The Missing CEO Perspective

I feel sorry for the CEO. It's hard enough to run a business, but I don't think they get the benefit of the perspective that they need.

While there are many extrapolated views of specific areas within their greater purview, there's not one that unifies them all and is equally deep. They have the ability to look at good local 'maps' of their business, but there isn't a "Google Earth" equivalent that brings it all together. They can't zoom in and zoom out as the tool-set isn't there. They need to know how to dive in to each area as subject matter experts to properly run a business. And few CEO's are renaissance men of business - most rise through ranks with a specialty. That leaves them handicapped.

Take Marketing for example. The concept of a marketing funnel is where you can categorize a potential interested party in terms so their interest level in whatever it is a company sells. At the top is anyone on planet earth, and at the bottom is the person interested in your stuff and interesting to the Sales folks. A good marketer should have some metrics they can point to for % and conversions and so on to move people from top to bottom. The metrics enable a cost/benefit analysis to be done..If we spend $x in marketing campaigns, we can be sure it'll drive $Y sales to the bottom line. Straightforward, though complex to determine and track accurately. A smart post by the CTO At Eloqua outlines what's involved here.

Now let's move to Sales. The end results of the primary marketing task are the starting point for the Sales team to be involved. They also have a funnel. That's the sales process which aligns to the customer buying process (Actually both the marketing and sales funnels should reflect the customer buying process to be a little pedantic about it). Few explain the value and benefit of a well thought-out sales process better than the folks at TTG (Disclosure here - I'm a minor owner in this company, and a former staff member). When done correctly, a sales person can successfully proceed with their client down the stages of the sales funnel and close/win their deal.

So the two funnels taken together move someone or some company from stranger on planet earth to a closed sale situation. Nifty yes ? Absolutely. But here's the catch, if your hat says CEO on it, you have to be astute in both these processes as they don't come in one view. In the best of all possible worlds, you've got a great CMO and a great CSO, they get along and share metrics and then the CEO has somewhat of an aligned view. Is this common..? What do you think ? I'll let you answer that question for yourself.

Now take this complex enough situation and compound it with Operations, Account Teams, Production in the form of manufacturing or research or IP development. The poor CEO.. they have to be a master weaver of disparate information to make sure the whole enterprise keeps chugging along. Because the nature of business is that when it all works well...it all works well. But when one aspect starts to fade and fall behind, it impacts other groups. Customer Service is having problems with customers on the last release/enhancement and that means the next delivery is slowed, which impact's Marketing's timetable of events, which slows the lead generation into Sales and then there's a crack down on costs due to lower revenues..etc etc. All because there isn't a central monitor perspective that the CEO can enjoy. The devil may be in the details, but the core issue of the lack of visibility to the connections between functional areas is the culprit here.

When the whole affair goes south, and fails, who is accountable...you know it. The poor CEO with the missing perspective.