global C-Suite Study with some interesting findings – chief of which that 82% of CMOs are less than prepared for the huge amounts of data imminently at their fingertips.
The research, from Big Blue’s Institute for Business Value (IBV), also showed how chief marketing execs have barely made crawling progress with social media – 67% now feel underprepared for tackling social, compared with 68% in 2011.
Interestingly, the three primary challenges for CMOs in 2011 stay the same in 2013. Number one is still designing great consumer apps, swiftly followed by using social media to engage customers and using integrated suites to manage customers.
“Lack of a cohesive social media plan and competing initiatives are the two biggest barriers preventing CMOs from implementing their strategies in an increasingly connected world,” the report laments.
Marketing chiefs are certainly aware of the role technology has to play in their company’s initiatives. According to the research advanced analytics and mobile apps was the most important factor, piquing 94% of users’ interests. CRM (89%), collaboration tools (87%) and content management (81%) were the next popular.
Elsewhere, the research revealed that two thirds (63%) of CEOs involve the CMO in formulating overall business strategy, second only to the CFO (72%), and putting a lot of faith in the role of the CMO. Similarly, although in less groundbreaking news, the report also found that enterprises were likely to work better when C-level execs were more closely aligned.
A worrying postscript for marketing chiefs is that CIOs are increasingly imposing themselves on CMO territory. Customer experience management, sales and new business development and marketing and communications, all traditionally marketing jobs, are being done more by the CIO (15%, 6% and 2%) respectively, while traditional CIO tasks, such as IT systems and operations, risk and security and vendor management, weren’t being done as frequently.
The full report can be found here. What do you make of the research findings?
