Over the years, marketing leaders have structured their organizations to get closer to customers, move faster and maintain control. The irony is that these changes have often had the opposite effect. Marketers today work in highly-matrixed environments—most CMOs are responsible for numerous areas of marketing. What’s more, specialization among agency partners adds even more silos, blind spots and complexity.
The pandemic exposed these vulnerabilities in marketing. At a time when customers’ behaviors were shifting fast in wildly unpredictable ways, it was hard for marketers be truly customer-centric. Continually having to pull off Herculean feats in spite of a broken model—and amid pressure to drive growth—is no way to work. It isn’t effective, efficient or sustainable.
But rewiring marketing for performance and growth is no small task. Even if leaders want to realign teams and agency partners, they must do while still delivering day-to-day marketing responsibilities. After all, there’s no changing out the landing gear while the plane is in flight.