Tag Archives: CMO-CIO relationship

Every Shade of Grey – The New Reality For CIOs

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Every-Shade-of-Grey

It wasn’t long ago that the CIO mandate was simple to define.  The role was clear and operational, customers were internal and IT was transactional.  CIOs managed a necessary cost center; not yet the competitive differentiator it has become.  The role of business IT was “clear,” well defined, and not particularly ambiguous. It was black and white.

All of that has changed. The business technology role, and the decisions CIO’s face today are anything but black and white. “The cloud” is a metaphor for not only service and application delivery, but is equally descriptive of how hard it is to see what’s around the corner.  Grey is about as clear as the IT crystal ball gets today.

The digital era is here.  Are you ready?
The digital era is redefining everything it touches. It is transforming business models and disrupting established markets.  The momentum of trends like mobility, data and the Internet of Things (IoT) will continue to accelerate change.  Can you see the future impact to your business, or what you need to support it? Are you ready?

Ready or not, the IT mandate today is to be a strategic, outcome-focused partner within your business.  IT must approach technology systems as revenue catalysts, a competitive differentiator that defines success not by transactions, but by measurable contributions to revenue and efficiency.

There are many legacy barriers, however. Let’s pretend for a moment:

  • That the great recession did not occur
  • That past tech investments are capable of adapting to the digital age
  • And IT processes, skills and resources are keeping pace with transformational technologies and the expectations management and customers

This is a fantasy, of course.

The harsh reality is that for most enterprises, about 80% of IT spend is dedicated to keeping legacy infrastructure running and operational.  Managing the existing network is reactive and manual. It’s a bit like the story of the little Dutch boy and the dam. Duct tape is a great resource, but it’s a Band-Aid, not a strategy.

The infinite question – what’s next?
What’s the next major trend to impact your business, and will you be ready? “Will the decisions made today enable us to adapt and scale quickly? That’s the most important criteria.” said one CIO recently. “What is clear today is that being a customer-focused digital business is essential. The terminally grey question – one without a static or predicable answer – is how.”

While we may not be able to predict the ultimate impact of ubiquitous mobility or big data, we can predict the critical role of the new generation of intelligent network infrastructures to enable it.   Though the future of trends such as SDN and IoT remain hazy, it is clear that the network must be able to automatically adapt to them in milliseconds, not days.  It’s clear that the application economy will demand networks be more than just passively aware, they must be application fluent, intelligent and responsive.  Infrastructure must be designed to anticipate choked data flows and adapt automatically, not force administrators to react and respond to help desk tickets with little more insight than “the network is slow.”

For CIOs, one of the few black and white realities today is the need to be agile enough to adjust to the grey areas of a business landscape in digital transition.

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This article was originally created for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, appearing on their blog in July, 2015.

Are CIOs and CMOs interchangeable?

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“CIOs and CMOs should know enough about each other’s field of expertise to be interchangeable” according to Jim Davis, SAS’s global marketing chief in a recent CMO.com article.

I had to read that statement more than once.

After considering this concept further, I thought to myself why don’t we also add the CFO, COO and CEO into that prototype and include a couple of engineering PhD’s and legal counsel.  Now that is an executive persona.  Clone them into a board of “Mini-Me’s.”

Think of the synergy in that boardroom.  No hidden agendas, no bitter debates or personality conflicts.  The enterprise now has complete strategic alignment across operations, product development, IT, marketing and sales.  Dream team.

Don’t get me wrong; Mr. Davis makes many important points.   As a former CIO his emphasis on technology is no surprise.  To be clear, I agree with the majority of his opinions.  I just don’t’ agree that the CMO and CIO roles could be interchangeable.

In fact, it’s not that I completely reject the ideal of that concept.  It’s just not realistic. Culturally speaking, no one sits at more distant ends of the boardroom than the CIO and CMO, assuming of course that the CMO has a seat.  Their training, skills, experiences and often personalities are polar opposites.

Technology is a tool; it’s not the solution to marketing’s mission.  There is no debate about the unprecedented potential it represents as a production, delivery and measurement mechanism, but to confuse marketing with technology is naïve and doomed to failure. And B2B technology vendors are often the worst offenders.

Marketing has become distracted by technology and automation.

Marketing is ultimately about awareness, communication, persuasion, and audience experience. It begins with a compelling message and story that delivers unique differentiation that your audience cares about. To quote Leo Burnett, effective messaging “does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.”  It is human, empathetic, and most of all, memorable.

These basic building blocks do not come in a box.  The technology and the applications – they are tactical tools for delivery and measurement.  Ultimately success is measured in terms of customer acquisition and retention, not the size and quality of your database or email open rates.

As a technology marketing and content strategist, I agree with Mr. Davis’ philosophy at the tactical and execution level. Marketing does need a better understanding of what’s in the technology box, and how they can use it.  But do not become distracted by it.  Without simple, memorable, inviting messages, it will not achieve the objective.  Garbage in, garbage out, it’s just being distributed more efficiently.

The CMO and CIO are not interchangeable, but the evolution of digital technology does require that their roles and objectives be synchronized and complimentary. The digital age has also created at least one shared reality – it has forever changed the IT and marketing roles. The changes these executives have seen in the past 15 years are unprecedented, turning both their professional worlds upside down.

To succeed as business leaders in this new age, the CMO and CIO will need to transcend isolated and historic roles.  As digital interactions and devices continue to mature the two business groups will become inseparable in the customer experience conversation. Marketing and IT will represent a new business ecosystem that will ultimately be defined and measured by customer experience.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome additions to this conversation.