Driving In-Market Success by Leading Organization Alignment

Amy Roman and David Covucci, Principals of CMO Associates, led a discussion entitled, "Driving In-Market Success by Leading Organization Alignment."

They shared results from a CMO survey where they're in the process of trying to uncover what separates super star CMOs from really good CMOs.

They boiled down the number one challenge for the CMO role is getting the organization aligned. Here are the main barriers a CMO has to deal with:

• Who is responsible for value delivery?
• Who are the required 'value team' members?
• How do we communicate with each other?
• What is our process?

The CMO Club survey revealed the following:

• Over 90% stated organizational alignment is very important to marketing success and customer retention.
• Over 60% stated their company performs inconsistently or very poorly in achieving organization alignment.
• Over 85% stated the CEO was responsible for alignment leadership, or there was no designated leadership.

CMO Associates sees these opportunities:

1. CMO has best vantage point to understand all of the key details and can foster collaborative rather than authoritarian alignment process.
2. Establish an alignment process. You get consistency. CMOs provide the energy and facilitation.

Three challenges

• Construct a process that facilitates collaboration, coordination, communication, and giving credit.
• Develop a systematic approach to implement this process.
• Enlist 'C' level peers and sell the CEO on the revised CMO role.

CMOs have the most ambiguous job within the company. You need to create a process and here are necessary elements for that process:

• Give the organization a common language.
• Make alignment imperatives visible to everyone.
• Enlist support of peers through collaboration.
• Show the CEO that you have a plan and the support of your peers.

CMO Associates recommends these four steps:
Step 1 - Own the value proposition. This is what CMOs already do and know they should do.

Step 2 - Define the value delivery network. Know the roles, functions, and processes involved in the value delivery (e.g. pricing, value, sales, delivery, and measurement).

Step 3 - Construct the network alignment model. This is the core and defines what alignment actually looks like. How should roles and processes be integrated with each other to deliver value to the customer base? Customers should be a part of this process and it's the primary communications process for the rest of the organization. And it's what you should be showing to your CEO to explain what alignment looks like at your organization. To actually align it you start with situational success and you move towards continous improve it.

Step 4 - Structure the leadership role.

The skills and competencies you need to make it work require you to think beyond the traditional four P's and think of alignment as a team effort for both marketing and non-marketing staff. Ultimately, this alignment will be highly customized and be malleable to deal with different situations.

CMOs surveyed by CMO Associates were asked what are the three most important factors for successful alignment. Here were the most often cited factors:

1. Clearly articulated value proposition
2. Clear understanding of what alignment looks like
3. Alignment between sales and marketing
4. Metrics for non-marketing functions
5. A scorecard to measure and monitor alignment progress
6. Appropriate executive owns the value proposition

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.