Mark Lush
Tell us about the Marketing Transformation & Technology practice and the work Deloitte Digital does with clients.
Mark Lush: Our MT&T practice is focused on improving our clients’ customer experience outcomes and how marketing must transform as a result. We see how enterprise marketing platforms like Salesforce Marketing Cloud can be implemented and managed to create insight-driven engagement, increase customer loyalty, and realize profitable growth. Our MT&T practice brings forth a broader range of marketing capabilities and services to meet the needs of today’s marketing professionals and leading organizations seeking a competitive advantage. With our “Imagine, Deliver, Run” framework of services, we help today’s CMOs realize meaningful, brand-driven customer engagement by helping with marketing strategy and operations, brand strategy, media planning, agency optimization, digital creative, marketing architecture, tech platform implementation, social media, as well as multi-year campaign execution, operations, and customer data management.
What challenges are today’s CMOs faced with and how does MT&T address this?
ML: The “Rise of the CMO” has been a rapid-fire discussion for a few years now. And as this ascension continues, great responsibility comes with it. Yesterday’s CMO largely set the brand and product strategy based on limited marketing and sales insights, somewhat hoping for the best. Today’s CMO has been tasked with the entire “data-to-experience” lifecycle. By gleaning key insights from vast amounts of customer data, refining essential customer engagement tactics, and executing in the customers’ channel(s) of choice, today’s CMO creates a compelling experience leading to increased share of spend and long-term loyalty. While today’s CMO must always remain obsessed with the brand, they are also challenged to establish the next generation marketing organization in so many ways: modernizing the marketing culture, organization, and skillsets to be insight-driven; enabling true enterprise “martech” platforms to transform the customer experience; re-thinking agency and partner ecosystems to optimize execution; and relentlessly balancing art and data to achieve the optimal brand-based experience—and that’s just the beginning.
How does Salesforce play a role in the new MT&T practice?
ML: Using Salesforce Marketing Cloud as a key platform, Deloitte Digital's MT&T practice provides enterprise-grade capabilities that can refine our clients’ marketing strategies and organizations, transform their martech platforms and capabilities, and provide what we call long-term “marketing experience services” to realize exceptional customer experiences for years to come. We are one of Salesforce's largest alliance partners for Salesforce Marketing Cloud and were recently acknowledged as its No. 1 global System Integration partner in FY18.
What are the biggest opportunities you see in marketing right now?
ML: Simply put, marketing now has the tools, data, and organizational permission to truly lead from the front. We can charter product and service offerings, deliver the most relevant and exceptional customer engagement, and truly lead company growth all the way—from ideation and development, to sales execution, and even service and support, with a passionate focus on brand and experience. It’s truly an exciting time to be in marketing.
Mark Lush is a principal and MT&T practice leader for Deloitte Consulting LLP. Mark leads Deloitte’s Salesforce Marketing Cloud team, helping global clients enable industry-leading customer experiences for more than 20 years.