The FINANCIAL — A disconnect between chief marketing officers (CMOs) and chief information officers (CIOs) threatens the ability of companies to deliver effective customer experiences, according to a new study by Accenture.
The study, based on a survey of 400 senior marketing and 250 information technology (IT) executives in 10 countries, revealed that only one in 10 of the executives believes collaboration between CMOs and CIOs is currently at the right level.
CIOs appear to be more committed to greater collaboration than CMOs, according to the report, The CMO-CIO Disconnect. More than three out of four CIOs surveyed – 77 percent – agree that CMO-CIO alignment is important, compared to 57 percent of CMOs participating in the survey. However, despite CIOs appearing more open to engaging with CMOs, only 45 percent of CIOs say that supporting marketing is near or at the top of their list of priorities, according to Accenture.
Regarding the use of technology, CMOs and CIOs agree that technology is essential to marketing and that its primary purpose is to gain access to customer insight and intelligence (60 percent of CMOs and 73 percent of CIOs). But while CMOs claim that gaining customer insight is their number one motivator for collaborating with IT, CIOs rank this tenth on their list of reasons to work together. CIOs’ top motivation for collaborating is to improve the customer experience, which CMOs rank as their third most important motivator.
“The CMO and CIO continue to work in silos, but now more than ever bridging the gap between those two organizations is critical for success. With today’s multichannel consumer seeking highly relevant experiences and with digital and analytics platforms emerging to help companies respond, marketing and IT executives must work more closely together,” said Brian Whipple, global managing director of Accenture Interactive. “C-suite decision makers face a variety of challenges when collaborating, ranging from a lack of trust to differing business goals. These issues must be resolved to turn a company’s digital marketing capabilities into a platform for market differentiation, business growth, and profitability,” he added.
When collaborating on a marketing initiative, neither the marketing executives nor the IT executives come away satisfied, reveals the report. 36 percent of CMOs say that IT deliverables fall short of the desired outcome, and 46 percent of CIOs say marketing does not provide an adequate level of detail to meet business requirements, according to the survey.
The survey also shows that a disagreement over the freedom and control of the use of technology and data also prevents effective collaboration. While 45 percent of CMOs say they want to enable their teams to leverage and optimize data and content without IT intervention, 49 percent of CIOs counter that marketing uses technologies without consideration for IT standards, according to Accenture.
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