We conclude our series by exploring how technology is shaping the new marketing organization roles and structure. Let’s pick up where we left off. If the CMO will be spending more on IT than the CIO (as discussed in Part 1) and marketing shares some common ground with IT (as demonstrated in Part 2), does that mean that the CMO will become the new CIO? Will the role of the CIO one day simply disappear?
Such a conclusion may be somewhat farfetched. After all, as tech-driven as marketing has become, there is still a lot of enterprise technology that does require that deep technical expertise that marketing lacks. Even the heads of digital marketing organizations, who are naturally more technologically adept than some of their peers, climb the corporate ladder to become CMOs themselves, they will continue to be first and foremost marketers by academic and professional background. They are not likely to be as versed in deep technology trends as IT professionals are.
The Marketing Technologist, a role that is starting to emerge in many organizations, is often filled by someone with a deep tech background. Could they be the future tech-savvy CMO? Perhaps not. As important as it is, this position is not directly responsible for revenue generation – i.e. not on the “critical path” of the marketing organization – and so these technologists are not natural candidates for landing the CMO role.
That said, it is not inconceivable that we will witness a trend where the role of the CIO will move to report into the CMO, highlighting the marketing organization’s prominence in tech purchasing decisions.
Will it continue to be called Chief Information Officer? Will it simply be consolidated with the role of a Marketing Technologist? Only time will tell. The one thing we know for certain is that “change is the only constant.”