Roadmap to Digital Excellence: The new role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
Further development of the classic role of the CMO
As the head of a company's overall marketing, the CMO is generally responsible for the areas of product, price, communication and distribution policy. As part of the management team, they are usually responsible for strategy development and brand management. Market research and the testing of new products or services as well as the successful positioning of the brand with the target group are his central tasks in order to ensure the sustainable success of the company.he is primarily responsible for the areas of brand management, marketing communications (including advertising, promotions and public relations), market research, sales management, product development, distribution channel management, pricing and customer service.the new demands on a CMO have changed from the development of marketing campaigns to a universal leadership function that oversees all aspects of corporate strategy and brand engagement. The CMO links offline and online interfaces as the most essential tool for a successful digital transformation. This expansion of the remit means a more progressive position with a digital focus, resulting in an ever greater separation of CMO and marketer. Overall, (operational) marketing therefore only makes up a small part of a CMO's current area of responsibility.
New tasks and responsibilities of the Chief Marketing Officer
The further development of the marketing sector in the age of digitalization and globalization is accompanied by the evolution of the CMO's tasks, which include the management of customer-oriented processes, technologies and people. The goals of the CMO have grown beyond pure marketing. Growth and the further development of the business cannot be achieved through traditional marketing, but require cross-divisional management of innovation, sustainability and change, and following a holistic understanding of marketing, the CMO attempts to align all processes - from the idea to research, development and production through to the supply chain and sales - with consumer needs. As a result, the CMO is increasingly responsible for developing and implementing product innovations or innovation-oriented corporate strategies. This is a challenge that can hardly be mastered single-handedly. Here, too, he is therefore required to lead, innovate, integrate, mediate and promote cooperation. In this comprehensively understood role definition, he acts as a sustainably oriented business driver, and the biggest challenges in the digital age include data management, the pace of innovation and budget restrictions. Creativity, a global and digital mindset are therefore the core competencies of every CMO, alongside organizational change leadership skills, specialist knowledge, user centricity, a focus on results and growth and financial expertise. These core competencies will continue to be essential in the future. However, with the growing importance of social media and digital markets, which provide an enormous wealth of valuable market and consumer data, other skills are also becoming increasingly important, as the CMO is responsible for the spirit, culture, motivation, creativity and innovative ability of their team in addition to making strategic decisions.
High Performance Leadership: The art of making teams successful
The mixed teams consist, for example, of strategists, creatives, marketers, user experience & interaction designers, tech trend researchers and innovators, technologists, digital enterprise architects, data scientists, controlling specialists, business analysts, change managers and developers. While managers are often concerned with keeping a system or parts of it running efficiently, leaders are more concerned with ensuring that individual employees can develop their potential and find the necessary framework conditions to do so. After all, an organization as a whole will only change if the individual members of this organization change individually.* Marco Englert (MBA) is a manager, consultant and coach and focuses on management innovations for the sustainable control of increasing dynaxity and digital transformation. As Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Executive Director, he is responsible for modeling and implementing management strategies at Motodox GmbH. He has excellent research and leadership know-how and is a certified specialist for brand communication, online marketing manager, digital sales manager, employer brand manager and manager for agile organizational development (Quadriga University).
