Description:

The alignment of marketing and strategy has never been more important to technology and technology services organizations than in the current business environment. Success in today’s hypercompetitive markets requires carefully chosen, well-defined, differentiated, and dynamic strategies based on deep insight into market, competitive, economic, and technology trends. Too often, however, marketing and strategy march down separate tracks, and the potential leverage between the two is lost.

As the technology industry continues to mature and consolidate, only the best will survive and thrive. The successful firms will be those that balance marketing front- and back-end activities and that have discovered how to align strategy and marketing. These firms will integrate continuous marketing insight with ongoing strategic planning and action. Not only are they quick to respond to new markets, they create new markets and are not afraid to abandon those in which they no longer see acceptable returns. In addition, they are prepared to change their business designs to achieve profits in new ways and to create competitive barriers.

This ITSMA Update looks at the current state of marketing and strategy alignment. It captures the technology services community’s latest and best thinking about ways to create a more dynamic and effective synthesis between strategy and marketing. Finally, it includes a series of recommendations to help marketing play a more active leadership role in strategic activities.