A/NZ CMOs up tech spend despite integration concerns: Telsyte
Marketing leaders in A/NZ are increasingly making technology decisions for their organisations, according to a new study by emerging technology analyst firm, Telsyte.
Telsyte’s A/NZ Digital Marketer Study 2015, which surveyed 255 chief marketing officers and marketing leaders in large organisations, found 91 per cent of respondents are making purchasing decisions on technology products and services for their requirements, which has traditionally been the sole responsibility of the IT department.
Furthermore, more than half of those surveyed indicated the marketing department has a dedicated IT budget.
Telsyte senior analyst, Steven Noble, said this rapid change in the role of the chief marketing officer has been driven by the digital transformation imperative in A/NZ organisations, the widespread availability and acceptance of Cloud-based software and computing, and the elevation of the chief marketing officer as the custodian of Big Data and insights functions.
“Marketing’s transformation has moved on from just buying digital advertising to building scalable approaches that provide a single view of the customer, support meaningful measurement, and enable real-time decision-making,” Noble said.
In addition, the study found that Web analytics or split testing software is the most common purchase, with 39 per cent of marketers reporting their departments buy this class of software. CRM purchases were also very common, at 38 per cent. Furthermore, 36 per cent said they are using Big Data analytics for customer transaction analysis.
“Marketing measurement and customer-centricity are the left and right legs of digital transformation. This is why Web analytics and CRM are the types of applications marketers are most likely to buy,” he added.
Some other findings from the study include:
- Marketing departments are investing in IT because they need flexibility, according to 57 per cent of all marketers, and 70 per cent of marketers who mostly use their own budget to source IT.
- 45 per cent of marketers said they were investing in IT because they knew more than the IT department about their own needs.
- 84 per cent of those that mostly use marketing’s own budget agree or strongly agree with “our marketing function has the technology it needs to be effective”, compared with 71 per cent of those who mostly use IT’s budget to buy IT.
