An interview with Dennis van der Veeke, CTO of the customer experience technology company SDL.
The Enterprisers Project (TEP): What is your relationship with SDL's CMO?
van der Veeke: As the CTO of SDL, I am responsible for all of the company's technology, including product management, software development, quality, service delivery and cloud operations. SDL's motto is to drink our own champagne as much as possible, so I work very closely with our CMO, Paige O'Neill, to ensure I understand her quickly evolving needs and her KPIs.
Based on those insights, I persuaded her to be an early adopter of our latest integrated Customer Experience Cloud (CXC) product. By using this platform to enable her marketing initiatives, she can focus her team on using its capabilities in the best way.
TEP: Do you see the CTO role and CMO role merging at many organizations in the future? If so, how will that play out?
van der Veeke: I see the CMO and CTO roles merging so that their functions become inextricably linked—the specific way in which this will play out will vary by organization. Some companies will add a new CTMO role with the goal of allowing marketing and technology to unite under one umbrella, eliminating confusion and allowing for successful customer experience (CX) execution, while other organizations will find it makes sense to create a CX group that works closely with the C-Suite.
However, the catalyst for the merging of these roles is undoubtedly that marketing is becoming more technology-driven. As marketing budgets are increasing to keep up with customer needs, brands are finding that focusing on CX is critical, and they're using technology to do it. The cloud has enabled organizations to understand brand health and product perception in real time, to optimize customer experiences from any device, and to adjust campaign strategies to increase marketing effectiveness and impact revenue. Marketers are beginning to accept cloud as their go-to delivery model for marketing solutions, including CXM.
In order for this merge to be successful, it must be a two-way dialogue. Years ago the data points, or impressions, a customer left behind would fall to the IT team under the bucket of web traffic. Today, the conversation is broader: both marketing and IT play a role in managing insights around the customer journey. The CMO needs to define what the target audience is and what insights to capture and the CTO/CIO should be focused on channel enablement and ensuring the right experience on all possible devices.
TEP: What are the benefits of combining these two roles, as well as any drawbacks?
van der Veeke: At SDL, we are seeing a demand in the marketing team from employees who understand how to analyze data and apply it back to programs. IT is no longer the only department formulating data-driven decisions—it's the company at large, including marketing.
Additionally, our IT team treats marketing and sales as its top customers—this direction has come to the IT team directly from the CEO level, and it changes the customer service equation between IT and marketing. This is a shift that has occurred in the last few years, as more companies are recognizing that marketing needs to be a top IT priority.
Drawbacks of this merge include that marketing is always forward-looking and wants it all fast and easy, which isn't always possible. Marketing often defines a strategy and executes against that, only stopping to fine tune when things aren't going well. It's important to develop a strategy that's realistically aligned with IT capabilities.
TEP: Do you have any advice for CIOs or CTOs who see their area of tech more and more taken over by Marketing?
van der Veeke: CIOs and CMOs should work together to match KPIs and ensure they are working toward the same goals, aligning resources to allow both CIOs and CMOs to deliver the very best result while simultaneously optimizing costs. These departments must work together to outline the bigger picture, so that integrated technology and marketing campaigns coincide with the overall goals of the organization. This is a crucial part of keeping costs down and avoiding additional add-ons or updates that come up due to misalignment.
Read '3 things your CIO should know about marketing.'
Dennis van der Veeke is CTO of the customer experience technology company SDL.
