Getting IT to work for marketing: Exploring collaboration between marketing and IT functions for the delivery of marketing innovation

Abstract

The success of marketing automation investments depends on information technology (IT) delivery possibilities being effectively linked to marketing business needs. Innovators, however, have run into problems with collaboration between marketing and IT, which has impacted the effectiveness of the delivery of these IT-enabled projects. Addressing these problems has provided the impetus for this study, which has made use of established frameworks. However, instead of focusing on new product development in large manufacturing firms — the typical context for previous research — this study has explored the business context of marketing innovations, considering projects that are IT-based services, rather than the physical products considered in previous research. Exploratory research of eleven firms consistently found problems with collaboration between marketing and IT departments, with subsequent impacts on the delivery of IT-enabled innovations. All the firms acknowledged interpretative barriers to collaboration and employed a variety of different tactics to overcome them. The key implication of the study’s findings is that the success of marketing automation projects can be improved by dealing explicitly with interpretative barriers to collaboration. This paper offers suggestions for a framework to describe the barriers, possible mitigation tactics and direction for further research.