In my last post we started discussing how Why Bigtincan is Becoming a CMO's Best Friend. I wanted to continue my train of thought, focusing on the second item in the Gartner article, "8 Top Findings in Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2018-19.”
No. 2: Nearly 1/3 of CMO budgets allocated to marketing technology
That’s right. The single largest investment CMOs are making today is generally on martech, not agencies, not content, but focused on technology. While this bodes well for companies like Bigtincan, it is also important to recognize that far too many technology-focused projects fail. Take a moment to review the report from PWC, the “2017 Global Digital IQ® Survey: 10th anniversary edition."
Again, there are too many deep insights in this report to call out, but I do want to go to the heart of why so many of these projects fail. Summarizing the take-aways from this report in terms of barriers to success:
- 63% point to the lack of properly trained teams
- 61% note outdated technologies
- 59% note the lack of integration between new and existing technologies and data
- 42% note slow or outdated processes
- 35% note a lack of collaboration between IT and business teams
The good news is that business processes and collaboration seem to be getting better. However, if you want to ensure your digital projects succeed, whether in marketing or elsewhere, you need to leverage solutions that help you overcome these three challenges:
- Lack of properly trained teams
If you want your teams to be successful they need to be in alignment and well trained. An investment in microlearning technology allows you to develop:
- Small, easy to build and easy to consume, learning segments that allow teammates to understand new technologies and more quickly begin taking advantage of these solutions.
- Rich reporting to managers and project teams provide insights about who is taking the training and who is struggling in the process.
- Coaching opportunities abound where staff can demonstrate their knowledge of the new systems and processes and receive feedback from project teams and managers asynchronously. Ensuring coaching is never far away and happens in an ongoing manner.
- Outdated technologies
When I first began my career, Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS was popular and I ran it on my 14 pound laptop which I was ecstatic to have. It was great being able to carry that thing home and continue to do work - but wow have things changed! Now my laptop is less than 3 pounds, I no longer use 1-2-3 or DOS, and my life truly is better due to these changes.
Running old hardware and/or software solutions is a risk to your business and will always lead to challenges as you try to upgrade your overall technology stack.
- Lack of data/technology integration between new and existing systems
There is no single software provider that delivers a complete, all-in-one solution, for marketers, sales people, support engineers, channel partners, IT or anyone else in today’s business world. While many have amazing solutions that cover a variety of use cases there is no one size fits all solution. This is why Bigtincan deeply investments in partnerships and integrations with the world's leading companies including Apple (mobile devices), Salesforce and Microsoft (CRM), Microsoft and Google (world class office and mail products), and Adobe (solutions that cover creatives, marketers, and data analyst alike).
Partnering with these technology companies and service providers allows us to have the most integrated platform in our space, and ensures that we fit into your MarTech stack and don’t attempt to force you to fit into ours.
Be on the lookout for technology companies that are trying to do it all themselves, and those that don’t have deep partnerships and integrations. When your business requirements become more complex, they are the ones that will slow you down and impede your ability to deliver on your business goals.
More from this series:
Why Bigtincan is Becoming a CMO's Best Friend
