In the first post of our Naked Marketing series, I talked about the motivation for our big data marketing operations transformation—the why.
In this one, I want to introduce you to the who.
Any change management consultant worth his or her fee will tell you that change depends on the orchestration of people, process, and technology.
For big data marketing, the people part is even more important. The data you need comes from (and goes to) so many places that there are always organizational implications.
A successful big data marketing team is one that has a great relationship with two key teams: Sales and IT. Not just a sound working relationship but a close collaboration built on mutual respect and trust. Without it, your journey will be a long, slow slog.
But most transformation stories skim over the people part. That’s a mistake. Because your people will unquestionably determine your success or failure.
The people living the Naked Marketing story—the Informatica marketing team—aren’t rocket scientists. We’re all career B2B marketers with real curiosity about the machinery of marketing operations and the data that fuels that machinery.
To make this transformation happen, I brought together people I’ve worked with, some for over 15 years. It’s a team with a unique combination of skills and talents, all sharing a love for data and for solving problems. I think it’s important that you know who’s behind the strategies and tactics that we’ll be revealing in this series.
I wish I could introduce you to everyone on the team—there are more than 10 of us and not a weak link the chain—but the core team in this particular journey is made up of three key players:
I’m Franz Aman and I’m a dataholic.
My name is Franz. I’m the SVP Marketing here at Informatica. Here’s my LinkedIn profile.
I came up through tech marketing, including senior roles at Sun Microsystems, BEA, BusinessObjects, SAP, and SGI.
I guess you’d call me an early adopter type. I believe in the power of technology to automate, streamline, and accelerate any discipline—especially marketing.
Over the last 10 years, I’ve become increasingly data-oriented in my marketing strategies and tactics. This really wasn’t possible for the first 15 years of my career, but today, it’s not only possible, it’s absolutely critical.
At Informatica, I’ve finally found a place where data centricity is not only okay, it’s mandatory. Data is the D in our DNA. We’re a data management company. Our technology helps big companies clean, master, manage, migrate, and secure their data. It’s what we do. So approaching marketing any other way would be a struggle here.
As you’ll see, I’m also a curious combination of impatience and pragmatic realism (might be a German thing). I’m impatient about letting the status quo stop us from doing what we need to do—and I like to strive for improvements all the time. But I’m pragmatic enough to take it one step at a time.
So that’s me.
I’m leading our Big Data Adventure, but it could never have happened without Anish and Laura, two smart, focused, dedicated professionals I really enjoy working with:
Meet Anish Jariwala, marketing performance manager
Anish leads our marketing analysis and campaign performance effort.
He spent his whole career doing data-driven marketing (at places like Dell and Autodesk), so he doesn’t really do ‘hunches’ and ‘instinct’. He does evidence. Most recently, he worked at Platfora, a big data discovery startup, and Marketo (both of which came in handy; as a matter of fact we met Anish for the first time during our Marketo implementation).
Anish speaks Hive and Hadoop natively (which also came in handy).
Finally, he’s a big believer in data lakes (which came in really, really handy).
Anish and I were joined at the hip for this journey—and still are. It’s fun and worth it.
Say Hi to Laura Wang, head of marketing programs and operations
Laura is our VP of marketing programs and operations. She thinks things through, then gets things done—a killer combination.
Laura worked with me back at SAP, SGI, Sun, and BEA and also did time at Business Objects, so her whole career has been in tech marketing, much of it in operations and program management. (We’ve worked together for longer than she’s known her husband, Chris!).
I see Laura as a pioneer. A new kind of marketer in a new world. As marketing operations grows as a discipline, Laura is inventing the job as she goes along.
She does it by knowing how to operationalize marketing processes—understanding the desired business outcome, the technology, and the people—and then making the whole thing work at scale.
Every new B2B marketing department needs a Laura and an Anish (if you can find one).
Our friends in Sales and IT
Anish, Laura and I spend a lot of time with our colleagues in Sales and IT—and there’s no way we could have made the progress we’ve seen without their active participation.
We’re all in this together.
The people who inspire us
So now you’ve met the Three Musketeers behind the big data marketing story that will unfold before you in the Naked Marketing series (I do hope you’ll join us for the journey).
But there are a few people who aren’t strictly on the team but are very worthy of mention. They’re the people who inspired us by generously sharing their ideas about what data-driven marketing looks like:
Scott Brinker, the editor of ChiefMarTec.com and program chair of the MarTech Conference. He’s also co-founder and CTO of ion interactive. Scott is way out in front of this marketing technology thing and he’s always willing to share what he knows—on his blog, at the events and… in person.
Megan Heuer, VP and Group Director at SiriusDecisions. Megan knows more about sales and marketing than the next 10 experts put together. And she’s always super-articulate about the best ways to align marketing and sales.
Craig Rosenberg, editor of the Funnelholic and co-founder and Chief Analyst at TOPO research. Among other things, Craig is a pioneer of Account Based Marketing (ABM), which is a big part of what we do at Informatica.
Jon Miller, founder of Marketo and now of Engagio, an account-based marketing platform. Jon has always evangelized the kind of data-driven marketing we adhere to. And now he’s turning his sights on ABM.
Tom Davenport, Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College. Tom pioneered the concept of “competing on analytics” in 2006 and has extended his research into analytics and big data with questions like what will happen to humans when smart machines make important decisions?
As Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst, Laura Ramos is a leading expert in B2B marketing. Laura’s research addresses the skills, technology, process, and customer experience concerns that top B2B marketers need to understand.
Dan Vesset, Program Vice President of IDC’s Business Analytics research is a long-time expert on business intelligence. Much of his research is now focused on big data.
Next post:
The one about laying the groundwork: the 5 foundations for big data marketing.
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The Naked Marketing series
A Big Data Marketing Operations Odyssey
The One that kicked it off
The post Naked Marketing: Who’s Who Behind Our Big Data Marketing appeared first on The Informatica Blog - Perspectives for the Data Ready Enterprise.