The Evolving Marketing Operations Role: 2011 and Beyond

This IDC study examines the rise of the marketing operations (MO) role over the past several years. This study is based on a new 2011 survey of the marketing operations role. Today, marketing operations is the fourth largest job role in marketing. The impact of successful MO is seen in improved budgeting and planning, performance measurement, technology deployment, and overall marketing process improvement. In 2011, most MO staff roles are at the headquarter locations of marketing (corporate marketing), but IDC believes that the future of MO will see its impact driven across all aspects of the marketing organization. The top challenges for MO today are related to technology evaluation and deployment and customer database management. MO executives are also finding it difficult to find MO professionals who embody the skill sets to tackle complex technology problems. IDC offers its essential guidance to the MO executives for 2011 and beyond.

"The marketing operations role has been the fastest growth job area in tech marketing over the past few years. Today, the average large tech vendor devotes about 7% of its staff to marketing operations. IDC believes that the overall growth rate of this role will slow but that the job function will become more strategic and influential. The next two to three years will see the best tech marketing leaders undergoing this reassessment of marketing operations." — Richard Vancil, VP, Executive Advisory Group