Marketing and IT tensions: 'CxO Talk' debuts today
A new breed of chief marketing officers seek data-driven answers to tough challenges, such as establishing clear links between marketing spend, activities, and specific business outcomes.
To meet these goals, marketers have taken over an increasing slice of the overall budget that enterprises allocate to technology. Not surprisingly, this trend corresponds to the growth of social media spend in enterprise marketing and the rise of chief digital officers.
As data becomes more important to marketing, the relationship with IT loses clarity. For a growing number of organizations, marketing now rivals IT as a sophisticated consumer of advanced technology and analytics.
ZDNet's Dion Hinchcliffe described this tension between IT and marketing:
In contrast, IT is still looked at largely as an overhead expense, something to be contained and reduced, even as digital business has finally experienced a modest renaissance in the last few years as a direct driver of revenue and competitive advantage.
To explore the relationship between the CIO and CMO, a new web-based talk show, called CxO Talk, will debut today.
CxO Talk will dive into the full range of issues, tensions, and relationships between marketing and IT in today's world. I will be co-hosting the show with friend and client Vala Afshar, who is chief marketing officer and chief customer officer at Enterasys. The show will feature compelling thought leadership along with practical tips and advice.
Today's inaugural show features author, investor, and marketing thought leader Guy Kawasaki. Future guests will include Intel's CIO, Kim Stevenson; CRM leader Paul Greenberg; Gartner analyst Mark P McDonald; world leading HR technology analyst and consultant Naomi Bloom; and many other experts. Each week, we will discuss a different aspect of the evolving relationship between marketing and IT.
CxO Talk details
Time: Every Friday from 4:00-4:30pm Eastern Time
How to watch: Access the live broadcast by going to cxo-talk.com. No registration is necessary, just show up and watch!
Twitter hashtag: #cxotalk