Sherilyn Shackell is the founder of The Marketing Academy and creator of its Fellowship Programme, a development programme which helps CMOs to become CEOs.
We’re entering a new age of the customer
It’s no secret that business in general is becoming increasingly customer-centric. Forrester Research has even coined a new era of business known as “the age of the customer” – “a 20-year business cycle in which the most successful enterprises will reinvent themselves to systematically understand and serve increasingly powerful customers.”[1] The Age of the Customer will place new demands on all parts of the business but it’s the marketers who understand these demands better than anyone.
Marketers are gaining influence
Marketers often take second-place to other areas of the business when it comes to strategic decision-making and influence in the boardroom. This is simply no longer sustainable in the Age of the Customer and these marketers should now have a vital voice on the choices companies make. They are the ones who know how to use analysis and insights to define who the customer really is, what they want and how they want to engage with a brand. The value of this knowledge to the wider organisation, its shareholders and ultimately its customers is immense.
Marginalised in too many businesses
Nonetheless, too many board directors fail to understand ‘marketing’ and see it as more of a cost centre than a creator of value. According to Fournaise Marketing Group, 80% of CEOs admit they do not really trust and are not very impressed by the work done by marketers – by contrast, 90% of these CEOs do trust and value the opinion and work of CFOs and CIOs[2]. This attitude towards marketers needs to change.
Breaking the glass ceiling
Many of the senior marketers I speak to are often frustrated by being rushed through presentations, where board members gloss over complex strategic thinking and crucial information about the customer, to ‘get down to numbers’. This devalues both important customer insight and longer-term revenue strategies. This attitude can also restrict a senior marketer’s professional development and is perhaps a contributory factor as to why there are still very few CMOs sitting at the top tables of the UK’s big businesses.
While often bypassed as candidates for the board, the irony is that marketers can make exceptional leaders. They have spent their entire careers influencing people and have the ability to inspire and motivate the wider organisation, as well as delight customers. The senior marketers I know are some of the most intelligent, analytical and engaging business people I have ever met.
Change is in the air
Fortunately it feels like the winds of change are blowing for CMOs – and the executives they answer to. In its report, “The Evolved CMO in 2014”, Forrester talks of a new breed of CMOs who “recognize their need to step up as business leaders”. According to the report, they are more focused on excelling within their current company, with many seeing their next step as CEO of the business, rather than leaving to work in a marketing position for a bigger brand. Doing so, however, involves broadening their knowledge of disciplines outside their domain, such as corporate finance, organisational design, operational excellence, business law and M&A.
The Marketing Academy created The Fellowship Programme to provide precisely this grounding to high-flying CMOs. It comprises a rigorous training programme led by McKinsey, and a mentoring scheme that includes the CEOs, Chairmen & NED’s of some of the UK’s best-known companies.
Kristof Fahy, CMO of William Hill, one of the Academy Fellows undergoing the training, explains: “I think the marketing mindset and skills lend themselves to leading customer-focussed industries. For businesses to succeed, they need to create and meet customer demand whatever industry they happen to be in – and a marketing mindset, which is customer-focused and interested in building future cashflow, is ideally suited to that task.”
We’ll start to see more CMOs at the top table
The broader grasp of business management, along with the analytical, commercial and technical skills that are native to the marketing discipline, will help marketers slowly but surely win the credibility battle in the boardroom. In the Age of the Customer, I’m sure we’ll see more companies making room at the top for CMOs.
This article appeared in Guardian Media on 15th April 2014. You can read the original article here
