SAP’s most recent Australian Digital Experience Report found that there is still a significant gap in Australia’s digital performance, raising concerns about why Australian brands are failing to deliver digital experiences that delight consumers. In this post, Robin Marchant, global marketing director of software company Squiz, explains why collaboration between Marketing and IT could be the solution for successful digital adoption.

This revelation of a performance gap has highlighted the need for businesses to have an effective and executable strategy for improving customer experience.

The end goal of enhancing customer experience is becoming the same for both the marketing and IT teams. With siloed approaches on the way out, here’s why collaboration between marketing and IT could be Australian businesses’ solution to digital transformation:

Marketing and IT as one team can promote greater organisational unity

Siloed organisations, processes, and systems intensify the operational challenge and prevent the delivery of end-to-end experiences that exceed customer expectations. Different business functions competing to ‘own’ digital can be overcome through cross-collaboration – the cornerstone of digital businesses.

Forty-six per cent of marketing respondents from Squiz’s 2015 State of Marketing Technology (SOMT) report described their relationship with IT as collaborative. For 55 per cent of the IT respondents, this feeling was mutual.

IT’s traditionally tech-focused role has now shifted gears to concentrate on the customer experience; a responsibility that has until now been delegated to the marketing team. The SOMT report found that 60 per cent of IT workers identify improving the customer experience as their top digital goal.

In a function that would typically be allocated to the marketing team, this demonstrates the continual blurring of responsibilities between the marketing and IT departments.

With both marketing and IT now focusing on delivering holistic customer experiences, effective collaboration between the teams is critical. As customer satisfaction increasingly puts more pressure on the organisation as a whole, open communication between these two teams will become essential for success.

The increasing use of martech can produce actual results for businesses

The reality is that marketing uses a lot of IT, especially for modern forms of martech (marketing technology). There has been a significant increase in CRM and marketing investment, with these platforms enjoying a huge 26 per cent and 70 per cent increase this year, respectively.

It’s clear that marketers are warming up to the benefits of a true customer experience platform that integrates CRM with marketing automation to deliver a truly great customer experience.

Recognising the importance of martech shows encouraging progress, but businesses are still struggling with the consequent steps of using these technologies effectively. Despite heavier investments and swift uptake of the latest technologies, 52 per cent of marketers admit they still struggle to understand marketing automation.

Without an adequate understanding of not only how to use the martech but also how to derive valuable insights from the data, investments into the solutions are wasted. More investment into how martech solutions can provide ROI is desperately needed in order for the trend to prove its dominance.

Customer expectations are increasing across the board, and every business is under pressure to improve their game. The disjointed experiences team silos create can limit an organisation’s success, thus shifting the focus to the benefits of collaboration.

The marketing technology landscape continues to evolve at a lightning-fast pace, providing marketers and IT professionals with more opportunity to connect and engage with a growing digital citizenry.