MUMBAI: Like everything else today, marketing too has acquired a digital focus.
Not surprisingly, companies now need specialised professionals to handle the various aspects of online marketing. Indeed, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and in turn, HR heads of companies are increasingly facing this challenge.
Mahindra & Mahindra HR- vice president, auto & farm sector Namrata Gill is of the opinion that today, company CEOs are digital-educated. Gone are the days when top management needed to be informed about the power of digital to justify marketing investments. While the western world is busy decoding the power of big data, many Indian marketers are yet to bring on board people with the right skill sets. The hurdle they face is mainly that Indian brands still have a long way to go to get the data right.
Much is discussed about roping in the right talent but what needs to be taken into consideration is the integration of talent. According to Gill, the best person may not be able to work along with the marketing team and that is where the change needs to begin. CMOs want to look beyond functional teams and HR heads agree to this need.
According to HDFC Life senior executive vice president- marketing, product, digital and e commerce Sanjay Tripathy, the need of the hour is to start hunting for people with a technology base along with good operational skills and content and data expertise. Tripathy thinks that a marketing team will be perfect with such talent.
Many experts believe there is a discipline of data existing in many western markets and Indian professionals need to upscale themselves in the long run. The year 2020 is predicted to be the time when the nature of world business and technology would change for the best. For marketing too, the year 2020 is predicted to be the time when communication would take a leap.
Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India chief marketing officer, Deepali Naair believes that by 2020, when roles get integrated, there will emerge a new role of “Chief Consumer Officer.” It will be interesting to see when talent across different domains comes together to take marketing to the next level.
Will CEOs invest in bringing such roles into existence? Well, only time will tell!
