Marketing Operations Role

This IDC study updates The Marketing Operations Function: Is it Evolving Fast Enough?, providing updated analysis of MO staffing requirements and roles and responsibilities, insight into the progression of the marketing operations (MO) profession, and direction regarding key success factors for the next 12?18 months. IDC first identified the rise of the MO function early in 2005. Marketing leaders have since made significant progress as a result of deploying this function in their organization: Marketing now has a managerial accounting process in place to demonstrate fiscal responsibility to the CFO and to better manage investment, marketing's strategic planning process is more formalized, performance measurement processes are in place and continuing to improve, and other areas of process improvement have occurred to increase marketing's efficiency and effectiveness. However, with much work remaining, the momentum of marketing operations leaders' strategic impact is at risk of being lost at many organizations. This study provides an update of IDC's recommendations for staffing of the marketing function and provides guidance for MO professionals and CMOs to continue the upward trend of MO teams' contribution to the marketing profession.

"MO leaders have made significant strides in proving their value in the marketing organization; however, much opportunity for improvement remains,"said Michael Gerard, research vice president of IDC's CMO Advisory Practice."A significant breadth of responsibilities fall within the MO team's domain, and only the teams with the greatest focus and strongest team members will be capable of driving continuous improvement in existing efforts while serving as a source of innovation across the organization to identify and develop new opportunities."