Leadership, Relationships, and the Customer Experience

In a post last January, I cited four priorities for marketers called out in a Arthur W. Page Society report because I couldn't agree with them more. They are:

1. Leadership in defining and instilling company values;
2. Leadership in building and managing multi- stakeholder relationships;
3. Leadership in enabling the enterprise with “newmedia” skills and tools; and
4. Leadership in building and managing trust, in all its dimensions

I thought it would be interesting to consider these priorities in light of a recently released CMO study, "Marketing Outlook 2009."

Overall, where I see the need for CMO's to adopt a new title and orientation and become Chief Relationship Officers, my colleagues seem bent on pursuing customer "experiences."

Where I see the need for marketing professionals to assume leadership roles across their companies to drive sustainability principles and practices, the senior executives are choosing to hunker down.

They do recognize the need for new skills and, happily, see the value of helping their current employees learn new skills, rather than replacing them.

The report says budgets are holding firm.

Here is a quick take-away from the CMO report.

Leadership: Values, Trust, Relationships
-Senior marketers aren’t seeking to forge stronger ties with line-of-business executives, finance, the CIO or IT groups.
-Nor are CMOs seeking to expand their sphere of influence across their organizations with a board seat: a departure from previous years.
-It's "driving business and opportunity to sales and owning the customer experience." No mention of trusted relationships with customers, more of the current emphasis on experience.

Money
-Budgets are holding firm.
-CMO's push to assert the marketing operations’ contributions to revenue growth


Focus
-Time "to hunker down and focus on sharpening internal efficiencies and strategic cost cutting while increasing customer insight and strengthening ties with sales to drive revenue growth.

-Sales and marketing efforts should become more closely aligned. (Will this EVER happen?)