Written by Bryan Corazza,
It would not be surprising to learn that a Chief Marketing Officer of a large global organization is now outspending its entire IT department. With industries becoming more competitive, there’s a large shift of business focus and investment towards marketing resources from lines of business.
Digital marketing especially evolves so quickly that there’s a race to stay ahead of the competition. Just ten years ago, budgets being allocated to the likes of online video advertisement, web portfolios or mobile apps would have been unheard of. Now it’s commonplace. However, with different regions managing their own digital marketing, it can be difficult to maintain overall governance of how assets are built and budget is distributed. This naturally means that there’s a reduced business focus causing duplication of assets, processes that aren’t efficient and unnecessary spending that occurs.
This fragmentation is what Avanade’s Digital Marketing Managed Services looks to address, providing up to 60% cost savings on marketing automation services. We worked with a large global pharmaceutical company, for example, to implement and maintain continuity of its entire marketing platform as part of a $60 million cost reduction project. Our initial assessment discovered that the organization was using over 85 content management systems and up to 20 different vendors, consisting of different cost structures and resulting in varying degrees of success.
Closer analysis showed that some regions were spending more than others. We found that its European marketers were typically overspending in their web production because they were a smaller brand there and needed greater exposure in a competitive market.
This narrow business focus, where marketers only observe their own region, led to the pharmaceutical company lacking full visibility, affecting its perspective on best practice across regions. This fragmentation meant that it was paying for the same thing over and over.
To solve this problem, we analyzed the day-to-day activities of marketers in each region and componentized them, implementing end-to-end solutions that scaled out globally, for one cost.
The importance of executing continuity across the business is something that can seem like an impossible task, particularly in an organization plagued by a legacy of overlapping technology. However, using Digital Marketing Managed Services simplifies the process and allows you to regain control and create cost savings.
