Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of moderating panel discussions on the importance of a strong working relationship between CMOs and CIOs at the Direct Marketing Association 2013 Strategic Summit and the Forbes CMO Summit.

Digest...

Regarding critical dimensions of people, process, and technology, CMOs and CIOs are still not seeing things equally:

Teams are not focused on the right things. The two largest gaps between marketing and IT responses in this year’s survey were: 1) the lack of agreement on strategic priorities (a 20 percentage point gap) and 2) the absence of IT resources with marketing skills (a 30 percentage point gap). To close these gaps, CMOs and CIOs must ensure that their organizations are aligned, hire people who can handle the technical needs of engaging with customers, and measure them with common goals and metrics.

Process has improved, but timing still lags. Since our 2011 survey, agreement between marketing and IT on joint processes has improved by 11%. But marketing wants the tools delivered yesterday, and IT’s disciplined processes often slow implementation down to below what marketing can tolerate. To resolve this disconnect and avoid marketing going rogue, IT needs to step on the accelerator and find new ways to meet marketing time-to-market needs.

Technology to support marketing is more dream than reality. To thrive in the age of the customer, CMOs and CIOs must collectively turn their attention to defining a marketing technology strategy that supports the business and delivers the goods — the ability to create a single view of the customer that produces actionable insights and consistent customer experiences. Working together, CMOs and CIOs can advance their standing in CEOs’ eyes by delivering a joint solution to make better use of data and analytics in the business.

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Digest...

Sherilyn Shackell, the founder of the Marketing Academy in the U.K., believes that many CMOs are stymied when it comes to furthering their careers because they don’t appear to speak the same language as the board directors. We asked Shackell for some pointers.

-- >  Make a CEO your new best friend

-- >  Make the CFO your other new best friend

-- >  Know thyself: Shackell advises ambitious marketers to look very closely at their own personal development.

-- >  Go The Extra Mile On Book Learning: Marketers really need to bone up on areas that the board governs outside of the marketing function, such as corporate strategy, corporate finance, organizational development, operations, stakeholder management, decision-making and business law.

-- >  Look to the nonprofit sector for experience: Marketers should seek out board opportunities as a non-executive director or as a trustee.

-- >  Bonus Tip: Join The Right Company--One That Places A Premium On Brand: Companies that recognize that a large part of their market capitalization is tied up in that critical, often intangible thing called a brand are companies where marketing gurus have a better chance at the top job.

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