I can’t talk about automation in general and restrict to my domain — marketing automation. A year back, I was in a board meeting of a 600 Mn$ business. Their CMO presented the proposal to automate marketing. She did a good job of highlighting its benefits.
Her peer CXOs were happy and started digging deeper. There were couple of management interns who got too excited to join in.
The conversation went like this,
CTO: Does it create target audience database?
CMO: Not really…we have to upload or get subscribers.
R&D Head: If we launch a product, will it suggest right campaigns?
CMO: No
Intern: Can we plan campaigns with it, and do away with excel/ppt?
CMO: nope
CRO: On a $100k budget, will it predict revenue?
CMO: No
CFO: Will it compute ROI on marketing?
CMO: to a certain extent
Partner Lead: Can our Partners run campaigns too?
CMO: I am afraid, if we have to give to all partners, it will be expensive.
Intern: Can we do without an agency help?
CMO: I don’t think so…
CEO: Will it reduce time to market?
CMO: no
HR Head: Can we reduce/optimize marketing headcount?
CMO: no, no…
Perhaps, I made it a bit dramatic with almost all ‘no’ answers. But it was dangerously close!
So, the fundamental question we asked before designing a marketing automation is: will it reduce manual effort?