Lessons in making the CMO-CIO relationship work

CMOs and CIOs need to be aligned and work together for business success through customer gain. This has been quite a topic of discussion among the marketing and technology circles recently. Gartner predicts that by 2017 the CMO will have greater control of the IT budget than the CIO as user-driven content and applications, socialisation of the enterprise, mobile apps, big data and cloud adoption continues to surge at a rapid pace.

While the CMO’s role traditionally focused on advertising, sales and brand-building, the rapid growth of the internet brings social data and mobile data onto the CMO’s agenda – to understand and cater to the needs of the increasing number of smartphone and tablet users. Moreover, since the use of big data to drive marketing will inevitably drive demand in computing power and storage, a new dynamic has emerged between CMOs and CIOs.

Given this scenario, it is ever-more important marketing and IT departments build a tighter bond with each other to drive customer satisfaction and business success. Building a new relationship takes time, patience and relies on understanding the other’s perspective.

Here are two key lessons we learned at Tata Communications in building alignment across marketing and IT.

Understand the lingo: For the marketing team, understanding the IT vocabulary is paramount towards building a successful relationship. In the long term, this will help align strategy, mobilise resources and avoid a complete disconnect between background and terminology. By understanding technology, marketing teams can help their IT colleagues better understand how the technology impacts customers.

In this context, I was recently at a one-day workshop in New York with a group of about 25 CMOs. The workshop aimed to teach us – theoretically and practically – a number of IT concepts such as coding and building a mobile application. At the end of the day, I built a mobile application that could track location, register customers and monitor repeat purchases so that customers could be tangibly rewarded for their loyalty and interest.

The day was filled with immense learning and useful insights that I took back to the boardroom.

Have an open discussion: A deterrent to building a successful relationship between the CMO and CIO is the differing priorities for each function. For marketing personnel, it is of utmost priority the company is able to provide the best experience to its users, indulge in constant innovation and execute trends at the best possible speed and quality.

At the same time, colleagues in IT and engineering may be worried about how this impacts their team’s resources and other priorities. An open conversation about concerns, issues and challenges makes both the department heads fully committed to working as one team.

In my experience, this approach was immensely helpful when the marketing, IT and engineering teams together made the decision to put the head of digital marketing into a key role in the product development life cycle for a new launch.

This meant we developed joint project plans and dashboards and had the customer’s view embedded in every project milestone. This also helped avoid any frustration at the operational level, particularly as we approached the time for the launch.

Embracing a spirit of collaboration may seem odd at first for marketing and IT leads, however, CMOs and CIOs who celebrate the diversity of perspectives, welcome the collective challenge, enjoy the other’s skill-set and together become the catalyst for innovation in the enterprise will celebrate shared success.

Companies that get it right in 2015 and beyond will enjoy a competitive advantage and create the next wave of shareholder value.

Julie Woods-Moss is the chief marketing officer at Tata Communications.

This article was from Marketing Magazine’s special edition The Futurist, the January-February 2015 issue.

Other stories from The Futurist:

Getting up close and personal by Mike King of IKEA Singapore
Still a touch ‘Mad’ but not for long by Anna Bory of Audi
The death of traditional and digital marketing, by Rahul Asthana of Kimberly-Clark
Up, up and away with Millennials, by Rick Harvey Lam of Accor Luxury and Upscale Brands
Welcome to the ‘third age of travel’ by Karun Budhraja of Amadeus Asia
The future(s) of B2B marketing by Andrea Lin of Citi
The mobile customer experience will fuel digital transformation in Asia Pacific by Forrester
Communicate… or die by Greg Klayton of Kadence
4 tips to becoming “2015 Marketer of the Year” by Ambrish Jain of Lenovo
What’s a bad personality trait for a marketer? by Abdul Rahim Bawa of MasterCard
How does a mobile led future look like? By Rohit Dadwal of the Mobile Marketing Association
Do you have the skills to be a futuristic marketer? by Marcus Chew of NTUC Income
Marketing will soon be everybody’s job by Alvin Neo of Integrated Healthcare Holdings/Parkway Pantai.
From mad men to math men: How marketers need to evolve by Anthony Shiner of Singtel
Stop selling media, start selling ideas by Geoff Tan of Singapore Press Holdings
Beyond big data: Sony Mobile’s tech-focused approach to marketing by Chang Seng Hock of Sony Mobile

For the full issue, click here.