Accenture CMO Survey: About flying through turbulence
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICERS Digitalization is shaking up the business of chief marketing officers. While CMOs are aware of this development and are working hard to implement new ideas in digital and mobile, they often encounter an organizational environment that does not share their enthusiasm for change.
CMOs often encounter resistance with their change requests. This challenge, result of the Accenture survey of nearly 600 chief marketing officers worldwidewas the theme of the example cases presented at Accenture's CMO Forum in Zurich: Recipes and ideas were presented to the audience of Swiss marketing managers with which they, as "digital change agents," overcame resistance in their companies, initiated a digital transformation, and successfully carried it through.Many are aware of marketing change78 percent of CMOs surveyed by Accenture are aware that the marketing function will fundamentally change over the next five years. During this time, three-quarters of their budgets will be allocated to digital channels, and half of those to "mobile." CMOs are convinced of the digitization of their business - 77 percent believe in the importance of an effective consumer experience.- An example of the many possibilities was given at the CMO Forum by the demo of a virtual catalog for MontBlanc by Avenade - screen and smartphone interact and can be controlled by pure hand movement.- Microsoft communicates with its almost 6,000 partners in Switzerland exclusively via the internal social network Yammer: a great success for efficiency, effectiveness and more user self-determination.CMOs meet resistanceThe downside of the CMO survey: 62 percent of them think they are not particularly successful in creating an optimal consumer experience for the company. Many CMOs believe they lack digital tools and the right talent. Digital integration is sputtering within organizations - understandable given the sweeping transformation coming from digital and the marketing function. Nearly half of the heads of companies worldwide (survey of 1,000 leaders by Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit, 2013) believe that the biggest challenge of digitizing their organization will be managing change within the company.CMOs are not perceived as driversHowever, the same survey shows that CMOs are not perceived as drivers of digital innovation by company heads (mentioned by one percent of respondents). CMOs still seem to be too absorbed in making effective use of individual digital channels. Yet they would be ideally positioned to take on the role of digital change agent and be more strategic - after all, the digital imperative comes from their field of business, from customers and interaction with them.- The social media monitoring program that UBS set up together with Accenture began with a purely reputation management objective. It has since been expanded, as the benefits of the broad portfolio of analytics for marketing are immediate.- With sophisticated optimization of strategy and operational execution of marketing activities of all kinds, the entire function can be made more efficient and effective: Accenture showed consulting examples from a global Swiss pharmaceutical company, a system caterer, insurer and cosmetics manufacturer. The latter saved 17 percent of its budget while maintaining effectiveness through marketing mix modeling.Consistent customer experience across all channelsThat's the main conclusion of the survey and the CMO Forum: The goal is a digital ecosystem across the enterprise and a unified customer experience across all channels, which CMOs are driving from within the marketing function. But instead of waiting for other stakeholders, they should get started now - testing and learning in individual subareas, and then moving forward step by step to advance the digital transformation as a whole.
