According to Scott Brinker at ChiefMarTec.com, the average enterprise today now uses over 1000 cloud services. MarTech presents the largest menu of vendor options. As of April 2018, over 7000 active MarTech solutions are available in 47 categories. That’s 700% growth in the last four years!

Funding is stronger than ever, predicted consolidation has failed to materialize, and only about 5% have dropped out. So the mad proliferation looks to continue. It’s a daunting landscape for any company wanting to construct a MarTech stack. Within the six major categores, every sub-specialty contains dozens of choices, all of which require due diligence to understand if and how they would fit together.

What’s a CMO to do? Get help!

As I wrote in a previous blog, for there to be optimal outcomes, MarTech stacks must share data and capabilities across business units. Management must sponsor, support and invest in cross-silo governance. And someone must be responsible for integrated content, messaging and corporate point of view. The CMO is ultimately responsible, but bandwidth is often an issue. Many companies are hiring “conductors” to make sure all the parts come together.

With so many choices and so little time for due diligence, hiring a silo-bridging integration expert is smart. The opportunity is too big to leave to chance.