CMOs See Business Strategy and Digital Marketing as Top Priorities

Chief marketing officers (CMOs) want to have greater influence in setting business strategy, and they feel an increasing need to raise their technology IQ, according to a new global CMO survey by Heidrick & Struggles and Forrester Research. The report is based on a survey of nearly 200 global marketing leaders to measure CMOs' influence within the organization, their business objectives, and the skills and competencies necessary to drive a customer-obsessed organization and respond to the technology-empowered customer.

In the report almost 80 percent of senior marketers say they want their influence to grow as business strategy and development leaders. They see improving their relationship with the senior executive team as a critical way to get there, with 38 percent saying C-level relationship building is the skill they most want to improve. But in a world powered by a technology-empowered customer, the number-one skill to improve on is digital: 40 percent of CMOs say increasing their technology savvy is their top self-improvement goal.  

While relationship building with the senior executive team is seen as a top area of improvement, not all relationships are created equal, Forrester reports. "Despite the rise in importance of technology and digital media, CMOs are still prioritizing relationships with the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and head of sales ahead of the chief information or technology officer. Only 30 percent of senior marketers see this relationship as important to develop, indicating a wide gap between the two departments. The survey also indicates that CMOs are increasingly recognizing the need to act as company leaders, not just marketing leaders, through trends such as embracing and championing the "voice of the customer" and ensuring that marketing becomes the growth engine for the organization. In fact, 42 percent of CMOs claim that representing the voice of the customer is one of the most critical factors in ensuring personal success as a marketer."

Source: Forrester Research

Comments

[Thesis Writing]

Hi,
This blog is informative for me because I am going to write my thesis about digital marketing that's why I am getting points and different reviews about it from different blogs and here I found enough information about..!Thanks for sharing with us...!

[Lillian Grace]

No matter how they try to deny it, the reality still manages to seep in. CMOs definitely have to step their games up and get technology basics inside their system. They need to do this in order to better connect with the public, especially their target consumers. But what about social media and social networking? How are they related with this topic?