8Mar-Apr 2016Why Marketing and IT should be Very Close FriendsIt's no secret that there has been dramatic change to business and most functional areas given the rise of analytics, the cloud and big data, but I would opine that two of the functions under some of the greatest pressure to constantly evolve are Marketing and IT. That's due to two key factors. First, the number of marketing tools has exploded with the digital/mobile/social revolution and shows no sign of slowing. Every week delivers a new way of reaching, measuring or understanding your customer. Second, almost every one of these tools requires corresponding IT systems and capabilities to work. Our belief is that IT and Marketing should be joined at the hip so their combined efforts can have the most impact in what is a Darwinian race to apply these new capabilities in the marketplace. At Farmers, we have an IT-Marketing partnership which includes a joint budget, shared roadmap and shared objectives. The teams often co-locate and data is shared liberally across the functions. Both teams share learning's, consumer research and financial results in real time and capital requests are presented by one combined group. The teams are jointly responsible for all of the digital work, data management and a number of marketing projects. The CIO and I jointly make roadmap and key implementation decisions. Our design is based on the following principles: 1) Effectiveness - The Technology matters most when it reaches the consumer. We believe that IT and Marketing, working together starting with the design phase of any new capability, (e.g. mobile, data warehouse, CRM delivery, etc.) have a much better chance of getting it right than if marketing simply calls up and places an order to the IT team and awaits delivery. We think a deep and shared understanding of marketplace objectives, consumer behavior and expected financial outcomes all viewed through a shared budget and roadmap will yield more successful implementations and quicker fixes than Mike Linton, CMO, Farmers Insurance Group Mike LintonIN MY OPINIONBy
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