An analyst report says that marketing executives need to work more closely with the IT specialists in order to engage with the consumers in a better manner. Marketing and IT Must Align for Business Success report a report from analyst house Forrester, says in order to work together to give effective results the marketing and IT teams need to first overcome the perceptions that have formed in their minds about the other department. IT department has a pre conceived notion about the marketing team that they have no clear governance and they are always in a hurry to reach to the end result. On the other hand, the marketing department considers IT team as an obstacle to their ventures and they feel that IT team doesn’t always appreciate the role played by marketing department in the business.

But in order to satisfy the customers who are hungry for new technology the two departments need to work in perfect collaboration. Social network is now playing a very critical role in deciding the success or failure of a product. Customers share information and opinions about the products and this has an immediate effect on the success of the product. Also with the advent in technology product life cycles have become shorter and this has made long lead marketing campaigns irrelevant. Principal Analyst at the Forrester House, Luca Paderni has written in the report that adoption of new technology has brought enormous changes to the marketing landscape. Almost 50% consumers in North America and Western Europe daily use web and their mobile phones to check their social network profile.

In order to better cater to the expectations of the consumers and thus drive good revenue, marketing professionals need to understand how potential customers interact with the company and with each other via web. If marketing department seeks to link their marketing programs to this new platform then they require the assistance of the IT department in order to develop and manage these new channels in conjunction with the other activities of the business. A major aspect where the marketing and IT department could work together is to manage the customer data flow more effectively in order to provide their customers a more customized brand experience as compared to the rival companies. This data should be provided to the customer facing staff so that they create a consistent approach which will boost the image of the brand in terms of loyalty and hence increase the sales revenue.