Tough love for the C-suite: Marketing is the business

When the famous French philosopher Voltaire wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility," he wasn't thinking about the C-suite. But his words certainly apply there. While all the top executive titles-CEO, CFO, CIO, and your role as CMO- represent a high level of achievement and success, they go hand-in-hand with a significant set of challenges, too. Each one is expected to lead well today . . . and recognise what is next (before anyone else figures it out). Most importantly, each one is expected to be a team player and work toward the overall success of the enterprise . . . even though C-suiters don't always land on the same page. When they have different functions to manage, different metrics to chase and sometimes even contradictory short-term goals, coming to executive consensus can be difficult. But collaboration in the C-suite is crucial to every company's success-and perhaps no one knows that better than the CMO. Why? Because today, marketing is the business. It permeates every department.

Sure, the CFO can point to bottom lines, the CIO can point to data, and the CEO is bound to be drawn to concrete performance indicators and tangible goals-more so than ever, now that shareholders are paying close attention.

But as CMO, you know your role is a blend of art and science. You know it's essential to track and measure around campaigns and initiatives, but that building a great customer experience involves people, too. After all, data is not some abstract concept; it is information about people, their interests and preferences and behaviors. If there's an enterprise-wide focus on the customer, then collaboration and unity across the C-suite can become a reality.

I've been writing about dynamics in the C-suite for the past few months, but today, I'll simply summarise like this: The CEO. The CEO wants to know that you're looking at the big picture, too. What's the core strategy at the heart of your efforts? Can you track everything from your initial spend, all the way through to a customer conversion?

The CIO. The CIO wants you to acknowledge how closely marketing and tech are linked today. You need IT's support to provide accurate data and results, and to ensure your customers enjoy a truly integrated experience across channels. On the other hand, IT needs marketing's support to prevent different functions from being isolated into silos, and to ensure that the data they're collecting is accurate across the enterprise. Are you working together to meet all the data needs?

The CFO. The CFO wants you to be accountable, compliant and ready to pivot. Are you always aware how much marketing is spending? Are you managing and tracking your financial data, so you don't find yourself on the wrong side of regulators?

As CMO, your challenge is always going to be a combination of translating what marketing does to the other members of the C-suite and then justifying its role in the enterprise.

The author is Lisa Arthur, chief Marketing officer & author, Teradata Applications. Re-printed with permission. http://blogs.teradata.com/teradata-applications/tough-love-for-the-c-suite/