Heineken CMO Exit: Does the CMO Role Still Matter?
This past week, we saw the departure of Heineken's Global Chief Marketing Officer Alexis Nasard. The departure occurred in light of a recent organizational restructure. The restructure? The merging of the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Sales Officer roles into one position: Chief Commercial Officer.
Heineken strongly believes that this change will help transform its business into a flatter and more agile organization. The ultimate goal of this restructure is to streamline strategy and decision making for marketing and sales. Heineken's decision begs the question of whether the CMO role is still relevant in the modern day.
The Silo: Marketing and Sales
The Crossroads Between Marketing and Sales
Before the advent of the digital age, it wasn't uncommon for marketing and sales to operate as separate entities within many organizations. Each function had its own processes and objectives. This slowly created silos between marketing and sales. These silos led to the traditional process where marketing's only goal was to get customers into the door and hand them over to sales. Sales's only goal was to then finalize the transaction. Two separate processes with revenue being the priority.
CMO x CSO = Customer Engagement and Relationship
In today's digital age, consumers expect nothing less than an engaging and seamless experience with brands. In other words, there may be multiple channels for marketing and sales, but there must exist one consistent experience. An experience that is consistent throughout every function of an organization.
The CMO role is no longer just about marketing. Many start-ups and companies are now in favor of merging marketing and sales as one team (i.e. Imgur). The crossover between marketing and sales now forces the cultivation of customer engagement and relationship as a top priority.
Revenue is no longer the only measurement of success. Revenue is great, but modern businesses also want to develop a deep relationship with customers beyond of the point of transaction. Customer relationship and engagement are now key benchmarks for long-term sustainable growth. To create this integrated process, marketing and sales must work hand-in-hand under one strategy, one objective, and in Heineken's case, one leadership.
Imgur's VP of Marketing & Sales
What does the future hold for marketing?
Does the CMO role still matter? Absolutely. Many may argue that the future for marketing is looking grim now that the traditional CMO role is slowly fading away. I prefer to think that the CMO role is evolving and expanding into new uncharted territories with immense potential. Traditional marketing and sales have always favored a push strategy with little priority to engagement or relationship building. This is no longer the case with the emergence of marketing and sales operating as one entity where customer is the heart of a business strategy.
Parting Thoughts
In order to be successful, modern day marketers must be agile and ready to accept changes that will come with the digital age. The power is shifting from business to consumer. This will require brands to leverage marketing and sales as one function and one strategy. Today, marketing no longer ends with sales and vice versa.
What are your thoughts about the recent evolution of the CMO role? How will this affect your present or future work? Comment below.
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Tai is currently a business undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He is ready to disrupt the tech industry with his infectious passion and energy for marketing! Learn more about his marketing and networking course at the Haas School of Business.
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Freelance Writer
9 年The consolidation of marketing and sales into one position is not a unique phenomenon. As with every technological advancement, positions are able to be consolidated and responsibilities are able to be completed by machines versus human employees. With the growth of technology we see more and more streamlining of business. Is this always positive?
Leasing at Ballast Investments
9 年Thought provoking. The position of CMO seems absolutely essential to many, many companies' success. Combining the two roles seems like it would just create more work for one person and call the position something new. Sales and marketing are both different but necessary jobs within a company, and I think they should be left to separate people.
Web Development Strategist | Digital Marketing | CPACC
9 年As David Packard put it "Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department". Marketing is everywhere in the organization and its also the one that is bringing revenue.The CMO does matter and I think the CMO should be the CEO.
Managing Director @ Elliott Scott HR | Leading HR recruitment in SE Asia
9 年Heineken is a very sales driven organisation with a heavy focus on commercial leaders to execute the complex route to market strategy. The CMO role will still play a part in more brand led organisations like P&G, Unilever etc.
Enterprise Account Executive @ Confluent | Setting Data In Motion
9 年Great post! I think that CMO is at the heart of driving growth for the business. Today more than ever, marketing needs to get into every aspect of the business. The pace of marketing has become faster than ever. This means companies can spend months or years investing in new innovations and concepts and bringing them to market, but it is naive to assume that enough. For this reason CMO is a vital position.