New Role in the Industry
Marketing in business is rapidly becoming the domain most dependent on technology. Research and consultations conducted in 2012 by Gartner predicted that by 2017, marketing directors in corporations would allocate more funds to technology than IT department heads. This observation is confirmed by the emergence of a new role in the industry: Chief Marketing Technologist. The popularity of CMT is growing and gaining significance. This multifunctional role requires extensive knowledge of the technology sector and serves as an equivalent to CTO and CIO positions, while also requiring competencies such as creativity and strategic thinking.
In January 2014, Gartner conducted another study analyzing how the presence of a Marketing Director in the technology department influences the marketing industry as a whole. Results showed that 81% of large firms (with annual revenues exceeding 500 million dollars) have a Chief Marketing Technologist position. This represents a 10% increase compared to the previous year. Additionally, 8% of firms without such a position declared plans to create it within the next 24 months.
Do we really need a marketer who understands technology and a technologist fascinated by marketing?
Technology in the Hands of Marketers
Marketing automation, CRM, analytics, social media, data management platforms, advertising buying platforms, search engine optimization, e-commerce, websites, landing pages, mobile landing pages, content marketing, gamification, and many other tools and functions are evolving rapidly and unexpectedly, and marketing must keep pace.
With the development of capabilities and the use of new devices, customer expectations are also growing. A wide range of marketing tools now includes software that increasingly more people can use faster, easier, and cheaper than ever before—igniting what is truly a golden age of programming in marketing. Today, marketing has more software solutions available than any other business domain in the entire history of computing. The key question becomes: How can this potential be utilized most optimally?
Marketing directors allocate more funds to technology than IT directors primarily because they can engage and interact with audiences through software channels. Marketing is increasingly resembling the creation and delivery of experiences, and software tools are becoming the electronic clay from which these experiences can be shaped. The Marketing Director bears responsibility for the final outcome of these activities, while the CMT acts as the bridge between marketing goals and technical execution, ensuring alignment and efficiency.
As firms adopt more digital tools, data management becomes a complex and central challenge. While many enterprises are moving their data to the “cloud,” this does not mean they are completely abandoning local information centers.
The information revolution in marketing does not offer universal solutions for all businesses. Each company can seek its own path, which suits it best—whether that's purchasing specialized software or storing data in the “cloud.”
Chief Marketing Technologist plays a crucial role in modernizing information systems and adapting them to the company’s needs. To lay the groundwork for this, CMT must first align marketing expectations with the requirements imposed by the IT industry and answer several key questions.
All the questions posed above represent a significant challenge—even greater if a firm uses systems also leveraged by third parties—other companies that locate their data using the same configuration. Interestingly, few data storage system providers offer any solution for such situations. Coherent, universal data platforms for hybrid IT environments are rarely offered, but the best strategy is to begin searching independently before deciding that the “cloud” is the solution.
Chief Marketing Technologist is not only a new role within an organization. It is also the most suitable person to lead transformative and informational changes in an enterprise, which will ultimately ensure financial profitability in the long term.
Conclusion
Gartner already predicted in 2012 that marketing directors would spend more on technology than IT department heads. Two years later, it became clear that 81% of large firms with revenues exceeding 500 million USD employ a Chief Marketing Technologist, and another 8% planned to create this role within two years. CMT must connect marketing expectations with IT department requirements.
The article highlights that marketing today has a wider range of software tools than any other business domain in the history of computing, and the key challenge is no longer just collecting data, but making informed decisions based on it.
