Last month, CMO.com published a terrific interview with Lisa Arthur, the CMO of marketing technology firm Aprimo, “We’re All CMOs and CIOs.”
Here are a couple of excerpts (emphasis added is my own):
“The first truth is that most global companies express their fundamental business strategy through IT, and customer experience falls into that,” stated Lisa. “At the same time, business success today is more about marketing than ever before. And marketing is executed through IT more than ever before.”
“One provocative idea is that we’re all CMOs and CIOs today,” she added. “IT needs to work with marketers, and marketers need to be in touch with technology. CMOs must understand how to use technology to innovate, do more with less, to be more accountable, and to get the investment they need.”
It wasn’t always this way.
“From my purview over the past 30 years, there has been a clear distinction between the CIO and CMO,” noted Lisa. “And in many regards it has been an arm wrestle of a relationship. I’m in my fourth gig as a CMO; in the past, the requests and requirements that marketing has for technology have fallen very far down the list from the requests of sales and finance and other functions seen as revenue-critical. At the same time, marketing was very stove-piped, and collaboration with IT was nonexistent.”
But it’s a whole new world today. “What’s interesting is that I have met several CMOs today who also function as CIOs. We’re seeing the emergence of bringing marketing and IT together from that title perspective, or through marketers having IT expertise within their teams. Cloud computing is another example. Many marketers are turning to cloud and software-as-a-service options because there’s less dependency on IT to get things done.”
Many more great insights — read the full interview.
