A recent MarTech Replacement Survey found that 67% of respondents invested in a new or replacement marketing technology application in the previous year. Topping the list of most-sought-after technologies were marketing automation, CRM, business intelligence, and content management platforms. Unsurprisingly, among newer tools, implementation of a customer data platform (CDP) has rapidly gained traction.

While change management within an organization may not be top of mind when upgrading an existing tool, it is critical to not miss this opportunity. Change management is a chance to rethink how your team works today and how to take advantage of your new tool to become more effective and efficient. However, if you are deploying a new platform, such as a CDP, addressing the people and processes aspects are necessary to making the most of the investment. As noted in our white paper, A Collection of CDP Fails: 5 Stories to Learn From, inattention to the organizational factor is the main reason these investments fall disappointingly short of expectations.

In this blog series, we will explore the three pillars of organizing to get the most out of your martech investment:

1. Structure: Designing future-state processes and operating model

2. Setup: Readying the conditions for transformation

3. Sustain: Managing and optimizing changes over time

Let’s begin with structure. Once the future-state use cases for the new technology have been clearly defined, the key questions to answer from an operating model structural perspective are:

• How do we need to change our current processes?​
• What are the roles and responsibilities?
• What are the gaps in skills and staffing levels?​

To better answer these questions, organizations should begin with a current state assessment. Through interviews and discussion with internal teams, assess what’s working and what’s not in the current organization. This includes evaluating roles, competencies, processes, and decision rights as it relates to use cases that your technology is currently powering. This activity will provide a baseline understanding of the challenges and gaps that will need to be addressed, but also the bright spots that should be preserved and built upon.

Organizations should next consider process design. Again, leveraging use cases as your foundation, identify the core processes that need to be revisited or created from scratch. This will be dependent on the tool or tools that you are implementing. Typically, they will be related to the planning, execution, and measurement of a program, campaign, or experience that will be impacted by your martech changes. For each of the processes identified, you will need to define a responsibility assignment and matrix (RACI) and collaboration models by identifying key roles, intersection points, and handoffs between teams.

A few examples of these are:

Finally, you will need a detailed plan and roadmap to make these changes actionable and trackable. In this step, you will identify the organizational gaps (marketing functions, competencies, incremental roles) required to align with the future-state processes. This should include a detailed description of the roles and critical talent/expertise gaps that need to be filled​ to operate effectively. In addition, there should be a plan that maps the implementation of new roles and processes to the rollout timeline from the technology perspective.

In the next blog post, we’ll discuss how to assess your readiness for transformation. Want to learn more about how our team can help with a current state assessment? Reach out to us here.