Mark Willson

IBM recently launched the findings of its 2012 CEO Study. This work brings together the insights of 1700 CEO’s from around the world.

I thought it would be of interest to review the key findings of the study and assess their implications for CMO’s. Given these are our bosses we probably should pay attention!

In the pages worth of findings, the CEO Study Executive Summary highlights the three key recommendations:

1. Organisations need to empower employees through values
2. Engage customers as individuals
3. Amplify innovation with partnerships

So, what does this mean for CMO’s? Good question. Here are some thoughts on the implications for CMO’s and the greater marketing function.

Organisations need to empower employees through values
The study finds that open organisations outperform those who operate under tight command and control regimes. But openness and flexibility come with risk. To minimise this risk organisations need a strong sense of purpose and shared beliefs to guide decision making.

For example, if you are a brand custodian with have internal and exec communications as part of your responsibilities you will understand the importance of collaboration. The most impactful communication pieces are built bearing in mind the need to develop a strong link between the executive team and all employees; highlighting the company values, and when followed how they enable success. Whilst these activities do not create culture, they can certainly provide clarity and inspire employees to consider “this is who we are and this is what we can achieve when we operate at our best”.

Engage customers as individuals
The second recommendation clearly has a strong marketing context. To engage customers as individuals you need to utilise the data an organisation has on hand, and potentially more data that they may not currently collect. But the real challenge is how to best use all this data. Some key ways are by employing analytic (internal and 3^rd party) and campaign tools for targeting and segmentations, as well as “sense and respond” processes that integrate client engagement across channels and touch points. The objective is to enable marketing as a service based on deep client insights.

Amplify innovation with partnerships
We all see, and know through experience, that the marketing world is transforming. Rapidly.

Bringing innovation into our marketing is the only way keep up and/or ahead – and engagement with third parties is a bona fide way to driving this innovation. Third parties bring specialist capabilities that “in house” teams find hard to match. The key to achieving value from partnerships is the spirit of collaboration, clarity of your brand essence and a clear set of objectives for any activities.

I hope these thoughts have been of interest to you and sparked further interest in the report.

But don’t just take my word for all of this – download a copy of the report yourself from ibm.com/ceostudy2012 and share your own thoughts, opinions and let’s discuss what you found most insightful.