The Wall: Senior Vice-President of Cognizant’s Business Process Services Practice Says Today’s Most Successful CMOs are Embracing New Technologies Whole-Heartedly and Experimenting Continuously

“A few years ago, Chief Marketing Officers would not have envisaged how fundamentally technology would change not only their profession but also the skills required to do the job,” writes Vipul Khanna. “Marketing departments have always had to marry creativity with a keen analytical mind, but the enabling technology was very much the domain of the IT departments.”

Now, adds Khanna, the consumerization of technology has changed everything.  “As a result, the DNA of marketing organizations is changing. Social media and digital marketing have become the focus areas for technology spend,” he writes. “Newer digital channels, the millennial mindset and the ubiquitous delivery models across global markets are driving the need for intrinsic technology integration into marketing. This means CMOs now have to learn aspects of technology that they perhaps never did in the past. In fact, recent research from Gartner shows that in most large organizations, half of the capital budget for marketing software and one third of that for infrastructure are now owned by marketing.

Khanna notes that we are entering a new phase of the “information age” in which information is no longer simply a bolt-on to existing competitive assets but an important competitive asset. He writes that Cognizant’s recent study of 240 process owners (Cognizant Business Process Evolution Study 2013) to look at the use of technology and analytics across various functions and business drivers behind such implementation, revealed that a large number of organizations are looking at technologies to support more strategic, forward-looking business goals, such as pursuing new markets, improving business agility and flexibility, and finding new channels to market. “Typically, these are all functions that marketing departments support,” he points out.

He writes that the priorities allocated to SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) technologies reflect a wider change across business functions, with IT no longer being a tactical tool, but a driver of strategic business objectives. “The role of the CMO has always covered innovation, revenue generation and customer experience, but new technology means that this is now done in a faster, more flexible manner. CMOs are spending between 15 and 20 per cent of their operating budgets on marketing technology and technology-related services. In addition, they are hiring more technically skilled staff – chief marketing technologists, user interface experts and their very own quantitative analysts.”

Khanna observes that CMOs now wield more influence than ever before and are increasingly taking risks to get ahead. “The most successful CMOs are those who embrace this brave new world whole heartedly and experiment continuously,” he concludes.

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