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Gartner surveyed over 400 marketing operations ( MarOps ) leaders between August and October 2022 to find that 94 % of marketing organisations are formally pursuing operational excellence . This indicates an acceleration of investment since 2020 , when only 49 % of marketing organisations surveyed had a dedicated MarOps leader .

However , the survey found that 72 % of operational excellence pursuits don ’ t demonstrate characteristics that align with success , putting enterprise growth and marketing transformation at risk .

“ CMOs are under pressure to make every dollar count ,” said Michael McCune , Senior Director , Advisory in the Gartner

Marketing practice . “ However , their teams are spending a large proportion of their budgets pursuing change and improvements in ways that aren ’ t effective .

“‘ Business-as-usual ’ marketing activities have to change , but CMOs shouldn ' t divert funds away from activities that could have a more significant impact on marketing ’ s overall remit to drive growth .”

Only 28 % of organisations demonstrate MarOps success

Strong pursuits of operational excellence complement the day-to-day management of marketing ’ s work and are associated with characteristics such as automated workflows , effective use of agile methods and persistent effort over multiple years .

Organisations with strong pursuits were 43 % more likely to report exceeding their operational performance goals , compared to organisations without strong pursuits . But this comes at a greater cost : They spend 45 % more than average and dedicate 18 % of their staff to achieve MarOps excellence , compared to the average 5 % of staff dedicated to all other pursuits .

“ Marketing organisations can ’ t blindly or ineffectively invest in improvement at the expense of business as usual , given the tight economic and labour markets ,” added McCune . “ They need to lay a better foundation for that investment and can look to strong pursuits for guidance .”

Realising the impact of MarOps investments

To maximise the impact of future MarOps investments , marketing leaders should :

• Communicate to stakeholders that pursuits of operational excellence will not have a persistently high cost . A new pursuit likely has many opportunities to drive improvements , but it should not be a cost dragged out by marketing over the long term . As improvement occurs , resource requirements for continuous improvement should diminish .

• Seek resolution of known critical gaps . CMOs often know about systemic problems but lack the resources to address them at the start of operational excellence efforts . Make sure to have a dedicated team working to resolve critical gaps so that investments have early payoffs .

• Ensure that MarOps efforts don ’ t

duplicate enterprise initiatives . Alignment with operational excellence pursuits in sales and service functions is always a good idea , but CMOs should avoid neglecting the enterprise-wide efforts of other functions that may lighten marketing ’ s load over time . x www . intelligentcxo . com

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