Dollars are being spent by the CMO, instead of the CIO – why?
Every day we are faced with more technology in marketing. Websites, text messaging, mobile apps, phone tracking, analytics dashboards, database marketing and the list goes on. It seems everything we do as building material marketers involves some technology.
So who spends all this money on technology? It used to be the CIO spent money on workstations and mainframes and big IT networks. But the technology we use and how we use it has changed.
In a study earlier this year, Gartner predicts that, by 2017, the CMO will be spending more on IT than the CIO. Why do they predict this?
- Technology is at the heart of marketing – and adoption is well underway
- Marketing is already a major buyer & influencer of technology
- Marketing is becoming more strategic & expanding its responsibilities
- Marketing controls the budget for a third to a half of marketing software
So how does this compare to your organization? Are you (the marketer) working to align with your IT department?
Information Week recently did an article with a CIO survey and Fifteen New Rules for IT to Live by—one of those is to make the CMO the CIO’s new best friend.
IT leaders have a ways to go to win over their marketing peers: 27% say their relationship with the marketing team is poor or neutral, compared with 22% who say that about their relationship with the finance team, and 15% who say that about operations/manufacturing.
Data-driven marketing and social networking analytics are places where marketing and IT groups should have a natural bond, as well as in mobile apps and websites.
Bottom line—regardless of where you’re at in consumption of technology, as a building material marketer your role in the recommendation and purchase of your company’s technology will certainly increase. How prepared are you for the changing role?
