How a transparent tech stack drives alignment and growth

Businesses have the tools to drive growth, but they’re not being used optimally.  

In a study that sampled 200 marketing and business leaders, 86% of all respondents reported that they have the organizational structure and processes in place to enable effective growth. So what’s the hold up? 

Lack of leadership alignment is a major factor. For example, 90% of business leaders believe their company uses a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) – but 70% of respondents in marketing roles say their organization doesn’t use a MAP.  

Taking a step back, it’s possible that lack of alignment is really more about a lack of understanding. A mismatch on what different platforms in the tech stack actually do. For the record, here’s a breakdown of common platforms in an automation stack: 

• CRM – Customer Relationship Management platforms focus on managing customer interactions and relationships, creating transparent customer views, and providing enablement tools for sales and customer services.
   
• MAP – Marketing Automation Platforms primarily automate marketing tasks such as email campaigns, lead nurturing and analytics, while providing data insights that optimize marketing efforts and generate leads.
   
• BI – Business Intelligence software provides customizable dashboards which ensure 100% visibility of performance data and insights to demonstrate success and inform overarching strategies. 

Understanding the role of automation and the contribution of each platform to business performance is fundamental to improving marketing outputs and achieving specific growth objectives. 

Disconnects on data and decision-making 

There are misunderstandings on more than platform functions. On a strategic level, for instance, there’s a disconnect over the role of data. Marketing leaders champion CRM usage, with 85% trusting CRM data to inform growth strategies. CEOs, on the other hand, prefer to lean on third-party data (65%). So, who’s right? 

Both have merit. The majority (73%) found their data trustworthy, which makes an argument for combining these approaches to take in new perspectives and put even more data behind informed decision-making. And it’s making those decisions that really counts.

Here’s three ways leadership alignment and data can come together to drive growth: 

1. Foster a culture of transparency and knowledge regarding the tech stack. If there are misunderstandings across CRM, MAP or BI, ensure that these are corrected in a productive and approachable manner. Train marketers across business systems so there is a solid foundation of which platforms comprise the tech stack, how they contribute to marketing outputs, and who is responsible for using them.
2. Appreciate that different team members, or even teams, might be using different tactics to achieve the same goals. Collective buy-in to the overarching business strategy will improve collaboration, encourage cross-functional performance and drive business growth.
3. Build an understanding of how data moves through the business, and where it is accessible to each team and the platforms that they rely on. And simply accessing the data isn’t enough – empower your team to take these insights and act upon them. Champion the use of data to drive strategic decision-making.