"A CMO today drives transformational change and plays a pivotal role in the business growth"

While talking about the new business opportunities and the challenges in the market today, Abhijeet Mukherjee, Marketing Lead – India, Crayon Software also tries to emphasize on how the role of a CIO has evolved beyond sales & marketing over time, thanks to the power of digitization and the importance it holds for an organization today in terms of understanding the market and its customers better. An excerpt - 

What new opportunities does Crayon Software sees and how does it leverage them?
We see an increased pace in acceptance & adoption in Indian market. Companies are rapidly embracing modern technologies to transform themselves into digitaloriented businesses. Heading towards DX helps increase in productivity, save cost,customer advocacy and thereby attaining a huge profit margin/revenue.
We at Crayon use different methodologies and tools to gain insight and understand the customer journey, so that we enable our customers to work smart and improvetheir digital services. Crayon will essentially bring to life the same philosophy inIndia and create a niche for ourselves as pure play advisors in the digitaltransformation arena for our customers and partners. Our investments in what we call “THE INTELLIGENT CLOUD” will play a key role in this endeavor.

What trends do you foresee in new technologies?
Today’s businesses demand agility in opening new markets, taking on emerging competitors, bringing in new suppliers, and creating innovative ways of interactingwith customers. Considering the endless possibilities and outcomes, DX is not onlytechnological transition, but an organizational shift at the intersection of technology,business, and people.

•    Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
    The traditional/legacy infrastructure will not be ideal to cope with the explosion of data volumes generated on a daily basis. AI and ML are whatcompanies will rely on and will inevitably be making their way into morebusinesses in 2018 and beyond.
•    Increased spending on IoT
    IoT is not a new thing. Sooner, there will be thousands of devices connected from one individual, generating enormous amount of data. By 2020, it isforecasted that there will be more than 20 billion connected devices around the world, placing a major burden on their IT infrastructure.

What role has the channel played in advocating the latest technologies to the customers?
Partners play a major role in our success. They have contributed in customer acquisition with their skill sets and understanding of customers’ demands. Together,we make a strong team.To keep our partners and customers updated with the latest technologies, we conduct webinars, partner training sessions, workshops, etc. Our partner ecosystemis a combination of various large SIs and tier 1 partners.

How has the role of the CMO evolved in today's digital era?
Everything around us is changing, and so does marketing. The Marketing functions oforganizations have had to adapt the modern ways to engage with customers orretain the relationships.

In recent years, digitization has redefined the marketing and changed the role of CMOs drastically in the digital era. Companies no longer want them as a department that makes ads, but as someone who looks at the brand through the eyes of the customer. While marketing is still the foundation of the CMO’s roles, they need to work cross-functionally with R&D, support, sales and account management team. Newer technologies, increased demands to prove ROI and social media marketing are the main drivers behind these trends, as they enable organizations to understand the returns basis the dollars spent.

How and in what ways should the digital workforce be skilled?
With digital transformation now a priority for the majority of organizations, the frontline workforce is becoming a more and more vital part of the customer experience. The talented employees who are able to use existing digital technologiesare adapting to evolving methods and newer approaches. To compete in today’sdigital world, companies must ensure that their workforce has the required set of digitalskills and also show employees the benefits of acquiring these new skills.

What are some of the new age marketing tools that are used by a CMO?
Today’s CMOs often are tasked with developing B2B marketing strategies. They must quickly react to the changing circumstances in the organization and mustshape the company’s understanding of particular product, sales strategies ormarketing ideas. With the world’s focus shifting from traditional marketing to digitalmarketing, it is important that they must react to these changes. To address these,the CMOs need to use the latest marketing tools to accelerate the product as well as brandvisibility across the market. Some of them are -

•    Content Curation & Amplification
•    Digital and Online Focused Campaigns
•    Social Media Campaigns
•    SEO with Relevant Keywords
•    Creation of Sales Enablement Tools
•    Blogs & Thought Leadership Articles
•    Big Ticket Events
•    Media led Initiatives
•    Coalition Marketing with OEMs and Partners.