Know the ultimate goal

Before you embark on the path to becoming future-ready, it helps to know where you’re going. Your journey won’t necessarily be linear, and the pace at which you find yourself moving will depend on the choices you make.

In many cases, organizations approach operations improvements incrementally and without collaboration across departments and functions. CMOs should push back against this tendency by thinking big and starting with the end goal in mind. Imagine what a future-ready state looks like and ask tough questions about how to get there. That includes:

As CMOs ask these questions, marketers must consider some transformational answers.

We worked with a global software leader to pursue transformational change. They set up an integrated, end-to-end analytics operating model consisting of data scientists and insight generation specialists.

This team developed advanced predictive models, drive actionable recommendations and enable marketers with self-serve campaign performance reports. These features were supported by powerful cloud infrastructure, empowering the company to deploy capabilities at speed and at scale. The initiative increased the speed with which the company gained valuable insights by 80%, enabling faster decisions and activations.

Too often, organizations approach operations improvements in a plodding, incremental fashion. Instead, counter the tendency by thinking big and starting with the end goal in mind. Conceptualize what a future-ready state looks like. For instance, what advances in operations would new technologies enable? Set that point as an aspirational goal. Then, consider the bold moves it would take to close the gap in between (something our research shows many don’t do).

Delivery excellence is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s imperative to deliver the right experiences every time, at every interaction.