Monday Morning Impact – June 5

Gartner: 71% of CMOs Believe They Lack Resources to Fully Execute Their Strategy in 2023

Nearly three-fourths of chief marketing officers claim they lack the budget to fully execute their strategy in 2023, according to a Gartner survey of 410 CMOs and marketing leaders. The survey revealed that marketing budgets compose 9.1% of total company revenue in 2023, remaining relatively flat but still dipping slightly from the 9.5% reported in 2022.

“Suppressed budgets, increasing costs and lower productivity are squeezing CMOs’ spending power,” said Ewan McIntyre, Chief of Research and VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “As volatility becomes the new normal, many CMOs are pricing disruption into their 2023 plans.”

Seventy-five percent of CMOs are facing increased pressure to “do more with less” to deliver profitable growth in 2023. Because of this, 86% of marketers said they must make significant changes to how the marketing function works to achieve sustainable results.

“In 2023, CMOs need to become a new type of enterprise leader. This goes beyond serving at the helm of the brand but also assuming a more business-focused role that pivots into a period of investing for profitability versus growth. Those that carry on status-quo will face significant challenges in the near-term,” said McIntyre.

CMOs have seen technology investments tumble into new lows of unproductivity, with utilization rates falling from 58% in 2020 to 42% in 2022, according to Gartner research. For this reason, 75% of marketers report being under pressure to cut martech spend this year to deliver better ROI. However, the highest reported investment increase across all major marketing resources by CMOs this year goes toward marketing technology, while the largest decrease to labor.

“Like gamblers looking to write-off their losses with the next bet, CMOs are attracted to the allure of newer technologies, no doubt amplified by the chatter around generative AI,” said McIntyre. “They are hungry to see its potential to transform marketing campaigns and content creation. While this hunger to invest is understandable, it illustrates the sunk-cost fallacy that more tech is always better.”

“The willingness to let the majority of their martech stack sit idle signifies a fundamental resource disconnect for CMOs,” McIntire added. It’s difficult to imagine them leaving the same millions of dollars on the table for agencies or in-house resources. This trade-off of technology over people will not help marketing leaders accelerate out of the challenges a recession will bring.”

Paid media leads in budget allocation across major marketing resources (25.6% of overall 2023 budget), followed by marketing technology (25.4%), labor (24.6%) and agencies (23.3%).

Social advertising, which currently takes up the most paid media budget, was identified as the top digital channel to receive increased investment this year, followed by digital video advertising and influencer marketing. Search advertising was identified by the most respondents to receive decreased investment in 2023.

The annual Gartner 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey was conducted in March and April 2023. Survey respondents were CMOs and marketing leaders in North America and Northern and Western Europe across different industries, company sizes and revenue, with the vast majority of respondents reporting annual revenue of over $1 billion.

Channel Impact^®
According to Gartner, growth, yield, and return must be foremost in CMOs’ minds as they go beyond standard prioritization. CMOs should double-down on scenario planning and balance efficient near-term execution with investments that enable them to build future-forward capabilities.

Telarus Adds Cloud Infrastructure and Managed Services Assessments

Telarus, a Utah-based technology solutions brokerage, has unveiled its Cloud Quick Solution Assessment (QSA), the newest module for “SolutionVue,” the company’s sales assessment platform that matches customers’ short- and long-term priorities with technologies from certified Telarus suppliers. The Cloud QSA module provides partners with strategic discovery questions they can ask their customers in all the areas of managed services, cloud infrastructure, third-party data center/colocation, backup/disaster recovery, privacy/compliance, and advanced cloud technologies such as containerization and serverless computing.

The Quick Solution Assessments (QSAs) are self-guided questionnaires that automate the initial discovery process for sales opportunities within a particular technology domain. Each QSA is a series of questions that dynamically adjusts the type and number of questions asked based on responses to earlier questions, streamlining discovery and focusing on areas that require deeper review. Upon completion of a QSA, the system quickly generates a comprehensive assessment. This private-labeled report includes supplier considerations, industry best practices, questions to ask suppliers, and additional strategies to augment the IT-buying process.

The Cloud QSA is the second SolutionVue module, following the Cybersecurity QSA launched in May 2022. Since then, Telarus partners have doubled the number of new cybersecurity opportunities, with SolutionVue engagement growing by 35% per month, according to Telarus.

The SolutionVue Cloud QSA is now available to all active Telarus partners through Telarus Agent Back Office, a web application used by over 4,000 technology advisors worldwide.

Channel Impact^®
The tool is intended to help agents ask the right questions to address a customer’s unique needs while further supporting credibility and accelerating the sales cycle.

Veritas Adjusts Channel Program for Secure Cloud Data Management Solutions

Veritas Technologies has unveiled substantial updates to its Veritas Partner Force program for the company’s fiscal year 2024. The changes are intended to increase support for five primary channel goals for the year.

To drive overall revenue growth, Veritas partners will now have a single comprehensive target to achieve across both new business and renewals, as well as software, services, and appliances.

To deliver growth specifically for the Veritas Alta cloud data management platform, Veritas is adding new incentives and also new training and accreditation.

Veritas will work with partners on demand generation activities to attract net new customers. Partners will be able to earn accelerated rewards for engaging in the campaign and bringing new customers onboard.

Veritas will also support and reward channel partners that help existing customers realize additional benefits from their Veritas engagement by extending their use of the Veritas platform to new workloads and use cases.

Veritas also plans to launch new initiatives in FY24 to improve the resources available to both the two-tier channel and managed service providers that will simplify engagement.

Channel Impact^®
The updated program is designed to help accelerate transitions to the cloud with enhanced rewards for cloud-based deals and a simplified transaction process, in addition to new training and accreditation programs.