78 per cent of marketing heads polledwithin banks and financial services (FS) companies feel that IT departmentsfail to understand the technology needs of marketers, according tonew research.
The findings come at a time when FS marketers urgently need technology to help deliver increased efficiencies, with 84 per cent of those questioned in the survey sponsored by Aprimo, the global leader in Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM), admitting they are under greater time and resource pressure than ever before.
Of the 50 marketing heads questioned in the survey, 88 per cent complain that their job is tougher today because the marketing environment in financial services is getting increasingly complex. 82 per cent highlight the difficulties caused by the growing number of marketing communications channels and 94 per cent point to increasing pressure to demonstrate return on investment for marketing initiatives.
Mike MacNulty, Director of Marketing for Aprimo, which specialises in EMM software to help manage, streamline and control marketing activity, comments on the research findings:
“The complexity and pace of change within financial services, means marketers are under constant pressure to get more done and to do it better. And like all business departments, they need to demonstrate and measure the value of their activities.
“Despite these pressures, for a long time IT departments have struggled to support marketing because, unlike finance or operations, there has been very little software that is tightly geared to the needs of marketers. With the emergence of EMM software there are more options starting to become available.”
One of the major problems faced by marketers is the sheer volume of admin and process type jobs they get involved in. 82 per cent of those surveyed say they have too many other tasks to devote enough time to strategic thinking. Of the tasks that take an unnecessarily long time, managing sign off and approvals was mentioned most often, followed by arranging minor updates to marketing materials.
Top five marketing processes and tasks, which take more time than necessary
1 - Workflow: managing sign off and approvals - 78%
2 - Facilitating minor updates to marketing materials (eg rate changes, FSA changes) - 56%
3 - Communicating internally with other marketing teams and departments (finance, procurement etc) - 40%
4 - Communicating and working with regional offices/marketing departments - 38%
5 - Gaining visibility and tracking activity, internally and externally - 24%
“The area of managing approvals and updates for marketing materials is a prime example of where EMM can provide time savings. Using EMM technologies, it is possible to create an automated approvals process, allowing individual managers to make electronic changes to marketing materials and then to automatically generate print-ready art work which can be sent to the printer. No more endless phone calls and emails!”
Another important area is budget control, where 88 per cent of marketers say they rely on spreadsheets and 80 per cent use company accounts (eg general ledger) systems to monitor spending. EMM can provide the marketing department with much better visibility by providing dedicated software, which can give them a real-time view of what is being planned, committed or spent as part of any marketing initiative or campaign. This allows marketers to quickly see if they need to make changes based on market or competitive dynamics, and to ensure that spending sticks closely to the plan.
“Marketing departments currently use a variety of technologies, with the most common being Customer Relationship Management systems and Web content management systems. But these tools are not addressing the issue of increasing complexity for marketers. They actually create more complexity. Marketers today need ways to get more done with fewer people and less budget. They need more time to be able to think more strategically about the market, their competition and their campaigns. These disparate tools are not solving the problem. Analysts are predicting that there is likely to be strong take-up of EMM systems in the next few years to address these challenges,” concludes Mike MacNulty from Aprimo.
Software tools currently used within marketing departments
1 - Web Content Management - 78%
2 - Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - 66%
2 - Data Warehousing and reporting tools - 66%
4 - Campaign Management Tools (data segmentation and profiling tools) - 44%
5 - eProcurement tools for marketing - 20%
6 - Workflow and activity management for marketing - 20%
