Last week, I received a call from a colleague in Canada asking for my opinion on the role of IT in the development and management of an organization's digital and web based initiatives. She was being challenged over that role by her new CIO who felt that the IT department should be managing content as well as technical support. I told her quickly and candidly that I didn't think IT should play any role at all in the content management of our digital initiatives, and that they should play only a supporting role in the development of those initiatives. I think my exact words were, "they should help ensure that we have the technical resources and bandwidth to achieve our objectives."
Shortly after having this conversation, I stumbled across an interesting article on the animosity between CMOs and CIOs over the challenges of meeting customer expectations in a digital world. It suddenly dawned on me that this was a real issue for many organizations.
According to a recent study by Accenture and the CMO Council, "69% of marketers said the CMO should be the primary leader of digital marketing, and only 19% of them see the CIO and the IT department important to defining digital marketing strategy. However, 58% of IT executives see themselves as the true champions of digital marketing."However, my belief has always been that marketing is the manager of the message and how the message is delivered. IT's role should be to provide the technical infrastructure and resources necessary to maximize the marketing department's ability to deliver that message in a manner that is most convenient and appealing to the consumer.
If you can, download the executive summary from the Accenture study linked to above. I think you'll find it a compelling read.
What role does the CIO play in the development and management of your digital marketing initiatives? Have you been faced with challenges similar to my colleague's? If so, what have you done to mitigate the fallout and create a collaborative environment?
