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Should the CMO role be merged with the CIO role?

Posted 12.03.07 by Adrian Ho

Lots has been written about the tenuous nature of the CMO role. And while their technology counterparts do a bit better, the average tenure of CIOs isn’t that much healthier. However, a conversation a few days ago with Christian, around how very simple features like search on a retailers site can be quite powerful marketing, made me wonder whether creating a merged CMO/CTO role could actually be an option.

From the technologists standpoint, functionality is simply a cost of entry. The best IT systems deliver better experiences/interactions. This requires a customer-centric mindset rather than a system integrator mentality.

And from the marketers point of view, not only has technology become a powerful delivery medium for marketing, it has now transformed also the “media” landscape. So that marketers now need to be fluent with pretty advanced technological developments in order to keep up.

Bringing the two together would also enable marketers to build more measurement into their initiatives, which according to a recent Booz Allen Hamilton study, was one of the top concerns of CMOs.

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  • ZanD

    As the work of the CMO and CIO become more interdependent it seems that CMOs are increasingly forced to, minimally, understand the limits and capabilities of the CIO and the technologies they use.

    I think it is clear, as we move move forward, that the more technological expertise a CMO brings to the table, the more qualified, and innovative, they will be. But I do not think of this as unique to marketing. This will occur organization wide- the CEO, COO, and CFO, alike, are all better off with more technological expertise. And so the bar will inevitably be raised for CMOs (and COOs, CEOs, CFOs, et al)- requiring at least working knowledge of relevant technologies to be qualified.

    Therefore, I do not think that the role of CIO and CMO (or any like position) should, or can, be merged. A CMO is simply becoming more dependent on the work of the CIO, which requires a better understanding that role. Meanwhile the CIO is forced to expand their own role- and not exclusively in a marketing capacity. The CIO must spend time working on internal, information sharing, and behind the scenes system development that often has little affect on the marketing (or finance, or operations, etc…) side of things. The CIO is responsible for raising the level of technology integration in an organization; the other roles are simply playing catch-up.

  • ZanD

    This is not to discount the importance of a “customer-centric” mindset when designing systems- even internal ones. In time, this kind of thinking will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in systems development. But I think this trend will lead to more marketing minded personnel within the IT/IS departments (not necessarily at the CIO position). Their focus will be on user-interaction with the technologies.

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