Why more Brands are Ditching the CMO Position

In my second book "Smarketing - How to achieve competitive advantage through blended sales and marketing" (sorry about the shameless plug) we thought a lot about the future role of management for sales and marketing.  

Currently there are two issues, each department is siloed.  Marketing think as just Marketing and Sales thinks just as Sales.

The other issues is that departments think that there is a "sales" or "marketing" take over.  The Sales leaders I spoke to said they didn't want to become fluffy Marketing departments.  The CMOs we spoke to said there was more to Marketing then a drive for revenue.

The fact of the matter is that the internet has changed everything and we need a new approach.  We suggest one in our book, the CGO could be a name for that person but it doesn't feel action orientated enough for me.  

In "Smarketing" we develop the idea that the "pipe" should be treated as one free flowing, friction less process and we shouldn't say which department should be involved at certain points.  Both Sales and Marketing do what they are good at, but should work as one.  

The buyer is in control of the process and we shouldn't dictate who they deal with, it is when we do this that we create friction.

If you look at the way we now hail a taxi.  We reach for an app.  None of this being ignored by taxi firms we might call up.  We know exactly where the cab is, none of this "I'll be there in 10 minutes" stuff".

When I was in San Francisco, getting a taxi was easy as we used Uber.  Arriving in Vancouver was a shock as I had to go back to the old ways.

There needs to be a single senior lead person that covers sales and marketing.  We attribute different people to work the funnel at the appropriate time.

It seems only right that one single person takes responsibility.  Chief growth officer sounds a bit fluffy, maybe chief revenue officer as this also looks at output.