• by Ray Schultz , May 30, 2018

Email professionals who feel they skilled in MarTech may be fooling themselves -- and they must improve if they hope to advance. A study released on Wednesday by Wipro Digital shows that 75% of marketing executives think they are proficient in MarTech, but only 6% believe most of their teams are.

Yet most say that MarTech skills are essential for chief marketing officers, outranking marketing and brand strategy.

Wipro Digital surveyed 500 senior executives at firms with 1,000 employees or more in the U.S. and the UK.

Of those, over a third think that less than half their team has the knowledge to effectively deploy MarTech tools. And over half say this is a barrier to success. 

On the positive side, 84% say their firms have “reskilling” programs in place.

Meanwhile, there is a widespread belief that MarTech proficiency starts at the top. Of the executives polled, 81% say their CMOs should have MarTech qualifications, and only 1% think this is not as critical as other skills.

MarTech is rated as the most important capability for CMOs by 47%, compared with marketing strategy (44%), business strategy (37%), brand management (21%), sales (15%) and advertising (13%). The latter three skill sets have significantly declined in importance.

The barriers to effective MarTech usage? For 64%, a major hurdle to MarTech ROI is “changing the way that marketing works.”  And 43% are stymied by the need to effectively integrate MarTech with other technology systems.

Over one third say their firm modifies MarTech technology to fit into existing operating models rather than exploring new tech strategies.

But they plan to spend more on MarTech — 62% expect an increase in 2019. Only 4% are dissatisfied with the return on their MarTech investment, and their spend equates to $82 million.