MarTech guru Scott Brinker in Stockholm:
“Automation allows marketers to focus on the genuinely meaningful”
MarTech guru Scott Brinker predicts major changes in how companies organise their marketing. In the next few years, the data and technology intensity will increase further. Marketing will be highly automated, become an operational part of the company, with clear requirements for efficiency and business results. But automation will not diminish the importance of human decisions, on the contrary. This is what Brinker claims at the Avaus Expert talks event in Stockholm on Wednesday the 21st of October.
Scott Brinker
IDC, a market intelligence company, estimates that an average consumer has 1,500 data interactions per day. In five years, the number will be 5,000. Brinker says that companies have shifted their focus from data collection to how to effectively achieve business results.
“Automation makes it possible to reduce trivial but necessary tasks and reserve people’s time and decision-making for the truly meaningful,” says Brinker.
IDC – Interactions per Connected Person per Day
Emma Storbacka, CEO of Avaus, says that she has invited Scott to Avaus Expert Talks, in order to draw attention to the fact that marketing managers today need expertise in two completely different areas: Customer-focused organizational change and automation.
“When the company organizes itself around the customer, not the products, it brings new ways of working and new metrics. Without hundreds of automated customer processes, change is not possible. Marketing managers must now be able to handle technology and data-driven digital production management, which for many is a completely new challenge.”
According to market intelligence provider Gartner, who has examined operational efficiency in marketing organizations, 76% of marketing leaders surveyed felt they could not fully maximize the impact of initiatives when also striving for efficiency. Marketing managers have difficulties linking strategic goals with operational efficiency (40% of surveyed CMOs ), as well as taking full advantage of data and analysis (33%).
Emma Storbacka, picture: Suvi Krook
Storbacka highlights the Finnish telecom operator DNA’s Chief Digital Officer Kati Sulin – another speaker at Avaus Expert Talks – as an example of an organization that has gone from zero to hundreds of automated processes. “This is an example of a new form of intangible factory, where instead of products, customer experiences are produced,” says Storbacka.
Emma Storbacka says that the shift has been further accelerated by the pandemic and that new leadership with a new focus is now required.
“We have replaced new digital layers on an old core. New roles have been created, while the old ones have been retained. This has led to complexity, inflated organizations plus investment in technology that does not deliver. Now we need to do more with limited resources.”