How CMO Can Improve IT Project execution?

CMO  as Innovation Leader

Forrester Research and Heidrick & Struggles conducted a survey of CMOs across the globe that shows that nearly 80% want to prove their capability as business and strategy leaders. Now, business strategy and digital execution drive are top two priorities for CMO because digital marketing has surpassed brand strategy and positioning.

Main role of CMO is to connect the corporate boardroom with the customer because unless company connects with the customer, success will remain elusive.  The advent of social media, big data, and analytics opened up new opportunity for marketing which requires technological innovation.

3 facts why smarter CMOs driving more IT decision

 (1) 2.5 quintillion of data produced everyday. Hence 45% big data initiatives are taken by marketing. 

(2) Big data market will grow from USD 3 billion in 2010 to  USD 16 billion in 2015. 

(3) Over the next 3 years spending on marketing will grow by 60%


CMO need to use latest technology and IT systems to implement his strategy. This requires close working with technical department for these creative works. Here is a gap because the goals of CIO & CMO are not aligned in most cases.

Most of the organization has CIO who leads IT department.

And, the main KRAs for a CIO role includes

•    In depth working experience in technical vertical like technical, banking etc
•    As enforcer who knows how to develop policies and best practices and implement them
•    As a protector who will ensure IT department retains appropriate certifications and professionally trained skills to best maintain and protect companies IT investment.

But, I found that business requires a "The translator" who translate how the technology can help a given business unit to achieve the desired business outcome instead of  talking about servers and software.

CIO Roles

Actually, this is missing in most of the companies.

Some companies have a perception that the older CIO tends to use more "old-boy" cliques and are not up to date enough on technologies, methods and techniques. Business heads have indicated in surveys that older CIOs no longer "excite" them, "aren't innovative enough", do not create new ideas often enough to solve problems or transform business, and are less willing to act as change agents often enough.

As  per current trend CMO owns the budget & investment decision.  CIO own the responsibility of execution and operation of the system. But a closer interlock is necessary between IT & marketing department for the actual success of any program.

We did some survey on failed IT projects.

5 top reasons for failure of IT projects 

(1) Schedule delay of the execution of projects,

(2) Inadequate business requirements

(3) Insufficient business process

4) Delay in budget approval

5) Ambiguity of responsibility between CIO & CMO etc.

This brings to my conclusion that CMO should lead IT strategic projects. This will remove any ambiguity of responsibility in strategic project execution, improves adherence of SLA , following & maintaining standard business process. 

Business should use process tools like Aries to document & follow business process. Any change should be initiated from business process tool. This will be possible if CMO leads from front end in this type of  technology investment.

This will help CMO to introduce new products which are aligned to existing product framework and architecture. This will improve predictability of IT delivery.

I don’t think CIO should report to CMO. Rather, CTO should look after technological part of IT like performance enhancements, capacity planning, infrastructure planning, maintaining data centers, various operational level agreements, protection of digital assets like patents etc.

CIO should focus more on IT & business alignment and should work closely with CMO. CIO should have sufficient knowledge on various aspects of technology, latest development, industry trend, risk management etc.

About the author : Arindam is a thought-leader on value creation through enterprise architecture. He facilitates business leaders and organizations to think bold for future strategies. By focusing on completing complex transformation projects on time he contributes in getting value from the program which can help to create sustainable competitive advantage.

Arindam brings more than 20 years of technical & management experience. He is a valuable contributor to any senior management discussion on the subject of leadership, innovation, growth, organizational excellence and brand equity.

Resources : images sources are pwc & U.S. Department of Health & Human Services