The demand for marketing automation solutions is increasing, according to an August 2007 Winterberry Group whitepaper, Marketing Automation and the Enterprise Opportunity, sponsored by the DMA Marketing Technology Council.
The whitepaper’s authors contend that the adoption of marketing automation is being driven by the increase in “customer-centric” marketing, the rapid pace of technological innovation in product development and an increased demand for process efficiency improvement. Speed-to-market provides a competitive edge, according to Henning Kagermann, CEO of software provider SAP, who is quoted in the whitepaper as saying, “Every 3.5 seconds a new product is introduced. At these rates, companies require innovation at a much faster pace and level of agility that increases without sacrificing the productivity of current operations.”
While the demand for marketing automation is increasing, implementation lags behind. Over the last year, 40.9 percent of end users surveyed for the whitepaper report the demand for automated solutions has increased significantly, and 59.1 percent report the demand has increased only somewhat. However, only 7.7 percent indicated they’ve implemented a marketing automation tool. In addition, close to 31 percent of respondents said they do not have plans to implement any kind of marketing automation product.
According to the whitepaper’s authors, “From this divergence we can only discern one conclusion: there is conflict at work in the industry; marketers are aware and interested in adopting marketing automation solutions but run into challenges during the adoption process that impede implementation.”
—K.D.
