Align the whole organisation to digital, not just your marketing department says Accenture

Money is pouring into digital marketing and the supporting infrastructure around it. Yet companies are neglecting the critical goal of the online eco-system by failing to build a digital orientation across their whole enterprise, and not just their own departments, according to Accenture.

The balance is shifting aggressively towards digital marketing, says the company with 66 per cent of those surveyed  assigning more than one-quarter of their  budget to digital next year. The heaviest  investments are in customer experience  and data, and interestingly analytics - a result slightly at odds with some recent Gartner research. These investments  align with the priorities to acquire and  retain customers and increase sales.

(Source: Accenture)

 However, in its report based on interviews with 400 senior marketers in 10 countries last year Accenture argues that CMOs need to capitalize on  five capabilities ; offering  innovation, customer analytics, digital  orientation, customer engagement  and marketing operations.

“Of these five, digital orientation scores the  weakest performance—at the exact moment  when it needs to be the strongest. Digital  orientation—which Accenture defines as  working across the organization to infuse  a digital focus in all business processes and  functions—is critical to achieving success  across virtually any marketing strategy,” according to the reports.

“To improve marketing  performance, prepare for the future and reduce complexity, digital orientation  can no longer remain only a province of  marketing. The entire organization needs  to understand how digital is transforming  the customer experience.”

Accenture also found that marketers are struggling to  maximize ROI  across channels. “With a multitude of  channels in play—from face-to-face  customer contact to paid search— CMOs find it increasingly complex  to get the channel mix right.” The report states for example, that two-thirds of marketers  recognise social media as an  important channel, but less than half believe they are using it effectively.

There needs to be a fundamental change to  operating models, says Accenture. “Transformation is also core to half of senior marketers, whether it be completing a  transformation in progress or initiating an  organizational transformation to become  more digitally focused.”

The takeaway for organisations is that “consumer  relevance at scale needs to be a key operating  principle shared by everyone in the organisation — R&D, manufacturing,  marketing, sales, supply chain management,  services and other departments —  as these all affect the customer experience

Accenture also says that internal staff and external partner choices will be determinants of success. While this smacks of a little of motherhood given it is so self evident, the report suggests, “… it is important to hire and grow digitally experienced staff that  can also integrate well  with the IT department. “

Partner choices are just as critical since agencies and alliance partners  must help CMOs make sense of the market by “improving their levels  of execution and delivery and by providing  a broader set of capabilities and deeper  integration across the agency ecosystem.”