Despite serious investment, many marketing functions find themselves unequipped to meet today’s challenges. Teams are being held to the standard of a growth driver while still being run like a cost centre. Expectations have expanded faster than operating models, leaving teams without the proper resources and capabilities needed to deliver on business expectations.
If you’re a CMO, you’re probably working around these constraints every day. You’re accountable for revenue, customer lifetime value and commercial outcomes. But you’re expected to deliver these results with fragmented data, siloed teams and outdated decision structures.
Resolving this tension takes more than buying new tools or campaigns. It demands operational reform: redesigning how your marketing function is organised, makes decisions, measures success, and works with the rest of the business. In this article, we outline what a future-fit marketing operating model looks like, plus a practical route to build it.
What does a growth-driven marketing function look like?
To be taken seriously as a growth driver, marketing needs the same kind of accountability expected as sales: clear targets and measurable outcomes that feed directly into commercial goals. For many marketing leaders, that’s a new standard, and your operating model must be rebuilt to meet it.
So what has to change? In our experience, a future-fit operating model is built on five fundamental qualities to set your team up for success:
- Marketing objectives connect directly to business goals
- Clear, non-negotiable principles guide trade-offs and decision making for when ambiguous scenarios arise
- The whole function works towards the same strategy, with no person or team pulling in a different direction
- Customer insight is generated systematically, not commissioned ad hoc
- Insight is translated efficiently into repeatable and commercial action
- Growth is measured against business outcomes, rather than channel metrics
- Cross-functional delivery is the norm, with clear decision rights at every level (global versus local, in-house versus agency)
- Governance frameworks prevent teams reverting to siloed habits
- Teams respond with agility to market demands at pace, rather than waiting for processes to catch up
- Customer obsession is embedded across whole organisation (it's not owned by the marketing or customer service teams alone)
- Leaders role model behaviours in every day decisions, with customers at the centre
- Rituals and daily habits reinforce customer-first thinking, until it becomes instinctive
- Platforms are connected and adopted, enabling continuous learning through investment in technology adoption and usage
- Data is trusted, not just available
- Measurement and attribution links spend to outcomes
A common mistake CMOs make is tackling one area at a time, often starting with technology. New tools rarely deliver commercial returns when the environment hasn’t evolved. New platforms get adopted slowly and can’t fundamentally change how work gets done, and processes stay siloed and inefficient.
Real progress comes from addressing all five fundamentals together. Customer obsession gives the whole model purpose. Culture makes new ways of working stick. Governance gives those ways of working structure. Connected data and AI turn insight into commercial action. And strategy anchors everything in marketing directly to business growth.
Why redesigning the marketing operating model pays back, and widely
In this model, marketing leaders align the promise that customers hear with the experiences they receive. Marketing isn’t writing cheques that the business can’t cash.
The commercial case is hard to argue with. Industry research shows that teams using data effectively to drive decisions see a 15-20% uplift in ROI.1 They’re also six times more likely to retain customers.2
The effect on your people is just as significant. Digitally mature marketing functions are 45% more likely to retain top talent, and 50% more likely to attract high performers.3
You’ll feel the impact of a future-fit marketing model across your entire organisation:
- Internal friction disappears. Clearer roles, clearer decision rights and joined-up ways of working remove the internal drag that slows most marketing functions down. Agile teams bring campaigns to market 60% faster.4
- Every action is customer obsessed. When your data is connected, your technology is integrated and your workflows are agile, you can respond to market changes and customer behaviour as they happen. Customer-led approaches are proven to deliver 1.5x higher customer lifetime value5 and lift revenue by 4-8%.6
- Marketing becomes a genuine growth driver. When marketing is aligned to business outcomes and partnered closely with sales, product and finance teams, you shape business decisions instead of just communicating them. Research shows that companies with unified sales and marketing teams are 103% more likely to exceed their targets than misaligned organisations.7
- ROI, revenue and retention improve. There’s a direct line between your marketing activity and your business goals, lifting commercial returns and customer lifetime value. Organisations that consistently deliver across channels see 89% customer retention, against 33% for those with weaker experiences.8
The three-step route to a future-fit marketing model
Redesigning your marketing model means making significant changes to your working processes, your decision-making and your structure. We know that’s a big commitment, and we understand why it puts many organisations off from taking the first step.
If the cost of inertia seems greater than the commitment needed to begin, there’s good news: we have tried-and-tested models to increase your chance of success.
From our experience working with marketing functions, a three-step approach consistently delivers the most sustainable changes:
The three-step route to a future-fit marketing model
Redesigning your marketing model means making significant changes to your working processes, your decision-making and your structure. We know that’s a big commitment, and we understand why it puts many organisations off from taking the first step.
If the cost of inertia seems greater than the commitment needed to begin, there’s good news: we have tried-and-tested models to increase your chance of success.
From our experience working with marketing functions, a three-step approach consistently delivers the most sustainable changes:
What this looks like in practice
A travel business came to us during a period of major organisational change. They had recently shifted many of their marketing capabilities to an agency, but the operating model hadn’t caught up. Roles and decision rights were unclear. Ways of working relied too heavily on informal relationships. Data, reporting and insight were fragmented, making it harder to plan well, measure impact and drive long-term growth.
We helped the organisation redesign how marketing worked across its brands and partner ecosystem. First, we built a clear view of the current state through stakeholder interviews, surveys and document review. Then we worked with teams to define the future model: the capabilities, structure, governance, planning rhythms and ways of working needed to make marketing more joined-up and effective. Finally, we translated that design into practical playbooks and a phased roadmap to embed the change in stages.
The result was a stronger foundation for growth. Teams had clearer guardrails, better collaboration with agency partners, and more consistent, repeatable ways of working. Instead of relying on workarounds and individual relationships, the organisation had the foundations for a more customer-led, insight-driven marketing model designed to scale.
Bold change takes courage, but caution carries a cost
Marketing transformation is a growth imperative. The CMOs who see this as an opportunity and seize it are redefining what their function can deliver and what marketing contributes to the wider business.
Big decisions take courage. But relying on an operating model built for yesterday’s expectations is often the bigger risk.
1Omnichannel Marketing Statistics | WifiTalents
2Moving From Being A Data-Drive Organisation To A Data-Led Organization | Forbes
3How to Attract & Retain Digital Marketing Talent | Digital Marketing Institute
416 Amazing Agile Statistics [2026]: What Companies Use Agile Methodology | Zippia
5 30 customer experience statistics to know | Qualtrics
6 50 Stats That Prove The Value of Customer Experience | Forbes
7 Sales Trends 2024 Report by HubSpot | IVLead
8The State of Omnichannel Shopping – Statistics and Trends | Invespcro
Sources cited in this article:
Forrester, Customer Experience Drives Revenue Growth 2023
LinkedIn, The Future of Skills 2023
Hubspot, 2025 Sales Trend Report 2025
We work with CMOs and marketing leaders to evaluate your current operating model and co-design the future-fit version you need to drive growth.
If that’s the kind of change you’re ready to make, we’d love to talk.
