CIOs and CMOs Working Together: Makes Sense, but Didn’t See It Coming!
I recently did my rounds with my customers in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. Nothing like spending hours and hours driving on Interstate 75. Yup, just me and about 900,000 semi trucks.
Simply put, my primary job responsibility at MIPRO is to sell consulting services to implement the PeopleSoft suite of applications. As most of our loyal blog readers know, I’ve been at MIPRO almost since day one of our doors being open for business. Since I’m a bit ‘old school’, I see value in continuing to meet with former clients even though they may not have any significant business for us in the near future. I enjoy listening to their experiences with past implementations, conferences they have attended, organizational changes within their company or even personal topics such as vacations or kids heading off to college. There truly is value in staying in touch. But, that’s a blog topic for another day!
This past week, I met with one of our customers and he was bringing me up to date on a recent org change. He is in IT and has overall responsibility for the PeopleSoft environment. His boss is the CIO who reports to the VP of Operations. The big change is the CIO and VP of Marketing now report to the Executive VP of Operations and are colleagues! Didn’t see that coming!
But the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense — doubly so in our world of digital marketing. Not sure how many other companies are organizing in this fashion, but I think this company will gain competitive advantage in their field with this new organization and how it works together.
This isn’t just my observation, either: there seems to be a change in the air, and it’s becoming more pronounced every day. Here’s Mark Fidelman, contributing to Forbes, in a post entitled IBM to CMOs and CIOs: Work Together or Become Irrelevant:
Few skilled positions, if any, are further apart than the CMO and CIO. The former is known for being creative and extroverted, the latter technical and introverted. Yet an IBM 2012 State of Marketing Survey concluded that this unlikely couple must learn to work together or their organization risks becoming less competitive. In other words, both CMO and CIO will increasingly become less effective apart – but more effective together.
“What’s becoming clear is that in order to stay relevant and remain competitive in today’s uber-digital and social world, the CIO and the CMO must work together. Today and in the future you’ll see this connection grow tighter than ever before,” said Jeff Schick, VP, Social Software.
But like any two people with opposing perspectives, common ground is hard to come by. Each must give a little to get along and timely communication must be made a priority.
Smart companies are not just thinking about this, but actually making it a reality.
Amazing what can happen when companies decide to break down traditional silos.
