What are your toughest challenges? What would help you do your job better? The Conference Board asked those questions of CMOs and CCOs as part of its report, Unlocking Value From Integrated Corporate Communications and Marketing( PRN, Sept. 26). The report was sent to Conference Board members and provided exclusively to PR News Pro.
For Antonio Lucio, CMO and CCO at HP Inc., better measurement systems “that evaluate marketing lag, how customers behave and how the marketing industry operates” would help him do his job better. He says in the report, “We have to get comfortable with an ever-evolving set of marketing data that we use as inputs into how we make decisions. Triangulation across data sources and analytic tools along with good marketing judgment and a healthy sense of urgency is how we need to operate.” He adds, “We use a mix of ROI analytics, survey research and ad response data to understand marketing effectiveness... I would not say that I am 100% confident in any one of those sources—they all have their flaws.”
A successful CCO or CMO needs “to have a deep understanding of analytics: the math, the math, the math....they also need to be able to balance analytical skills with a broad set of interests in the humanities… finally, cultivate resiliency. Life will throw you curveballs...in a constantly evolving and changing world, there is no more important leadershiptrait than resilience,” the ability to “pick yourself up, learn, adapt, and move forward with experience and conviction.”
Southwest Airlines CCO Linda Rutherford said she could do her job better “if we could find a new or better way to [pay for breaking down silos]. Individual department budgets, cost centers, etc., all complicate the effort to integrate. As we evolve to more collaborative work teams and systems approaches, we need to be sure our corporate organizational structures, budgeting systems and performance management processes can flex to the new way of working.” Her biggest challenge? “In a company using cross-functional work teams, you still find silo-ed efforts where there is confusion about priorities. Who will budget for what, and sometimes efforts working at cross-purposes or even duplicated efforts when good coordination breaks down.”