She’s not a featured case study in the book, but Marina Levinson is a marketer’s dream CIO (chief information officer). Why? She understands that what her employer, NetApp (Network Appliance), does for a living is what she does for living. Namely, sell network data storage gear. Yes, she’s a marketer even though her business card says CIO. She intuitively understands that getting the right information to the right parts of the company at precisely the right time is fundamental to selling more storage more profitably. It’s not about information technology (IT) for its own sake and taking orders from the rest of the company. It’s about staying aligned with the company’s strategic direction, collaborating with the business, and seeing to it that IT resources are invested in the right projects.
The book’s message? Each member of a company’s management team, the CIO as much as anyone else, is a stakeholder in the success of marketing, which is all about selling products people can’t resist at prices that will sustain the business. Each has responsibility to contribute to marketing success. Information is power. The right information (em)powers marketing. Just ask Marina Levinson.
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