The best-case scenario for businesses – and for both the CMO and CIO – is when marketing and technology chiefs are co-leaders of digital growth, according to Gartner VP analyst, Benjamin Bloom.

The analyst, who focuses on martech, personalisation and customer data management, caught up with Mi3 as we launch our first CMO Awards special report to discuss the current state of the relationship between marketing and technology. He also shared his latest views on what it takes to forge synergies between the two functions and overcome functional silos for the better of the bottom line plus customers.

In Gartner’s 2024 report, CMOs Must Co-Lead Digital Growth with IT to Drive Success, the analyst firm found the top 20 per cent of performers – a posse it dubs ‘digital vanguards’ – are those CMOs and CIOs who meet frequently to align their teams, resolve blockers to progress, and create and operating models that better tune to digital progress. CXOs in this camp co-lead roadmaps and vendor selection with IT, as well as co-build, integrate and run these technologies while also jointly managing risks.

Gartner’s report also found CMOs with the best relationships with their CIO are allocating at least 30 per cent of their staff to digital initiatives and technology. It’s paying off: Digital vanguards are twice as likely to meet and exceed returns from digital investments compared to the lowest performing group – what Gartner labels the ‘digital abdicator’.

“Still, that leaves significantly more organisations,” Bloom comments. “Those outside the top 20 per cent will continue to struggle with gaining alignment between their top tier leaders to develop a business-led IT operating model and capturing the benefits of digital and AI.”

In Gartner’s report, which canvassed more than 600 senior leaders, CMOs cited important strategic business goals such as improving revenue (85 per cent) and operating margins (84 per cent) as well as strengthening competitiveness (74 per cent) as top reasons for increased planned investments in digital over the next two years. AI is only going to add to the criticality of technology enablement to achieve such ends.

In Bloom’s own opinion, the first thing that needs to occur so the whole of marketing and the whole of technology find a better way to work together is top-to-top alignment between executives.

“That gives permission to all marketing and technology teams regardless of who they report to – CMO, CIO or CTO – to collaborate in the interest of the customer on driving digital initiatives forward,” he says.

Co-creating a capability roadmap with the CIO for the next 12-15 months to stay aligned on people, data and process changes that need to accompany technological growth in the function is another one of Gartner’s recommendations. This needs to be supplemented by CMOs frequently meeting with their CIO to make coordinated hiring decisions that fill talent gaps in both functions.

But Bloom is less keen on pushing for overly formal org charts. “Organisational hierarchies are easy to blame, but the best-in-class organisations are much more focused on getting the work done than they are worried about their org chart,” Bloom continues.

Case in point: Virgin Australia’s CMO and CIO

As Virgin Australia CMO, Libby Minogue, and her CIO counterpart, David Hogarth, both note in the new CMO Awards special report what’s helping here is the fact marketing overall has become much more tech focused. The duo are one of five case study examples of marketing and technology leaders in Australia forging a path towards CMO-CIO alignment included in the CMO Awards special report. Our others are: Beyond Bank, IAG, Treasury Wine Estates and University of Tasmania.  

“You will find marketers are increasingly more tech savvy than they have ever been before, because they’re relying on the data, tech or the insights to drive the marketing output,” says Minogue. Hogarth agrees, noting he’s witnessed this first-hand at Virgin Australia.

“I can see it in Libby’s team – they increasingly understand the data needed from an audience perspective, the tech they need to enable. They’re also coming up the curve on what they need from an AI perspective,” the CIO says.

At Virgin Australia, both formal cross-functional squad structures along with frequent informal collaboration are helping the two teams collaborate and align. At the c-suite level, both Hogarth and Minogue share KPIs tied to revenue and customer outcomes. The pair are also both part of an executive leadership cohort all working on prioritisation of technology, gaining both transparency and an ability to contribute proactively to where Virgin needs to put its focus each year depending on step-changes necessary for growth, strategic imperatives, or other market forces.

For Bloom, best-in-class organisations create a sustainable business capability model that supports their delivery of value to customers and align process, technology and data to deliver those capabilities.

At Virgin Australia, it’s this joint participation plus collaborative CMO-CIO relationship that expedited Virgin’s adoption of a customer data platform (CDP) several years ago for example after it was recognised as a strategic priority. The CDP has been one of the top two or three performing tech investments in the last few years in terms of incremental revenue. Right now, Minogue and Hogarth are jointly now working on how to shift Virgin from channel-based interactions to lifecycle journeys – again, an example of how both functions are working to improve external customer outcomes.

“You don’t want a tech team that just does tech for the sake of tech, you need to have it connected,” says Hogarth. “The great thing about an airline is it’s very easy to understand who the customer is and what products you’re offering.”

Equally, Minogue knows which side the bread is buttered to deliver impact. “Making sure we’ve got the right tech to support the broader business initiative is critical,” she says. “Tech and marketing both get how that works and we’re very much tied to KPIs, whether they’re revenue or NPS. It’s not just me who has those targets: David has those targets too.”

Get the full download of our CMO Awards special report, From silos to synergies: Unlocking the CMO-CIO partnership, below.