As many as 43% of CMOs and 50% of CIOs think their relationship with each other has improved over the past year, according to research conducted by Accenture.
However, 45% of CMOs believe there still needs to be more collaboration with CIOs and only 23% of marketers believe the level of collaboration between CMOs and CIOs is at or approaching the right level.
The report, titled: Cutting Across The CMO-CIO Divide, gleaned insights from more than 1,100 senior marketing and IT executives worldwide.
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For the majority of CMOs (52%) and CIOs (53%), marketing IT is considered a high priority. These numbers represent a 16% and an 8% increase, respectively, over 2012. Both parties agree the top five marketing IT priorities are: Customer experience, customer analytics, social media, the corporate web site, and other web development initiatives.
While both departments are collaborating more extensively, there still are several challenges, especially regarding the ability to adapt in an increasingly digital environment. Up to 40% of CMOs believe their IT team doesn’t understand the urgency to address market conditions quickly. On the other hand, 43% of CIOs believe marketing departments’ requirements and priorities change too often for them to keep up.
Both parties agree, however, that combating organizational silos remain a top challenge. Up to 45% of CIOs say channel-specific experiences are too complex to be managed by one platform; 42% agree that the technology is siloed and too difficult to use for cross-channel experiences.
But marketers and IT professionals are eager to work together to address enterprise challenges and create exceptional customer experiences. As many as 83% of IT execs want to interact with their company’s marketing department, while 69% of marketers want to interact with the IT department.
Accenture provided four best practices to help CMOs build trust and improve alignment with IT executives:
- Collaborate with IT to establish a joint vision;
- Unify around the customer experience to create a digital business;
- Reevaluate the operating model to integrate customer-focused skills throughout the company; and
- Frame the marketing model and budget to align with a new ecosystem of marketing services.
Click hereto download the complete Accenture report.
