My best right hand man in a large sales organization was the sales operations manager. I had 110 salespeople working for me worldwide, a company president who was hyper (to say the least), and board of directors who were almost as wired as the president. Yes, we had a CRM system, but Marketing didn’t have an automation system. I ‘shared’ the sales operations manager with the CMO because we had a good working relationship. If yesterday were today, I am sure that John, the CMO, would have a marketing operations manager equal to my sales operations manager.

In many respects—no, in all respects—the marketing operations manager is more powerful and informed than the sales operations manager. Sales Ops looks backward in most instances (at historical sales results), with an eye to the future for hiring, expansion and reporting.

‘Marketing Operations’, on the other hand, is real-time creation of demand, processing that demand, reporting on the ROI of a tactical success or failure, and managing the IT operations of Marketing (hardware and software). Marketing Operations becomes the heart of a company’s growth. It is Marketing Operations that should test a campaign strategy for expected results, plan the reaction to the response, and forecast the results before the launch. It is Marketing Operations that oversees its own IT function that manages the applications used to beat down competitors and make heroes of the salespeople. Soon, maybe even now, marketing operations managers will be paid more than most employees in the company, maybe even the sales managers.

I think this is happening because Marketing cannot be held hostage to an IT department that doesn’t understand or care about Marketing’s mission. Marketing has to take control of the IT servers and the applications that contribute to Marketing’s success, or continue to be considered overhead and not a proactive generator of wealth. Isn’t it time for you to hire your own marketing operations manager? The job description for the marketing operations manager is in a blog entry on the SLMA site.

This blog was submitted by James Obermayer, Executive Director and CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association and President of Sales Leakage Consulting. James is a regular guest blogger with ViewPoint.