It certainly is fair to say that In the face of growing customer choice and market transparency, and the rise in the empowered consumer and digital and social media, the shift in marketing in recent years has been profound. Firstly in the era of mass marketing, the primary source of value for most companies was their products or brands. Today, through technological advances, value is moving to the customer interface.So undoubtedly the Marketing Professional is becoming more important as organisations around the world strive to develop products and services that appeal to their customers and aim to differentiate their offerings in the increasingly-crowded global marketplace. Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, marketing is being embraced increasingly in board rooms across the world. The position of the ‘chief marketing officer’ (CMO) is gaining currency. In recognition of this last year IBM released first-ever Global CMO Study and is putting the CMO at the heart of its business strategy.
The marketer would therefore seemingly be well positioned to be at the heart of driving forward the business agenda. But as always, with added responsibilities become added challenges. The truth is that today’s marketers are having a hard time keeping up.
It’s time for a change – and that time is now
In recent years there have been countless calls from business leaders over many years for the Marketing Profession to raise its standards and become more professional. The perils facing the modern CMO have also been well-documented in recent publications such as Bloomberg BusinessWeek, McKinsey Quarterly, Fast Company, and others. Many have complained about CEO underutilisation of the CMO perspective in making important business-level decisions, charging that CEOs do not realise that the absence of a CMO perspective can negatively impact long-term organisational performance success.
Given this degree of uncertainty there is a clear need to educate and inform the business community about the role of Marketing, to recognise and distinguish those Marketing Professionals who are committed to their continuing professional development and to equip the Marketing Leaders of today and tomorrow with the capabilities required to survive and thrive in today’s challenging business environment.
In addition CMOs require new capabilities in strategic management and leadership, a deeper understanding of the empowered consumer and how to reach them through digital marketing and social media, an ability to create more profitable customers, a clearer evaluation of how to develop global marketing strategies and a better grip on the finances are all requirements for the CMO in today’s challenging 21st century business environment. Balancing the requisite short-term wins with the longer-term aims and demonstrating a return on marketing investment also becomes more of a challenge than ever before.
Get involved – and let us know what you think
So, with an estimated 20 million people worldwide working in a definable marketing role, the increasing need for business to take a marketing-led approach, along with widespread acceptance of the need for senior marketers to become more professional, there has never been a better time for Marketing Professionals to seize the initiative and make the difference – go to gmnhome.com and get involved.
GMN, Henley and AdVantage promote theme marketing… fb.me/2imD9NDGpRT @advantagemag
— GMN-Global Marketing (@gmnhome) April 25, 2013
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