A solution to the CMO’s dilemma – It’s in Balancing What to Keep within Control and What to Keep Within Reach

The marketing landscape has been going through multitudes of ongoing alterations. And with each alteration comes added responsibilities, expectations, and pressure on CMOs. No wonder that out of all the C-suite members, CMOs have been suffering from the shortest tenure (according to Spencer Stuart). 

The following is a list of some of these alterations:

• Consumers have shifted to digital platforms. Accordingly, CMO’s are required to transform their entire customer experience digitally. 
• Consumers are opting out of pushed advertising, and marketing communications are no longer only competing with brands but competing with content (think of a brand competing with a video of a cute kitten). Accordingly, CMO’s are required to turn their brand from an advertiser into a content publisher. 
• Consumers are leaving behind lots and lots of data. Accordingly, CMO’s are expected to put in place the system to capture, mine, manage and fully utilize all this data.  
• Industry disruptors are tapping into revenues and changing the way customers consume the product and/or service. Accordingly, CMO’s are required to find ways to re-invent their business model. 
• Economic crises keep hitting everyone which is adding more downward pressure on both pricing and marketing expenses. Accordingly, CMOs need to find ways to be competitively still priced while running a lean and efficient operation.

With such a long list of expectations from one person, CEOs are no longer sure if their CMO is up for the challenge. Hence, according to Fournaise Marketing Group, 80% of CEOs do not trust or are unimpressed with their CMOs. 

It is evident that the CMO and their direct team will not be able to cater to all these alterations themselves. At least not with the budget the CEO is assigning to them. Therefore, the need to find the right expert/specialized solution provider and figure out the best partnership agreement with them have become among the most critical challenges facing CMO’s. 

However, this is easier said than done. Such specialized solution providers are always after a bigger piece of the business in the form of added services (that are often out of their area of expertise) and/or in the form of prolonging their engagement. Our CMOs can no longer afford to mismanage such partnerships; they need to work with the very right expert and for only the required period. 

To achieve this, I have developed a selection criterion that maps out these specialized service providers, allowing CMOs to more easily navigate this world, choose the right partner, and opt for the right kind of agreement with them. 

The map starts with a Y-axis that is based on the objective of engaging with these experts. Such objectives can fall into one of two extremes: 

1. Business Sustenance: The objective here is for a solution that helps the business to keep on operating smoothly. They are sustenance solutions needed for efficient and effective business continuity.
2. Business Disruptions: These are solutions that are entirely new to the business; they are meant to change the way the business is being operated. And they require fresh “out-of-the-box” thinking. 

While the X-axis is dependent on the frequency by which such a solution is required. Some are required on a very frequent basis (almost daily), and some are needed much less frequently (for some, it may even be required for once in a lifetime). 

Mapping experts across the nature of their solution and the frequency by which it’s needed

But how often have we found an expert business transformation consultant (who initially came into the engagement to help transform the business) keeping their engagement for more than three years? Yet, such an engagement would remain within that same highly-priced transformation contract. And in a region like the GCC, we see this very often.  

At the same time, we find marketing challenges that require such transformative and disruptive thinking assigned to a retained provider who is not equipped to take over this challenge. They take it on board in pursuit of either growing their business or only because they could not say no to their client. 

Well, there are great levels of inefficiencies in the first scenario that the CMO can no longer afford. And in the second scenario, there is that illusion that the challenge is being tackled while it is obvious that the solution will not be found with this specific expert. 

Hence, the following map allows for the CMO to make the right decision on which expert shall them award the challenge for and what kind of engagement should they be pursuing with these experts:

Solutions on the top right of this map need to be within the control of the CMO, while other solutions across the map need to be within reach of the CMO. And the solution is to always strike the required amount of balance between what is needed within control and what is needed within reach.