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CIOs and CMOs urged to collaborate to win customers

Forrester warns CIOs and CMOs to toss differences aside if they want to succeed

18 Dec 2014

CIOs and CMOs should work together more closely in order to win their business more customers, according to Forrester Research.

The analyst house's study of more than 300 marketing and technology management leaders found that only 51 per cent of CMO and CIOs were collaborating on technology in their business.

Cliff Condon, Forrester's chief research officer, said: "Half of CMOs and CIOs deploy projects jointly these are the companies that will establish competitive advantage. The other half will get left behind."

He said the two positions could be the most important for companies in 2015, and it will be their approach to customers that will determine how successful their organisation will be.

Despite the two roles traditionally being seen as rivals as more technology spend is devoted to marketing, more than 60% of the CMOs and CIOs surveyed said they have a relationship of mutual trust and respect.

However, just 46 per cent of CMOs and 51 per cent of CIOs said their firm has a single view of the customer across all touchpoints.

This led the research company to urge them to look differently at data as a resource, and to focus on real-time responsiveness and cloud architectures.

Condon said: "2015 will be a year of unprecedented customer power, worldwide, though mobile, social, and digital channels.

"Companies can expect competition to arrive from any angle. The only cure is an obsession with customers, driven from the top by the CIO and CMO.

"These two executives, by their relationship with each other and with the technologies they roll out to connect with customers, will determine the future of business."

Forrester also emphasised the importance of security, after predicting that 60 per cent of enterprises will suffer a data breach in 2015.