Information Is Key

The other big issue for marketing is just getting as close to real-time information as possible, O'Brien Glass's Ross says. "When you have timely information that can improve profitability or grow sales or have an impact on the business in terms of results, that is the key thing and that is always the priority," he says. "So if we are doing pricing work, for example, we need to build a business case for it that enables us to sell it and say this is going to add this much to the bottom line, or improve our profitability or whatever the case may be."

Ross says CIOs can improve their relationship with marketing by clearly communicating their priorities and letting the marketing department see where their needs fit into that framework.

"One of the things that we do that we found worthwhile is that IT has a list of priorities and everyone is aware of it. For example, at our monthly meeting one of the things we always review is the IT priorities so everyone has an opportunity to understand what IT is doing and what they've accomplished. And that also gives you an opportunity to put forward your case for why the project that you want done should be escalated on the IT priority list. It's really just a question of communication, understanding and making sure that your needs are realistic in the scheme of things."

Marketing Nous's Ayling says ideally both parties will do just that and make determined efforts to understand what is happening on the other side of the fence, and the objectives of the other party.

"Marketing is charged with doing a lot of new things. In most cases marketing is looking at doing something different from the way it's been done in the past. And that's largely because it [marketing] needs to grow the business in one way or another, whereas IT is normally focused on how to make the systems more reliable, how to best manage the information which is in the system. And sometimes those are very conflicting objectives.

"Both sides need to understand how those other parts of the business operate, because without that you are in constant conflict and organizations are complex enough these days without actually knowing what goes on," Ayling says.

That kind of meeting of the minds can only help. Moreover, it's an instance where an ounce of understanding might be worth pounds of profits to an organization.

SIDEBAR: High Five

Ways companies can improve their marketing-IT relationships

• Move some IT staffers into the marketing group for dedicated IT support.
• Create a marketing services team that fulfils ad hoc requests for data and custom reports.
• Make technology decisions through a cross-functional committee.
• Have a chief marketing officer who sits at the executive table with the CIO.
• Develop a strategic technology road map for marketing.

SIDEBAR: What CMOs Need to Know about IT

The senior vice president of strategy and systems for Global Hyatt Corporation helps marketing execs stay connected

One innovative way to eliminate the historic disconnect between marketing and IT: manage both. That's the role held by Tom O'Toole, senior vice president of strategy and systems for Global Hyatt Corporation. In O'Toole's title, "strategy" means "CMO" and "systems" means "CIO".

Although O'Toole acknowledged that his role is atypical, he believes it may prove to be prototypical of the evolving relationship between the two groups. At minimum, CMOs need to be conversant in basic IT concepts - and they need to develop an integrated relationship with IT - in order to effectively manage all of the marketing functions that technology touches. Those functions include the corporate Web site, CRM, business intelligence and the customer data warehouse.

O'Toole challenged the audience of senior marketing executives to develop an understanding of a laundry list of technologies: relational databases, XML, application service providers (ASPs), hosting, middleware, Web services and Internet Protocol.

"This is the vernacular that any conversation with IT will take place in," he said. "One need not be a chief technology officer - being conversant is enough."

O'Toole warned that CMOs who do not attain this basic level of understanding risk losing control of the buying decisions around marketing technology. "The marketing function does not have any inherent right to control" those decisions, said O'Toole. "If they don't have the credibility to stay in the game, that control is ceded to other functions, particularly IT."