While many teams within your organization contribute to your success, one that cannot be overlooked or understated is the relationship with your IT group. As marketing continues to shift and improve, we’ve come to rely on IT to provide expertise on current technology and, perhaps more importantly, to provide a road map that shows where technology will lead, where integration is critical, and how to make the best use of increasingly sophisticated tools.

In the past, marketing teams might have developed their own tools and databases or bought hardware and software without considering whether they had the know-how to maintain the systems — perhaps because IT was seen as a roadblock or didn’t move as fast as marketing thought they should.

At SAS, we’ve learned to embrace the IT team as our partner. Redefining our relationship in terms of accountability to each other was crucial. IT needs to rely on the business to define a direction and establish clear objectives. Marketing needs to rely on IT for technology, integration, and implementation expertise. The care and feeding of the data, the reliability of systems, and an eye toward futures.

Neustar and Forrester conducted a study of 260 enterprise marketing and IT decision makers to research the alignment between IT and marketing.

Intermediate/ Excerpt...

In today’s age of increasingly connected consumers, market leaders are those who create exceptional digital experiences while protecting customer data. Download this thought leadership paper today to see the results of a Neustar-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting about IT and marketing priorities and concerns, and the different business unit group interactions that enable — or hinder — key business initiatives today.

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Many CMOs see their digital future, but still struggle to make the case across the executive ranks.

Key excerpt...

What do these "digital CMOs" do differently? They experiment aggressively. They hire smart digital natives — and empower them. They partner with great agencies. They have the humility to admit what they don't know, the courage to toss out the old playbook, and the confidence to allow digital metrics to illuminate the results.

Some hire a chief technologist. Sometimes it's a peer to the CMO, perhaps a chief digital officer, which Gartner predicts will be present in 25% of enterprises by 2015. Sometimes it's a chief marketing technologist reporting to the CMO, which Gartner already finds in 70% of marketing organizations today. In both cases, this role is the designated left brain to the CMO's right.

Digital CMOs also think beyond digital marketing. They look for opportunities to create digital experiences and revenue streams enabled by the nexus of forces, which is Gartner's description of the convergence and mutual reinforcement of social, mobile, cloud and rich information. The collision of these factors unlocks opportunities to reach and engage with consumers across the physical and virtual worlds, drawing them closer with targeted, contextually relevant experiences and offers.

Summary...

As marketing and big data become increasingly intertwined, it’s more important than ever for CMOs and CIOs to create collaborative partnerships—yet according to a new study, that alignment isn’t happening.

“Big Data’s Biggest Role: Aligning the CMO and CIO,” a new report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council and SAS Institute, revealed that 85% of CMOs and CIOs surveyed say they’re still challenged with alignment. What’s more, only 41% of senior marketers say they’re aligned with their IT counterparts, while 39% of senior IT executives report alignment with marketing.