Marketing today plays a significant role in delivering operational growth. A look at Accenture’s Fast-Track to Future-Ready Performance report, which surveyed 1,100 C-suite and senior executives, shows that marketing ranks as a top focus area for operating model transformation – with all customer lifecycle touchpoints from marketing, sales and service top of mind.

They understand it’s more important than ever to deliver the right customer experiences at the right time with every interaction. To achieve this, marketers need to align their technology, talent, data and processes so that they can easily identify customers across multiple platforms and channels, as well as align their messaging, creative collateral, execution and brand consistency at speed.

The more efficient the “marketing machine,” the greater the results.

Our global, cross-industry research demonstrates the link between business operations maturity and performance. The research identifies four levels of operational maturity: stable, efficient, predictive and future-ready.

On average, organizations we found to be future-ready:

In today’s digital-first world, marketers with future-ready operations successfully:

• Automate commoditized marketing tasks, creating headroom for their staff to spend time on more strategic endeavors.
• Build engagement models, empowering them to test and discover what strategies work.
• Create personalized experiences and one-to-one engagements.
• Continually develop new capabilities and rapidly deploy them where they’re most needed.

The result?

Better preparation to serve customers and drive sustainable, marketing-led growth.

Our Fast-track to Future-Ready Operations survey revealed that many marketers are optimistic that their organizations are well-positioned to advance along the spectrum and reap the rewards. Their optimism notwithstanding, are marketers truly future-ready?

For most, the answer is "not quite."

Future-ready marketing operations are also future-proof. Innovating in this function is critical to achieving operations maturity and helping CMOs excel in today’s competitive landscape.

The journey to becoming a future-ready organization, however, will look different for everyone.

As CMOs succeed in advancing their operations, customers are primed to embrace the end products. They crave future-ready experiences, seeking personalized experiences delivered through multiple channels. They interact and spend more with brands that make a personal connection.

By achieving a future-ready state, marketing leaders will gain a competitive edge and move with greater agility. They will be better prepared to serve customers and meet their ever-growing expectations. In doing so, marketers will create the operational growth today’s climate demands.