Back in January of this year in an article entitled Are CMOs Poised To Take Over Technology Purchasing? I wrote that “Whether they (CMOs) are ready or not, technology is fast becoming an inextricable part of the CMO’s functions, and they need to participate in making tech decisions in order to determine the ROI for purchases.”

Based upon the results of a recently released study from The CMO Club and Oracle Marketing Cloud a great number of CMOs are indeed not ready to utilize the technology that is available to them as a means to deliver upon long sought after integrated customer experience.

The days of a CMO not being technology savvy are over. CMO's need to understand technology as well as they do brand. The tools being developed in the marketing cloud space are very compelling, but they are nascent, so the demands to implement are greater than they will be 5 years from now. Implementing technology toolsets are not for the faint of heart and the better the CMO understands the toolsets, the faster to market.

CMO's should be data savvy. They should understand where the data lives, how it flows and what the data is telling them about the customer. It all starts with the data.

Be the customer champion every step of the way: CMOs need a clear understanding of how customers and prospects interact with their brands at every stage, from consideration, to engagement, to purchase and advocacy. They are the voice of the customer, translating insights to actions across every organizational function.

This was a big focus of Adobe Marketing Cloud Summit 2015. Their tagline "Marketing beyond Marketing", which didn't resonate as much as they hoped, is what the customer experience is all about. Marketing has to be involved with all touchpoint throughout the organizations. This involves operations units which have not been a priority for marketing in the past.

Become BFFs with your CIO: Of those surveyed, only one of 110 respondents referenced a positive relationship with their CIO. A critical action item for a CMO is to reach out to their CIO to collaborate, plan, and integrate activities.

This may be easier said than done. Most CIO's and CMO's do not speak the same language. If a CMO is technologically savvy, it will be easier to communicate with the CIO to create the technology roadmap for the customer experience. The scary part of this is only 1 out 110 CMO's surveyed have a positive relationship with their CIO. Either the CMO has to move toward technology or the CIO has to move towards marketing. I prefer the former.

Co-design the optimal customer-driven technology roadmap: CMOs need to develop an understanding of the technology that is required to deliver the optimal customer experience and co-design the technology roadmap with the CIO, allowing flexibility in design to incorporate new technology and third party applications.

Again, this becomes impossible if the CMO and CIO are not in sync. Both sides have to respect each other for the relationship to become collaborative and if the CMO is not also a technologist, the chances of this item happening are slim.

Rethink your marketing organization and processes: There are many formal and informal opportunities to create collaboration across marketing departments and technology. As critical as it is to building the right culture and cross-functional environment, it’s also critical to hire the right talent.

As I wrote in Agile is the Key to Digital Marketing Success, the structure of the marketing organization needs to be changed. Marketing organizations need to include technology resources in order to be agile in the digital marketing age. Developing a technology culture within the marketing organization is a main component for delivering great customer experiences.

Establish a system for continuous improvement: The customer is outpacing companies in terms of their expectations for personalized service compared to a company’s ability to act on the information – both technologically and analytically. The CMO of today must – in addition to being agile – be open to taking chances and remain risk receptive.

If you're not failing you're not trying. Marketing is a living breathing entity, especially in the digital age. There will never be a time when a marketing organization can implement a plan and then check it off the list. CMO's need to have their fingers on the pulse of society and the technology that customers are moving towards. Just when a company has implanted their mobile strategy, here comes the watch and the Internet of Things that may change the way marketers have to think. Having a technologist as the CMO will increase the chances that the organization will stay in touch with the customers, no matter where they move to next.