Marketing is seeking control of the tech budget, but will they succeed in getting it? Maxine-Laurie Marshall investigates
Marketing will be getting their hands on some of IT’s budget, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). The American research and advisory firm made 10 predictions for businesses in the New Year and the one that stood out was: ‘The CMO will hold 10 per cent of the overall technology budget by the end of 2015.’
IDC sees three key drivers for this: the need to deliver an experience across the business ecosystem, the ability to make better decisions by connecting people and data in context and because of online communities developing and extending business networks.
But will this really happen in the UK, do marketers now understand technology enough to take ownership over a portion of budget that’s not theirs?
The case for
Mark Phibbs, VP EMEA marketing at Adobe Systems Europe and a member of the Marketing Academy’s fellowship programme, is confident in the prediction and is surprised the figure isn’t higher. He says: “The big brand CMOs I speak to on a regular basis are increasingly involved in driving technology as this is becoming more core to marketing’s success as ad spend moves from traditional media to online.”
April Redmond, CMO at Kerry Foods and also part of the fellowship programme, is used to exercising a decent amount of control over tech budgets. She says: “Marketing at Kerry Foods is collaborating more and more with our technology experts. We control the budgets for critical areas such as digital and data integration and are instructing and briefing the department for many aspects of our work. I can only see this increasing in 2015.“
Both marketers highlight the collaboration between their departments and the technology department. Something no-one can dispute. However, not all those in B2B are as quick to assume the IDC prediction will ring true in the UK.
The case against
Adam Smith, head of media strategy at Dunnhumby, doesn’t think so: “Marketers already have enough to contend with as the breadth and complexity of their remit continues to increase in other areas, independent of technology. What they do need to take responsibility for is communicating their tech requirements effectively within their organisation. The smaller the business, the greater the natural integration between the CMO, CTO and/or CIO tends to be.”
There is more focus on the relationship marketing has with the traditional tech leaders (CIO/CTO), rather than the divvying up of the budget, from some industry figures. Robert Tas, CMO at Pegasystems, says: “Yes marketers will have a portion of the tech budget. The convergence of customer experience and marketing necessitate an intersection of technology. CMOs need to partner with CIOs to realise the ultimate value of our customer interactions and experiences.”
He continues: “The CMO can pick the market data analytics tech, say, but they don’t have the skill set to manage the infrastructure challenges. It’s here where IT comes into play. It’s unrealistic for the CMO to dictate technology. They may contribute to the strategy behind IT decision-making but they should be by no means responsible for driving it.”
There seems to be a push in the industry for marketers not to focus completely on technology and forget what they are here to do. Phibbs says increasing the tech budget ‘won’t win the day’ for marketers, citing how effective storytelling can’t be underestimated.
Marketers don’t doubt tech can help them with their jobs. But as a marketer’s to do list grows ever longer with the explosion of content marketing, the increase in channels and other non-traditional marketing responsibilities, like CSR, all competing for time out of the CMO’s day, maybe tech should be understood but not controlled by marketers. This is something Simon Carter, executive director of marketing, UK&I for Fujitsu agrees with: “A good marketer needs to understand what technology can do for us, and know who to go to within our organisations to deliver that.”
Does this view tally with those who are selling marketing tech? Who are the tech vendors targeting, the CMO or CIO? Confirming the blurring of boundaries, Scott Meyer, CEO at marketing technology company Ghostery, says: “Our core client is the technology leader who supports marketing and ecommerce. Depending on the company, that executive can work in IT or in marketing.”
Joining forces
While the industry can’t agree whether marketing will take over more of IT’s budget, all are in agreement that the two departments will be a powerhouse combination if they work together. Forrester cements this view. The research giant has said: ‘Business success in 2015 will be dictated by the CMO and CIO. CMOs should step forward and take responsibility for turning the enterprise toward the customer. This means taking on a more significant role on the executive team and collaborating with chief information officers more fully. It also practically begs CMOs to lead innovation processes in the organisation and means that the whole company – starting with the CMO – has to identify places where technology can create a more engaged customer relationship.’
Seeing how tech can improve the customer relationship and knowing how much data is now available about customers, it’s no surprise that data management was cited as the tech to focus on in 2015. Smith says: “CMOs will be looking for tech-led solutions that join data sources together to create common metrics and currencies that ultimately lead to the evolution of the marketing plan into one giant CRM plan.” While Meyer believes marketing automation will be top: “In particular, we see that two key trends are maturing – tag management and data management platforms. These two enable a huge proliferation of different services that have access to the marketer’s confidential information (e.g. web browsing behaviours, purchases, pricing). It has never been more important to get this under control.”
Marketers’ understanding of what tech can do for them is more vital than ever, but they are not working alone. They do not need to take total control over the tech and therefore shouldn’t have control over a budget that doesn’t belong to them. They must work closely with the tech teams and make a case for why marketing tech should be an important consideration. As Carter says: “We need to argue a very strong case as to why our requirement should be top of the delivery queue.” It’s about persuasion and collaboration rather than control and dictation.
