The CMO CLUB: "Value Alignment" Opportunity for CMOs Report - Effectiveness Beyond Your Department

Value Alignment Report - The CMO CLUB pdf
Over the last year in speaking with hundreds of CMOs at Dinners and Summits, a CMO’s ability to align the organization (not just marketing), around customer value, is a key attribute of CMO success. In response to this observation, the CMO CLUB asked Dave Covucci and the team at CMO Associates to develop a report to help CMOs in the club. I spoke with Dave this morning in preparation of sharing the report today with members in the club.

Dave, what is one of the key trends you see from CMOs around the “value alignment” issue?
The genesis of ‘Value Alignment’ comes from observations we have made about the role of CMOs in a number of organizations over the last 20 years. Some CMOs view the Marketing function as primarily responsible for acquiring customers. Others view the role in a much broader context, encompassing all activities in the firm that are involved in delivering value to the customer. The latter view poses serious challenges because the only C-suite executive who has the authority to mobilize all these moving parts is the CEO.

How can the CMO play an integral role in aligning all parts of the organization on customer value?
We interviewed more than a dozen CMOs in The CMO CLUB to learn how they worked to achieve alignment in their companies. In addition we conducted a survey of CMOs in the club to get detailed views of how they perceived the value alignment challenge.

The CMOs who participated helped us identify the three key success factors for the CMO who wants to take on the broader organization alignment challenge:
1. They have to have a clear and detailed view of what alignment looks like, for each customer segment, so that they can communicate with the rest of the organization.
2. They must have the credibility across the C-suite, especially with the CEO, to play a leadership role in alignment.
3. Leadership cannot come from the CMO alone – the entire Marketing staff must have the skill set necessary to support the CMO in the alignment challenge.

What else do you share in the report beyond success factors?
Identifying these success factors was only the starting point of the report. The major objective of this research report is to articulate a detailed and workable approach to achieve these success factors. The outcome is a framework that the CMO can use to develop the requisite definition of alignment, to engage the C-suite in supporting alignment, and to take steps to build Marketing staff skills.

If you are interested in improving your ability (and your team) to lead company wide alignment around value delivery to customers, take a look at the report.

For more information on CMO Associates go to www.cmoassociates.com

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.