One of the first questions every marketing leader must be able to answer for every major effort they oversee, and even some they do not, is: “What are the tools, processes, data, resources, and measurements I need to have in place to be as effective and efficient as possible?” To answer this question, marketing leaders must turn to their marketing operations teams; and for marketing operations teams to deliver an answer that will empower the marketing leader to successfully deploy their effort, the marketing operations team’s focus areas must be clearly defined. But how will the marketing operations function be defined? Is the focus on measurement, data, and technology only? Does the team need support with defining and managing planning, processes and/or driving performance with marketing insights?

The answer depends on three critical factors that must be carefully calibrated to ensure that the marketing operations function, be it one person or a large team, is the best-fit team for your organization:

  1. Leveraging a proven and effective marketing operations functional design process to determine the scope of responsibilities for the marketing operations function, including its charter, the competencies required, and who is responsible for what and working with whom
  2. A mechanism to determine and evaluate resource constraints to decide on the required capacity of the team and what resources will be needed to ensure an aligned, supported, resourced, and properly budgeted team that is able to achieve the desired results
  3. Examples of different scenarios to show the design process in action to help determine how the team will be organized and how its effectiveness will be assessed against company and team growth goals

We will review each of the three critical factors in more detail, supported by market-tested processes and a resourcing tool that we will introduce at B2B Summit North America, May 2–4, in our session, Structuring The Marketing Operations Function: Criteria For Growth. We look forward to seeing you there.