CMOs Want More Ownership of the Mobile Web Strategy; CIOs Do Not Agree

September 18, 2013

This article is included in these additional categories:

Digital | Internal Collaboration | Mobile Phone | Tablet

NetBiscuits-Mobile-Web-Strategy-Ownership-CMO-CIO-View-Sept2013Asked how they would like to see ownership of mobile web strategy changed, 51% of CMOs surveyed by NetBiscuits [download page] indicated that they should get more ownership, compared to just 9% who think the CIO should get more, according to a new report. While CIOs were a little more generous, 38% believed they should get more ownership, versus 18% feeling that CMOs are owed greater control. The CIO currently has more influence over strategy, though, respondents say.

Among the 300 CIOs, CMOs and other C-level executives surveyed across the US and UK, 44% said that the CIO has overall ownership of the mobile web strategy within their organization, compared to 21% saying that the CMO has control. Roughly one-quarter said that overall ownership is split between the CIO and CMO, with the remaining 8% indicating they have a dedicated function.

There doesn’t seem to be much support for such a dedicated function, though. Just 10% of CMOs and 11% of CIOs agreed that mobile strategy should be driven by a new dedicated function such as a “Mobile Centre of Excellence” – and only 13% of other C-level executives agreed.

Given that CMOs were more unequivocal than CIOs in their desire for more control over mobile web strategy, it’s perhaps not too surprising that they’re also less likely to want to have a joint function. Only 9% agreed that mobile strategy should increasingly become a joint CIO-CMO function, a figure which rose to 23% among CIOs and 30% among other C-level executives. Those results tend to support earlier research findings from Accenture, in which CMOs appeared to be less committed to an aligned relationship with CIOs than their counterparts were with them.

Interestingly, the NetBiscuits study finds support for the CMO and CIO differing across verticals (although it’s worth noting that these results likely suffer from small sample sizes). Respondents from financial services, banking and insurance sectors were most likely to support greater CMO ownership of the mobile web strategy, while public sector respondents were more likely to support more CIO ownership. Professional services respondents expressed the most support for collaboration between the CMO and CIO.

Other Findings:

  • While 53% of CMOs believe it to be “critically important” that they provide customers with more channels for interaction, only 35% of CIOs agree.
  • 74% of CIOs consider testing very or critically important for improving customer experience, compared to 50% of CMOs.
  • While 4 in 10 CIOs believe that a 3-second mobile site load time is an “acceptable target,” only 24% of CMOs concur. CMOs were more likely (31%) to deem a 2-second target to be acceptable.

About the Data: The interviews were carried out by Vanson Bourne in September 2013. All of the organizations represented in the survey are enterprise companies with more than 100 employees, while one-quarter are organizations with more than 5,000 employees. 200 participants were surveyed in the US and 100 in the UK.

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