Marketing managers: Compare your digital maturity with others
How can you increase profitability and take the digitalisation to the next level?
Wiraya and partners interviewed marketing leaders in Sweden to check their maturity in marketing technology. Among our interviewed, the majority were in two phases, named ‘the seekers’ and ‘the insightful’. Only a few companies scored high in all areas and became ‘the driven’. We found that the most important factor for success is a clear strategy, implemented throughout the organisation.
How is your digital maturity? Are you among the ‘seekers’ or ‘the driven’ companies in digitalisation?
THE SEEKERS
There are many marketing departments at traditional companies that currently have a profitable business and that only has started its journey to change. Many companies have started or set the strategy, but have had difficulty to create a process for change.
The main challenge is to keep the focus on maintaining profitability while doing major changes in order to stay competitive also in the future. Marketing managers are unsure of what they actually need in terms of system support or data, and therefore have difficulty setting up requirement specifications, even if they have the opportunity to do so.
THE INSIGHTFUL
In this phase you’ll find many of the tech companies, many of them have just left the start-up phase. Traditional companies that have set up separate digital departments are also positioned here. The companies often have the system support in place and work in customer workflow processes. The marketing departments focus mainly on digital activities.
Even though marketing leaders sense they’re on the right track, they feel significantly less confident in terms of Martech strategy, processes, data and analysis than the companies in ‘the seekers’ phase do. Some also express concerns that the company will be outrun by competitors or that other parts of the company don’t understand the level of investment needed in marketing technology.
THE DRIVEN
A few companies put themselves high in all areas (organisation, processes, strategy, data/analytics, and systems). A distinctive success factor for all these companies was a clearly implemented strategy and focus in all areas throughout the organization.
Their organisations were in a clear change and had great confidence. Their technology was referred to as an enabler and often an advantage over their competitors. Many of these marketing leaders also had sales responsibilities, controlling both the business and the customer experience to maximise profitability.
