Gartner: IT Leaders and CMOs Must Play Nice for Optimal SuccessUnderscoring the need for company IT leaders to work in concert with company CMOs, Gartner is out with a new report that ties a direct link between IT and marketing in future enterprise success,

By 2018, the report notes, CIOs who build strong relationships With CMOs will drive a 25 percent improvement.

“Increasing marketing technology investments are demanding more involvement from IT leaders to enable marketing to achieve full business value from its investments,” reads a report summary by Gartner.

The challenge, however, must begin this year. IT leaders supporting marketing will need to build a stronger partnership with marketing in 2015 and help to evaluate a variety of solutions (architecture, functionality, scalability, performance and security), source data, manage and consolidate the application portfolio, and integrate solutions.

“Marketing continues to be a hot area of IT investment and technology innovation with a rapidly growing application portfolio that demands greater integration and focused investment,” says Kimberly Collins, research vice president at Gartner. “IT leaders supporting marketing will need to develop a strong relationship with marketing leaders to help marketing derive the full potential from its IT investments.”