MARKETING MANTRA
Most CMOs in Sri Lanka speak like enlightened marketing monks. These chief marketing officers chant about strategy, alignment, consistency, customer journeys and 360 degree thinking as if they’re reciting a mantra. And they know content must be planned, scheduled, measured, optimised, blessed by data and sprinkled with AI.
When it comes to execution however, things wobble rather badly. The knowledge is Michelin starred but the execution is roadside kottu at 2 a.m. – enthusiastic, noisy and chaotic!
MARKETERS NEED ORCHESTRATION
Dr. Muneer Muhamed writes that organisations should stop working in silos
A Forrester Research report confirms this tragicomedy. Apparently, marketers know what makes content successful, and understand planning, scheduling and cross functional collaboration. But only 1.5 percent claim their content planning process is seamless.
That is lower than the probability of Sri Lanka winning a last ball thriller without inducing nationwide cardiac arrest. And 89 percent agree that planning is essential.
So we have a nation of marketers nodding wisely in meetings while their execution quietly takes the afternoon off for chai.
Why does this happen?
Enter the legendary corporate silo.
In theory, silos store grain; but in organisations, they stockpile confusion. Marketing sits in one corner designing a dazzling Aluth Avurudu campaign. Sales is in another corner promising customers something completely different. Digital is posting memes. And the agency is waiting for approvals that require a host of signatures and possibly a notarised letter.
Some 77 percent of marketers blame silos. The other 23 percent are probably trapped inside one – and couldn’t respond to the survey.
Naturally, the first solution everyone proposes is technology. New dashboards, smarter AI, shiny platforms with omni channel publishing, content calendars, colourful visualisation, workflow automation and buttons that glow reassuringly. And 87 percent of marketers believe better tools will fix everything.
This is adorable – because it’s like believing that buying the latest rice cooker will automatically make you a master chef. As I often tell clients, choosing a tool without defining a process is like selecting a premium brand of hammer to repair a punctured tyre: the enthusiasm is admirable but the logic is questionable.
Technology can’t rescue a missing process. If there is no clear agreement on who plans content; who approves it; who adapts it for Sinhala, Tamil and English speaking audiences; and who checks whether the campaign even matches the brand promise, there’s no software that can save the day – it will only digitalise the chaos.
You will have beautifully organised confusion with colour coded misalignment and automated dysfunction. The system will faithfully deliver what you programmed it do – it’s disorder that is faster.
This is where alignment enters the chat like a motivational speaker. But in complex organisations, alignment means everyone attends the same meeting and nods at the same PowerPoint presentation.
That isn’t execution; it is instead, polite agreement.
What CMOs truly need is orchestration. And yes, that does sound grand, slightly dramatic and faintly musical – perhaps because it is.
Think of marketing like a Kandyan dance troupe or a baila band at a beach wedding – if the drummer decides to freestyle, the flutist changes rhythm and the dancers improvise, the audience will remember the performance – but not for the right reasons.
Orchestration means that everyone knows their part, timing and how each contribution fits the larger performance. Strategy frameworks such as the balanced scorecard that we have been implementing for Fortune 500 attempt this by connecting goals, measures, initiatives and outcomes.
It’s less about agreement and more to do with coordinated movement.
In marketing, orchestration matters because customer experience is stitched together across touchpoints. A consumer might see a social media post, receive an email, walk into a store and later complain on WhatsApp. If these touchpoints sing different songs, the brand sounds like a rehearsal, not a symphony.
Even if marketing and sales agree that a product launch is important, without orchestration the message may be inconsistent, the timing awkward and the channels misfiring. And customers always notice!
CMOs who master orchestration behave less like department heads and more like conductors. Orchestration isn’t reserved for multinationals, and Sri Lankan businesses can do the same by defining processes, integrating partners, measuring what matters and linking activity to outcomes.
Agencies, vendors and internal teams must all sing from the same hymn sheet.
Orchestration is measurable, and companies that execute it well track metrics rigorously and demonstrate ROI clearly. They build systems where strategy flows smoothly into action.
And when that happens, the CMO stops being a firefighter and becomes the conductor of a well-rehearsed ensemble.
What CMOs truly need is orchestration
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