Upali Dasgupta.
It’s no secret that 2025 is shaping up to be a tough year for the CMO. Amid a challenging economic environment with marketing budgets constrained, CMOs continue to face demands to deliver more with less. According to Gartner, marketing has settled into a new "era of less" where budget growth is earned, not assured. Indeed, it reports marketing budgets have fallen and just 24% of CMOs said they had sufficient budget to execute their 2024 strategy – with next year expected to follow suit.
Added to this pressure are increasing responsibilities, with the marketing role now encompassing everything from product and data to creativity, customer, tech, media, PR and more. A recent McKinsey research report highlighted the increasing scope and complexity of the role, noting:
"They're growth leaders whose remit continues to expand, with CMOs taking on more functional areas traditionally seen as outside the purview of marketing. Such areas include generative AI (gen AI), innovation, sales and e-commerce."
This correlates with our own findings. In partnership with Asana, our own research into The State of Marketing Collaboration found that 73% of marketing teams reported being strategic partners to other functions within the organisation.
This scope growth, driven by rapid technological change and prevailing economic conditions, means CMOs must double down on cross-department collaboration, as well as data and tech literacy to evolve and thrive.
Collaboration becomes non-negotiable
One major roadblock to improving collaboration is the lack of visibility, both into how teams join forces and into the work, strategies, and goals that form the foundation for effective collaboration. Our research found half (49%) of marketing professionals want their department to provide more transparency into marketing strategy development and almost one-third (31%) say their department lacks a clear decision-making process for this.
When marketing teams are unclear about how their work contributes to broader business goals or shared objectives with other teams, they may end up chasing after tactics or initiatives that fail to deliver meaningful results. And with reduced collaboration comes lower productivity and performance, and ultimately results.
Setting clear, measurable, and achievable goals is the backbone of any winning marketing strategy.
Yet there’s a troubling disconnect between marketing goals and broader business objectives. Just 39% of marketers are confident that their department’s goals are aligned with the overall business objectives. This misalignment can lead to marketing efforts that fail to contribute to the company’s bottom line, resulting in wasted resources and lost opportunities.
Collaboration derailed by data
One major challenge in aligning marketing goals with business objectives is the lack of proper documentation. In fact, half of marketers admit their goals are buried in email threads. Even when goals are established, many fail to revisit them regularly. Nearly a third (30%) of marketers don’t reevaluate goals every quarter, hindering their ability to react swiftly when market conditions change, or other issues crop up internally.
Measurement remains a major issue too, with opacity around metrics and a general lack of understanding. Just 18% of individual contributors say they know how their department measures the impact of their marketing initiatives. This makes it difficult to make data-driven decisions and collaborate effectively with stakeholders.
To improve collaboration and transparency with the wider organisation, CMOs need to cultivate a data-driven environment and culture of data literacy. This means implementing a consolidated tech stack, centralising data and making it accessible across the organisation.
What lies ahead
Cross-collaboration with other functions will be key for success, with 79% of marketing professionals acknowledging that collaborating with other departments improves the quality of their work. The report found that the most important, highest-stakes relationships that marketing teams need to nurture to dismantle silos and achieve success are Sales, IT and R&D.
The good news is that marketers will be able to harness AI to boost collaboration capabilities by breaking down silos and streamlining workflows. AI's ability to consolidate and analyse data to provide actionable insights in real-time will help marketing, sales, and IT departments be more aligned around shared goals. As training and governance frameworks mature, marketers will have the opportunity to harness AI to foster transparency, boost productivity, and unlock innovative solutions, transforming collaboration from a challenge to a competitive advantage.
Overall, there’s a clear opportunity for CMOs to be better at connecting the dots: between their team, department, data points and insights. By championing transparent goals, communicating strategies and investing in technologies that centralise data and support cross-functional collaboration, marketers can crank this collaboration into high gear, ensuring strategies are not only understood but are vigorously pursued by everyone.
This approach could help achieve enhanced results and greater recognition for the CMO as a driver of business growth.
Upali Dasgupta, Senior Marketing Director Asia Pacific at Meltwater