While probably due in part to the 20 oz. iced coffee I just consumed, I am digging into the memory banks to form an analogy… A circa-1995 Hanna-Barbara animated superhero series type of analogy. In this case, we will compare Wonder Twin, Zan, who can transform into any form of water, to the IT department; and we will call Jayna, who can transform into any animal, to the Marketing team. As the name of the cartoon series might suggest, Zan and Jayna were masters of working together to overcome their adversaries. (You see where I am going, don’t you.)
For years, your organization’s enterprise marketing website has been relegated to the IT department to maintain. Strategy and reporting were still under the purview of Marketing – but any changes, regardless of the amount of strategy and planning put in place, was often slow to publish given the infrastructure. This structure also meant IT had to pull away from critical technical issues for simple content changes or additional content adds.
Over the last decade, these two teams have seen continual changes in organization and control of the purse strings. For years we have been hearing that the CMO will control more of the technology spend than the CIO. That prediction has appeared to have come true, and in 2018 68% of Marketing Executives will spend more on marketing technology. (Source: Jan 2018 Conductor)
Still, in the day-to-day vantage point of this Sitecore MVP (Shameless plug) there is still a disconnect between departments. We are working together more than ever but I would like to suggest that, like Zan and Jayna, we need to unite our powers. Organizations need to treat these two teams as a cohesive unit.
Now, I am not suggesting we give up our identities and critical areas of expertise. After all, IT and Marketing brains are about as different as water and a tiger. However, with the technology available today, we should look at the potential and power in front of us. We need to exploit the potential of a DXP like Sitecore to drive focus for each department.
Moreover, we need to think holistically from both teams and be bound at the hip (at least in overall understanding) of the complete process; soup to nuts.
With that, I, along with several people from the Perficient Digital agency team are launching a 2018 video series aimed at binding the Strategy and Analytic thinking process, with the Gartner-leading DXP technology from Sitecore.
This first video in the series kicks us off with a set of high-level strategic considerations and ties them to how Sitecore can resolve for these considerations. The series will dive into specifics going forward with the same model, and my hope is, in the end, it will be a multi-part resource for you and your organization of superheroes to create a common ground and vision for what could be. Marketing and IT twins UNITE!
Form of…VIDEO!
