In an initial meeting with a client, I sometimes ask for a list of the martech tools the company pays for. It almost never exists. Several people around the table try to remember and list the tools, and someone promises to send the list later by email.
The martech stack has grown through accumulation. The CRM was introduced because the sales team requested it, and marketing automation came as part of the package. The customer data platform (CDP) arrived after a competitor announced theirs, while social listening was introduced at the suggestion of a new team member. Each tool has its own rationale, but the stack as a whole has rarely been designed around the decisions the business needs to make. Designing that architecture is one of the many challenges facing today’s managers.
Another major challenge lies in data. Some companies have a strong CRM and a CDP in place, yet customer information remains scattered across the website, stores, call center, and billing systems, while the analytics suite is disconnected from BI data. With data structured this way, marketing automation welcomes customers who have already been with the company for years, while in marketing analytics, three channels claim credit for the same sale. Well-connected data makes it possible to understand which customers generate margin and which campaigns drive new revenue.
Another challenge at the top of managers’ agendas today is using AI safely and with asymmetric sophistication. Using generative tools in the same way as competitors does not create an advantage. The difference may lie in robust AI frameworks that few organizations are familiar with today, or in securely and deliberately connecting AI to the company’s CRM and CDP, where it can access a customer history no one else has, and to the processes where commercial decisions are made. Where justified, this can also involve proprietary models. None of this is sustainable without governance: what information can leave the company, and who is accountable when a model gets something wrong, in light of the GDPR and the AI Act.
These are some of the challenges we address in Porto Business School’s Martech & Data Enabled Business executive program, which brings together marketing, technology, data and, in particular, the use of AI to drive business value. The program starts on October 8, with 40 hours across 8 modules.
Pedro Barbosa
CEO, Wise Pirates | Program Director, Martech & Data Enabled Business, Porto Business School
Translated from the original Portuguese article by Pedro Barbosa.
