Lack of governance could mean either not being able to establish a Marketing Automation project core leadership team, having too many decision-makers involved in the implementation or undermining the post-implementation maintenance team. Any of these can lead to failure of the implementation:
1. Lack Of Marketing Automation Project Leadership:
Any automation implementation project involves ample decision-making across multiple departments. Every department wants to automate the process as per its own existing process and that’s where core decision-making leadership comes into the picture. Leaders can take decisions keeping the organization-wide implementation in mind, they can ensure every single decision is aligned with the holistic end goal of the project. In the absence of a project leadership team, either the project will not be able to move ahead and delayed implementation will escalate the cost of implementation. Or, the implementation will be fragmented and reaping the benefits of Automation will not be possible under such circumstances.
2. Too Many Decision Makers Involved In Implementation:
There is a saying, which explains this. ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’. The same problem as above crops up when there are too many decision-makers involved in the implementation. This can also lead to dilution of the end goal expected from the implementation. As every decision-maker can have their own understanding of the project and KPI’s in mind, this issue may cause either an “Analysis Paralysis” situation or groupism, further turning the project to any direction.
3. Undermining The Post Implementation Maintenance And Support Requirements:
Post-implementation, who will own the project maintenance and support required for the foreseen small changes. Any misfiring from the project needs to be taken into account and someone from the team needs to act quickly to rectify the problem. Missing on this post-implementation support can disappoint the end user and may make them disinterested.
To overcome these challenges, an organization needs to assign a key decision-maker/makers for the implementation of Marketing Automation. The decision-maker has the authority to make decisions and approvals faster. The best approach is to have someone from the top management as the project leader, which will force other stakeholders to respect the decision about implementing Marketing Automation coming from the leader.
At the same time, other stakeholders can act as the Center of Excellence (CoE). CoE can analyse the situation and make suggestions/recommendations to the leadership team, but the final decision will be that of the leaders.
This will ensure that nothing has been out of the leader’s sight and simultaneously the project is on track as per the end goal.
