If you follow the issues of the day in the customer experience management (CEM) arena, you are undoubtedly familiar with the theme of the CMO-CIO relationship, or the lack thereof. Those who hold those titles, depending on what you read, are;

• putting the customer at the center of everything,
• or dead,
• or gaining in budget influence,
• or disconnected from each other.

CMOs are getting loads of advice of what they need to do to succeed in the new CEM centric world. Again, depending on what your read they need to become (or hire) data-savvy technologists, storytellers, product managers, or managers of editorial content calendars. CIOs are being warned that their authority over enterprise information infrastructure and purchasing decisions is eroding, that users are bringing in their own unsupported devices by the truck-full, and that they need to reach across to their CMO counterparts and forge alliances or risk being swallowed up by marketing entirely.

All this may be true and extremely useful, especially if you are a CMO or a CIO yourself. However, there is a danger that all this focus on the CMO/CIO relationship means that not enough attention is paid to other key C-Suite players in enterprise decision-making, and how important those players are to the future of CEM. The CMO and CIO might figure out how to run happily hand in hand into the digital future, their respective departments singing “Kumbaya” in harmony behind them. However, their partnership and collaboration can only go so far in influencing strategic decisions if it does not get the attention and respect of the other Cs at the table. In other words, the CMO and CIO need to engage in some C-suite diplomacy.

The Other Cs

The senior management structure of some of the world’s largest global companies provide some examples of who some of these other Cs are:

• Walmart’s executive team has 38 people. In addition to the CMO and CIO, executive titles include EVP Corporate Affairs, EVP Strategy and International Development, CFO, and General Counsel.
• Royal Dutch Shell’s executive committee has nine people, none of whom have the title CMO or CIO. Member titles do include CFO, Projects and Technology Director, Chief HR and Corporate Officer, and Chief Legal Officer.
• Toyota has six executive vice presidents and 15 senior managing officers, who have either geographic responsibilities (China region, Europe region) or functional ones (production engineering and manufacturing, R&D, Corporate planning).

Of course, most companies in the world do not have the size or complexity of Walmart, Royal Dutch Shell, or Toyota. However, what these examples show is that corporate governance and decision-making is much more multi-layered and complex than the CIO/CMO discussion tends to take into account.

Consider two common C-suite roles: the CFO and the Chief Legal Officer (CLO). The CFO tends to be involved in a range of strategic and tactical areas such as budgeting, managing risk, securing new funding, and acting as the spokesperson for the organization. In a 2010 survey of 669 CFO and senior finance professionals in EMEA, the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 57% of respondents believed they played a leading role in strategy, providing insight and analysis to support CEO/other senior managers’ strategy planning. The CFO is likely to be a leading influencer, and sometimes the ultimate decider after the CEO, in determining which projects should get the green light and receive the requested budget allocations. The CFO’s key partner in risk management is the CLO or Head of Legal. In highly regulated industries such as insurance, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare, the CLO is likely to be particularly influential in decisions over new initiatives.

Talking to the Other Cs

Marketers and IT leaders are understandably excited by finding new untapped markets, deploying new enterprise technologies, and developing a deeper understanding of their customers and prospects through engaging in new social and analytic platforms. However, for many a finance and legal executive, these same opportunities harbor potential for danger, disaster, and potentially devastating losses.  The CFO and CLO will not know quite what to do with statements like “we need to totally disrupt our organization” and “we need this investment in order to become more focused on the customer.” This is not language the typical legal or finance person is accustomed to. They stand for, and are relied upon for, their stability, clear thinking, and ability to accurately assess risks. For publicly-held companies answering to thousands of shareholders who are responsible for masses of quarterly reporting requirements, this is magnified many times over.

If the CMO and CIO need to get their C-Suite colleagues to support them in digital and customer experience initiatives, they, and their employees, need to understand the other personas of the C-Suite and learn their language and what makes them tick. What seems pressing and immediate to a marketer who needs to engage more systematically with its customers through new social technologies, may be irrelevant to a financial person whose view of IT spend is that it is an capital expenditure too late to insert into the next year’s budget. Or to a legal officer who has just been involved in legal battles with a competitor over copyright. Or a Head of Engineering who wants to be first to market with a new type of industrial cleaning solvent.

The CMO and CTO do indeed need to figure out how to work more effectively together, but they also need to consider how they can best engage in C-Suite diplomacy in order to advance CEM related initiatives in their organizations.