IT still controls mobile strategy but doesn't necessarily want to: study
Consumers may love their smartphones in ever increasing numbers and CMOs may be chiselling away at tech budgets but the Glasshouse still retains firm control over mobile strategy according to new research by Netbiscuits.
The study, conducted this month surveyed 300 C-Suite executives in the US and the UK -- with a bias towards medium to large enterprises.
(Image: Mobile strategy ownership. Source Netbiscuits)
Reflecting an un-lamented and long lost sentiment that technologist should control application development the research found that in 44 per cent of cases, the CIO owns mobile web strategy and that this rose to 48 per cent in the US.
"This reflects the historical evolution of organizations, where the strategic components have developed under the CIO, even if some mobile projects may have sprung up on an ad-hoc basis from within marketing."
Interestingly the IT chiefs were less concerned about control than their colleagues with 18 per cent of CIOs believing that mobile web strategy should become more of a CMO prerogative. This was twice as many as the number of CMO's who reflected the mirror image.
According to the authors, "While the CIO is proportionally more open to seeking a co-operative route, the CMO view is solidly in favor of sole ownership."
They suggest that CMOs should however consider the drawbacks to this approach. "While it certainly delivers more control on customer experience, CMOs and CIOs still have to align on a joint common vision for customers."
If that sounds a little like motherhood they also offered a sharper observation from Forrester researcher Sheryl Pattek, "Those CMOs who choose to ignore this, and go it alone do so at their own peril."
At Which-50 our policy is to refuse to run any story about how CIOs and CMOs should work together since the proposition is self evident - they both draw a paycheck from the same pot.
So instead we will leave you with an anecdote from a time when the author had reporting responsibility for an IT group of 40 people inside an Australian ASX 100 company.
When he informed his direct report that a development would need to be adjusted to meet the requirements of Marketing, his CIO blithely responded, "You can't give customers those kinds of services levels..they will start to expect it."
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