For many marketing professionals, the opportunity to get to grips with new technology is like being a child in a candy store.
So many choices, so much opportunity. Yet there is always a caveat. The need for speed may be important, but so is getting things right. Experimentation is fruitful, but do not work with technology for technology’s sake.
Luckily, help may be at hand. R3 is a global consultancy which focuses purely on marketers’ needs, and the company recently issued a report that takes a look at 40 marketing technology companies making change from their clients across the globe.
Principal Greg Paull notes the company’s unique position among consultancies – one which has been going strong for the better part of two decades. “We started the company about 17 years ago, and I think we started very much in a sense of being there to help marketers – quite frankly, we’re still doing that 17 years later,” Paull tells MarketingTech. “I think all that’s changed is the environment that marketers are in.
“Someone like a McKinsey or Bain or BCG [Boston Consulting Group] can serve the CEO, KPMG and Ernst & Young can serve the CFO, but [there isn’t] a voice for the CMO,” adds Paull. “It’s very much the foundation we started the company on, and we’ve gone from there.”
It could be argued that now is a better time than ever to be in the business of offering advice. As the Future40 report muses, marketing has changed more in the past two years than in the previous five thanks to 2.5 quintillion bytes of data being generated and acted upon every day; the building out of virtual worlds and omnichannel strategies; and the different roles brands can inhabit as a result. Again, it is a world of opportunity – but one where it is more difficult to stand out at the same time.
