Overview
For demanding consumers, competitive advantage is not just a product, price or feature but a trusted relationship built over time. CMOs and CSOs are under pressure to find new ways to deliver long-term value to their customers. Our globally connected teams inspire us to ask better questions to help delivering sustainable outcomes.
The better the question. The better the answer. The better the world works.
Most recent publications
How CMOs meet the omni-channel challenge with digital analytics?
Successful organizations are committed to using analytics in decision-making. But, according to a recent survey of chief marketing officers (CMOs), only 13% of global organizations are using advanced analytics to capture customer insight across touch points. Learn more.
Will your brand survive in a digital world?
Sales and marketing leaders can't ignore cybersecurity. By collaborating, they can help their organization protect its most valuable data and get ahead of cybercrime.
CFO and CMO: a winning team in a digital world
While the CFO and CMO have not traditionally been close allies, it has all changed today. It's now time for CFOs to give more attention to the CMO. In the hyper-competitive digital economy, a close finance-marketing connection can enable better customer experiences and profitable, sustainable growth. Find out more about the CMO-CFO relationship
Building trusted relationships through analytics and experience
How are companies using data and analytics to better understand the customer and so create customer loyalty in an increasingly digital world? We surveyed over 300 executives to learn how they inject analytics into their strategic planning.
Have you got what it takes to be a successful CMO?
The new role of CMO demands a mindset shift that embraces all aspects of digital technology. Are you way ahead of the field? Find out here.
Are you on track to be a leading CSO?
In an era where customers are demanding new terms of engagement, going beyond traditional sales methods and developing innovative products and services are essential to CSOs. Get more insights here.
Do you have the potential to be a successful CCO?
The digital revolution is bringing a fresh face to the C-suite: the chief commercial officer (CCO). The businesses that have a CCO may well prove unbeatable. Read more here.
Profile
The power of big data and new technology has created a rush to infuse traditional marketing and sales teams with digital talent. Our reports analyze this shift.
Main reports
Market research
A great number of sales and marketing leaders are putting future prosperity at risk by neglecting to adapt fast enough. Our research shows how some leaders are working hard to align their strategies.
Competition, coexistence or symbiosis? The DNA of C-suite sales and marketing leaders.
With customers handling their own purchasing journey, sales and marketing leaders cannot afford to compete. Our interviews show how leaders are working to align their strategies.
Have you got what it takes to be a successful CMO?
The new role of CMO demands a mindset shift that embraces all aspects of digital technology. Are you way ahead of the field? Find out here.
Are you on track to be a leading CSO?
In an era where customers are demanding new terms of engagement, going beyond traditional sales methods and developing innovative products and services are essential to CSOs. Get more insights here.
Do you have the potential to be a successful CCO?
The digital revolution is bringing a fresh face to the C-suite: the chief commercial officer (CCO). The businesses that have a CCO may well prove unbeatable. Read more here.
Latest insights
What skills are needed for today’s C-suite? Our viewpoints on the most common scenarios that plague sales and marketing executives today and emerging roles like that of chief commercial officer.
Understanding the fast-changing CMO and CSO roles
How has the role of the CMO and CSO changed in the last decade? Dr. Michael M. Meier from the executive search firm Egon Zehnder explores.
New change, new roles, new C-suite?
The immediacy of the digital world demands a different approach, and this entails exploring new leadership models. The article examines the emergence of the chief commercial officer (CCO) and other C-suite roles.
The big issues
We share our insights into the innovative trends and topics that should be top of mind for sales, marketing and commercial executives.
The digital customer journey
The customer experience
Our surveys show how consumer behavior is evolving. They are doing more research before buying, and are much more in control of the purchasing journey. Discover challenges and opportunities companies face when dealing with them.
How CMOs meet the omni-channel challenge with digital analytics?
Successful organizations are committed to using analytics in decision-making. But, according to a recent survey of chief marketing officers (CMOs), only 13% of global organizations are using advanced analytics to capture customer insight across touch points. Learn more.
Will your brand survive in a digital world?
Sales and marketing leaders can't ignore cybersecurity. By collaborating, they can help their organization protect its most valuable data and get ahead of cybercrime.
On the road to online personalization
Personalizing customer experience in the digital environment is not a question in most organizations — it is an imperative. Creating a personalization program requires much more than simply putting tools and rules into place: it must integrate technology, analytics, testing, executive sponsorship and organizational adoption on the use of data to inform strategy and tactics.
Building trusted relationships through analytics and experience
How are companies using data and analytics to better understand the customer and so create customer loyalty in an increasingly digital world? We surveyed over 300 executives to learn how they inject analytics into their strategic planning.
Consumers on board: how to copilot the multichannel journey
Consumer are more demanding and better informed than ever. There’s a real danger that they may soon be one step ahead and the businesses chasing them will be reduced to playing catch-up. Based on interviews to almost 30,000 consumers across 34 countries, our survey reveals new global trends.
Designing your customer experience using digital analytics
Living in an era driven by the ubiquitous penetration of digital has created unique opportunities to measure and analyze experiences in real-time. But, how to move from a subjective and intuitive process to a data-driven, highly engineered process that delivers measurable improvement in business outcomes and customer satisfaction?
The customer experience: priority one for CMOs
Marketing is about the customer, their needs, behaviors and their personalized experience. Learn more in this report, based on a survey conducted by Forbes Insights and EY.
5: insights for executive
Short, snappy and to the point, 5's innovative format provides analysis of today's issues for the C-suite executive. Explore the reports from this series.
Marketing’s two-headed beast
CMOs need to find new ways to reach their customers and keep them. They need to understand evolving technology, use data to mine customer preferences and use social media to maximum advantage.
The future of decision making
Making the right decision is hard. Companies have to frame the questions properly, find the right data to support the analysis, and do all this in a transparent way.
Want sustainable cost reduction? Know your culture
Less than a third of companies think they're very good at increasing efficiency. However, few consider the cultural shift that needs to occur within the organization to make the changes stick.
Sector insights
The digitization megatrend is affecting every sector. What are the main challenges facing sales, marketing and commercial executives?
Sector insights
The life sciences sector continues to be battered by change. In the past decade, it has experienced stalling demand in mature markets, price pressures in the emerging economies and the “cliff” of expiring patents. What does it take to be a life sciences sales and marketing leader in this environment?
Winning through customer experience in banking
How do customers perceive their banks? Our third Global Consumer Banking Survey looks at banking through the lens of the customer.
Reimagining customer relationships in insurance
Consumer have been asked about their relationships with insurance providers. Their answers provide something of a roadmap for insurers seeking competitive advantage through stronger relationships and optimized cross-channel experiences.
Fostering powerful allies
Our insights, interviews and research reveal how leading sales and marketing leaders are aligning their function with the broader value chain and developing more fruitful relationships with the C-suite.
Fostering powerful allies
Partnering for performance: the CFO and the CMO
In today's digital economy, a strong finance-marketing relationship can spell the difference between high-growth organizations, and those that stagnate or are left behind. Learn more.
CFO and CMO: a winning team in a digital world
While the CFO and CMO have not traditionally been close allies, it has all changed today. It's now time for CFOs to give more attention to the CMO. In the hyper-competitive digital economy, a close finance-marketing connection can enable better customer experiences and profitable, sustainable growth. Find out more about the CMO-CFO relationship
CMO and CIO: bridging the gap
The debate is no longer about whether CMOs and CIOs should align. It is how.
How to ensure the CIO-CMO relationship keeps blossoming
It is essential that IT is at the heart of marketing’s transformation, as it seeks to implement new solutions that will improve the understanding of customer preferences, where they can be reached and how. How do we make that happen? Three simple lessons that have helped to improve links between the two roles.
How to heat up your relationship with the CMO
In a world of big data, CIO and CMO ought to be the best of friends. Who else knows more than CIO about how to work with the flow of information available today? And who, other than the CMO, has the customer-specific knowledge to help the CIO ask the right questions of that data?
Explore the CMO and CSO roles
Sales and marketing are the flamboyant double act on the corporate stage. One provokes interest, the other closes the deal; one creates the brand, the other
executes it.
Explore the CMO and CSO roles
Sales and marketing leaders’ roles can be hard to pin down. They vary greatly, depending on a company's size, maturity, markets and industry.
However, there are three complementary areas to which all CSOs and CMOs must contribute:
- The first involves the execution of the sales and marketing basics, focusing on delivering on the brand promise and on contributing toward growth objectives.
- The second area relates to enablement, where operational actions — such as fostering insight-driven decision-making and enabling ambassadors for the brand — facilitate the strategic development of the company.
- The third and most strategic area involves the sales or marketing leader being called on to help develop the business further. In doing so, the focus is normally on two specific areas: ensuring continuous customer intimacy and driving sustainable growth.
