Australia – Even amidst cookie deprecation continually hanging over brands’ heads, organisations have shifted their priorities, with the focus moving away from the long-endured preparation for stricter data collection. According to a study by marketing advisory Arktic Fox, companies are now eyeing growth more than ever showing how the recent economic challenges have put considerable dent in their business trajectories.
The Australia-focused study showed that growth agenda is one of the top priorities for 78% of Australia-based digital and marketing leaders and their teams in the year ahead. Only 55% cited developing first-party data strategy as their number one goal.
Moreover, growth goals also trump brand development and embedding brand purpose (54%) in the hierarchy of company objectives. This is specifically for organisations in the market generating in excess of $100m in revenues.
Growth has moved to top the priority list since last year, showing the reality of present economic conditions, said the report.
When it comes to challenges, the current research showed that balancing short- and long-term priorities is the main struggle of two-thirds of respondents, demonstrating the balancing act leaders are facing to deliver short-term performance outcomes whilst building for the future.
Further to Australian leaders’ predicaments, some 60% of respondents struggle with resourcing and budget constraints, showing that current times are asking marketing and digital heads to be more laser-focused on priority areas and investing for impact.
On the key objective of incorporating digital transformation across the business, Teresa Sperti, Arktic Fox’s director, said, “Today we still see far too many leaders believing that digital is someone’s role as opposed to digital capability needing to be embedded across the organisation to become central to the business strategy and operations.”
“When a separate digital or ecommerce function exists that is siloed from the rest of the business, it sends a message that understanding digital is not my job or responsibility and stifles teams’ ability to build capability and develop skills,” she added.
The report was developed together with executive search firm Six Degrees and sponsored by martech Amperity. All in all, the 2023 Digital & Marketing In Focus study interviewed 230 marketing, digital, and e-commerce leaders across Australia within the period of November 2022 to February 2023.
