6 Takeaways from a Study about the Evolution of Marketing Organizations
“More than 50 percent of CMOs indicate they are responsible for 11 or more distinct marketing activities.” That’s one of the high-level findings of a new report — The Evolution of the Marketing Organization by Deloitte and the CMO Club.
The two organizations solicited responses from 400 CMOs around the world to develop the report. The findings largely center on how marketing leaders are organizing the marketing organization to tackle goals and challenges.
Here are a few things that stood out for me:
1. Functions reporting up to the CMO and those that don’t
Which marketing activities are reporting up to the CMO? The top answers included some of the usual suspects:
· 86% of respondent’s product or service marketing;
· 81% said channel and go-to-market;
· 72% said marketing strategy;
· 67% said marketing technology;
· 65% said marketing services (design, merchandising and packaging);
· 64% said lead generation; and
· 63% said external advertising media and digital agencies.
Just as interesting were some of the functions that do not currently report to the CMO, but respondents think they should. Some of the standouts included the following:
· 69% said partnerships and business development;
· 67% said corporate strategy; and
· 56% said public relations.
2) Direct reports to the CMO
Reporting up to the CMO isn’t the same thing as reporting directly to the CMO. The study found Marketing organizations have an “average of 2.4 layers of management. 78% of marketing strategy directly reports to the CMO.
This was followed by marketing operations and technology (71%) and creative (38%) in a distant third. For all the noise over customer experience (CX), just 18% of staff in these roles report directly to the CMO.
3) Marketers with data and UX skills are in demand.
“The most sought-after skills: data science (78%), analytics (68%), and user experience (60%).” It seems to me analytics and the user experience go hand-in-hand.
4) Marketing is C-suite material.
Some seventy-one percent “of marketing chiefs say their job is considered a ‘c-suite’ role and 59% of CMOs report too the CEO.” This finding is significant, because throughout 2019, the idea that the role of the chief marketer was dying was a recurring, albeit misguided, assessment in some marketing trade publications.
5) CMOs have P&L responsibility.
Sixty-eight percent “of respondents said they have profit and loss (P&L) responsibility — the number is higher (78%) among marketing chiefs that report to the CEO. Interestingly, 84% do not have responsibility for the salesforce.
I believe separating the two functions is the right approach, but when you do that, the CMO’s P&L goals are highly dependent on what the sales team does. As always, sales and marketing need to play well together, and when they don’t, the CMO gets fired, and in my reasoning, there’s only a 50% chance that’s the right move.
6) CEOs evaluate CMOs on awareness and sales.
“CMOs report the top three measurements of success in the eyes of their CEO are awareness (51%), sales/revenue (31%) and media ROI (29%).”
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The full report is available for download without registration.
Image credit: The Evolution of the Marketing Organization by Deloitte and the CMO Club; a version of this post was previously published on Sword and the Script.
