There exists a genuine divide in the vision of many organisations, namely between chief marketing officers and the rest of the C-suite over the value marketing provides to the business, according to a new global study.

The Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by analytics firm SAS, is titled ‘Outside Looking In: The CMO Struggles to Get in Sync with the C-Suite’, and finds that non-marketing executives (CEOs, CFOs, CIOs) focus primarily on driving revenue, which ranks third for CMOs, whose top priorities are new product development and customer acquisition.

There is also a differing of opinion between CMOs and other C-suite executives on the most accurate metrics to best track return on marketing investment.

Issues concerning customer tastes and needs, actually who represents the voice of the customer within the organisation, and which channel is most effective for customer engagement are all identified issues.

A disturbing one-fifth of CMOs say they are only consulted on marketing strategy, but don’t take the lead (3% report playing no role at all). 28% of CMOs blame their incapability to deliver more value on a lack of senior management support for marketing investments.

Half of CMOs believe their ability to be more strategic is thwarted by a scarcity of marketing talent and challenges in clearly demonstrating return on investment.

You can find the full report here.