Journey from CMO to CEETO

My earlier blog on rebranding marketing (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/rebranding-marketing-building-trinity-ecosystem-zaved-akhtar) had triggered some interesting conversations on the changing marketing landscape and poked the hornet’s nest of the often-debated topic whether the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is dated and if there is a relevance or need for such a role anymore. Multiple theorems exists and while the jury is still out, my personal diatribe on this issue is that instead of trying to take the role and dissect it, the organisation is better poised if it can articulate what it needs to solve for. From my vantage point, I believe that the role has morphed beyond the obvious one around marketing to a much more complex web of challenges, i.e., driving sustainability agenda, delivering sustainable growth, devising highly personalized consumer and customer experiences, instigating advanced marketing innovation, new business models and driving behavioural shift and change management within the organisation. To elaborate some of the problems (and certainly not limited to) the role needs to solve for are,

· Growth Promoter: Growth needs to be at the centre of the agenda with each action impacting the P&L, whether top line or bottom line. This will ensure that the central marketing organisation is rooted in the business.

· Innovation Regent: Drive new business model, product innovation process to disrupt in ecosystem; one needs to be at the centre stage of driving this transformation.   

· Sustainability Champion: Today marketing and sustainability are all cut from the same clothes. If we are not able to drive ‘Green Marketing’ within our business, we will never be fit for the consumers of today and win for tomorrow. This goes beyond the ‘say’ of purpose to a ‘do’ of purpose. Someone will need to champion within the business to build this capability.

· Digital Evangelist: The organisation needs to crystal ball gaze to see what lies ahead and how we can leverage technology transformation that is being hurled at us like a stampeding elephant, to build a competitive advantage for the business. To ignore it you get mauled, to ride the wave you come out victorious.

· Value Chain Disruptor: Today and organisation cannot operate with excellence in one or two functions and needs to break the functional silos and operate as an integrated system across the value chain where we are able to create the right balance for consumer and customer experience and maximise value.

· Digital Evangelist: The organisation needs to crystal ball gaze to see what lies ahead and how we can leverage technology to build a competitive advantage for the business. We will need to build distinct muscles that help in creating future facing skills that complement some if the endearing skills we have.

· Capability Leader: Given the speed of how external environment is changing, there will be a constant need to up skill people and infuse external ideas and thoughts within the business. The scope of the role will also need to frame the capability schema for the organisation for today and for tomorrow.

· Change Catalyst: An often-overlooked role is being the lead in driving and embedding change within the business. This requires quite a lot of manoeuvring through the rungs of the organisation to embed and drive the change. This is not an easy job, and it does take a lot of mental bandwidth and patience to change the organsiation, typically one person at a time.

· Culture Warrior: Much famed quote from Peter Drucker on “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” could not be even more relevant in today’s time. One needs to create the environment for iterative, rapid experimentation, fast failure, and mesh tech and business together for optimal outcome. An organisation is bound to go through a Culture Shock and need a mariner who can navigates the organisation out of it.

Given the width of the scope, CMO title in my view today is a misnomer, and the apt role is more of a ‘Chief Enterprise Experience and Transformation Officer (CEETO)’ with the T shaped skill set, where the individual has deep expertise in marketing while wide appreciation of the end-to-end business. The role will require a lot of heuristic learning over the typical handed down knowledge, given that the space one would be operating will be largely uncharted. There will also be a lot of unlearning and learning new things to become a beacon of hope for transformation and change within the business.

This probably will be one of those roles in the business which will continue to be amorphous and evolve as we go, as it will need to balance the dichotomy and ambiguity of the world. In the words of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, ‘IF’.

"…If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

     If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

     And treat those two impostors just the same…”

Look forward to hearing your perspectives.