January 5, 2020

The Decentralised Operations Approach

Thought Leadership by Jeremy Whale

The times they are a changin’, were the lyrics to a classic Bob Dylan song back in the ‘60s. Fast forward to the present and not a lot has changed, because those words still ring as true today as they did over 50 years ago.

For marketers, the change they face is happening before their very eyes—and it’s happening fast. Gartner Inc, one of the world’s leading research and advisory companies, recently conducted a study that examined how marketing leaders structure their teams today and how they are expected to change in the next few years.

The numbers said it all.

While 20% of respondents said that their operations take on some form of decentralised marketing, a whopping 51% expect that they will have a decentralised structure in place by the end of 2022.

If you do the math, that’s a leap from roughly one in five marketing firms being decentralised to approximately one in two, in just three years!

Surely, that percentage of marketers sharing the same vision can’t be wrong. So why is the future of decentralised marketing suddenly looking bright?

Well, it’s all about timing. Not all marketers have the same strategy and timeline. Early adapters of marketing technology will most likely have a decentralised approach already in place as they have acquired the skills and technical know-how ever since making martech a part of their strategy for several years now.

Then, you have the late bloomers, those who are only seeing the value of marketing technology today, after witnessing what it can do for their competitors’ ROI. The late bloomers are those who are currently in the developing stages of martech maturity, and far outnumber the early adapters who have long effected a truly decentralised marketing approach in their business.

For early adapters, they are already enjoying the fruits of their labour. A decentralised marketing technology approach means that their operations now benefit from faster speed, increased bandwidth, enhanced creativity, and improved learnings, to name a few.

To the cautious marketer, making the shift to decentralisation might sound a bit daunting as this would entail a major overhaul within the organisation, not to mention rethinking organisational structures and models.

That’s where Cloud Happy can assist, without having to disrupt the momentum of your marketing operations. Through our martech requests and optimisation features, Cloud Happy brings to the table a full marketing technology service that could serve as the overall strategy for your efforts, whilst holding all your divisions together to ensure that silos are not formed, and all departments are in sync with one another for maximum productivity and an increased bottom line.

Time waits for no one. Don’t get paralysed by fear of the unknown and find out how you can set up a decentralised marketing approach in your business before it’s too late.