After years of focusing on controlling costs, growth has moved to the top of the priority list for many companies. In a survey of 1,600 senior executives by KPMG, 96% indicated that their companies are “are in the midst of business transformation planning or execution.” Business transformations are challenging. A McKinsey study found that just 26% of respondents who said, “the transformations they’re most familiar with have been very or completely successful at both improving performance and equipping the organization to sustain improvements over time.” While many organizations strive for transformation, few succeed.
Why? While there are many underlying reasons, organizational complexity is considered the biggest barrier to to successful transformation. Companies set on tackling transformations should do four things to break down this barrier:
- Excel at the basics: Create clear stretch targets and define a clear structure.
- Break down the change process: Instead of focusing on one large goal, chunk into clearly defined smaller initiatives that can be celebrated.
- Exhibit strong leadership to maintain the energy for change.
- Build a culture to support, and the capabilities to drive, continuous improvement.
When it comes to business transformations of any type, C-Suite leaders often need the Marketing team to step up. To help with these initiatives, CEOs expect their Marketing leaders to:
- Drive revenue growth
- Own the customer experience
- Dig in to data-based insights and operate in real time
- Master metrics that matter
With this emphasis on growth, Marketing organization’s must address its processes, systems and tools, data and analytics, alignment, and accountability. At a minimum, a Marketing organization focused on growth needs three primary capabilities:
- A data-driven, customer-centric culture along with the processes for transforming data into insights.
- The systems and tools to maintain consistent implementation of processes and driving effectiveness and efficiency to deliver on growth.
- A culture of performance management and measurement.
With Data You Can Navigate Your Growth Strategy
We live in the “Age of the Customer,” where “empowered customers are shaping business strategy.” As a result, creating a growth strategy has become more complex. Customer insights are mission critical to develop and navigate your strategy. The sheer volume of data presents both more opportunities and challenges than ever before.
