Sydney, Australia – Large businesses in Australia that collaborate internally between marketing and technology teams and align to business objectives gain productivity benefits of an average A$110 million per year, according to data from end-to-end digital experience software Sitecore, in its latest report with Deloitte Access Economics and Deloitte Digital.
Furthermore, the data suggests that collaboration between marketing and technology functions is critical to making the most of digital investments, where businesses leading the way in collaboration forecast an additional 11% revenue growth in the next year when collaboration is centred around customer needs.
Notably, the report warned that a major challenge to success was that bad projects require more management time to course correct, resulting in diversion from other business matters.
Sitecore’s survey found that 62% of business leaders who experienced negative impacts of technology investments saw this as a problem, with key challenges mentioned by survey respondents including integration difficulties, money wastage, and loss of innovation.
According to the report, the top two priorities for business leaders over the next five years are scaling existing digital solutions and broader digital transformation, which rank higher than traditionally important objectives like revenue generation and customer retention. Of the business leaders surveyed, 98% consider digital investment pivotal to business strategy.
Lastly, the report recommends that business leaders should develop co-investment strategies to overcome budget barriers, remove organisational barriers to promote collaboration, align marketing and technology teams on business strategy and priorities, and create clear, structural accountability for shared focus areas.
Talking about the report, Joey Lim, president of Sitecore APAC and Japan, said, “Challenges to collaboration can make the case for further digital investment difficult and add to executive resistance to transformational initiatives. Sitecore’s commitment to offering choice through its leadership in both on-prem and SaaS digital experience software uniquely places it as a powerful collaborator when overcoming internal resistance by offering multiple solutions that merge marketing and technology.”
Meanwhile, Troy Outtram, partner at Deloitte Digital, added, “As brands continue to invest in their digital transformation, the benefits for teams that work in harmony are becoming more apparent, with ruthless alignment to business goals serving as the key to success for major projects.”
