START YOUR JOURNEY HERE Provide IT with marketing insights to guide any data migration strategies. Steal a page from Amazon’s playbook and draft a two- to six-page “narrative memo” to shape the purpose. •
LANDMARK 2: DEFINE: COLLABORATIVE DESIGN
Defining your strategy is the second step in the framework. Work collaboratively with the cross-functional team to identify what you’re looking to achieve and to solve problems as you go. Write a plan for what you’re trying to build first before investing in the process. A clear plan and end goal will almost guarantee success. It might sound simple, but it’s a step that is often overlooked. Tammylynne Jonas, a former Vice President of IT at Kohl’s, credits much of the success with the brand’s digital wallet, Apple Pay, and loyalty program to both projects starting with a crisp idea of what the company needed to do. Having a well-defined roadmap allowed the team to approach the project iteratively first, paving the way to expand, and the leadership team was able to get quick buy-in because the problem was easy to explain.”
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Set and describe clear goals and a vision for how you want the future state to look. Go in-depth. Clearly articulate the “what” and the “why” of what marketing needs to do. Provide a crisp and elaborate description of the business value you want to deliver and the capabilities you want IT to deliver. Be clear about what you would like to build, including how it makes the company money, saves money, or defends the business. Know the answer to the question, “why do you want to do this?” Provide examples (i.e., “use cases” and “stories”). Walk IT through a day in the life of how marketing wants the experience to be. Provide logical steps and a linear progression in explanations—it orients IT to requirements quickly and expedites planning.
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AMAZON’S “NARRATIVE MEMOS” Amazon famously adopted this practice to create a competitive edge with what the company calls “narrative memos,” a six-page narrative that should take days to write. Je Bezos expects his senior leaders to draft the memos and think through their ideas in high-resolution detail. Why? It’s impossible to hide inconsistencies in thoughts when written as a detailed memo, rather than PowerPoint.
– Tammylynne Jonas Global CIO at Self Esteem Brands
Into the Wild: The Modern CMO’s Guide to Mapping Digital Strategy to Outcomes
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