Please tell us about your role and the team/technology you handle at Conga?
At its core, my role is focused on driving growth by increasing our brand reputation, defining and executing go-to-market strategies, driving global demand and developing a winning culture. Our Marketing team does this by collaborating with other functions, such as Sales and Customer Success, to build aligned and integrated strategies on a global basis.
How did you land in this position?
I was in the midst of a very successful run at my last company. In fact, we had doubled the business in just five years. But I received a call from a recruiter about what I considered to be a very exciting opportunity and was interested in learning more.
I saw in Conga a company with a substantial customer base, excellent technology, a large and growing market opportunity and a very strong desire to create a unique and positive culture. I knew right away that I wanted to be part of this organization. I recognized the opportunity and potential to make a difference as CMO.
Tell us more about the roles and responsibilities of a modern CMO? How is it different from what you were doing in the pre-covid days.
I believe growth is the key imperative today – to work company-wide and to define and execute strategies for growth. For Conga, this is global in nature. It spans new and existing business, and is both direct and indirect by working with partners. It also entails defining and developing our brand, which again, is a company-wide effort. I don’t think the roles and responsibilities are fundamentally different when compared to pre-Covid, but on many levels they are harder to execute. Despite it being harder, it’s amazing to see how well people have adapted and worked to build that culture in a fully remote setting. It’s also more challenging to engage customers and prospects when face-to-face interactions are no longer a part of the mix, so part of the challenge is to adapt to that reality.
Also Read: ITechnology Interview with Dhruv Asher, SVP of Business Development and Product Alliances at UiPath
Tell us more about the marketing technology stack that you are using? How much of it has evolved in the lockdown period?
I would put this into two categories – what we do to execute our Marketing programs and what we do to work as a Marketing team. Adding to this reality is the fact that Conga went through a recent merger, so we are still working to rationalize some of these elements. In the former category, our main technologies are Salesforce and Marketo. We augment that with predictive analytics, social/chat engagement on our website, prospect engagement tools for our sales development team, etc. In the latter category, our days have evolved around Teams and Zoom. One way we leverage these technologies to keep our culture strong is that 100% of our meetings utilize video so we can see and engage with people. We fully appreciate that people are working from home, so it’s also common to see family walking by, parents holding babies, or pets in the background. It’s all a welcomed part of today’s reality.
As a CMO, what unique challenges do you face every day? How do you use your experience in people and technology management to overcome these challenges?
The first thing that comes to mind is alignment. In order to achieve everything we want to, we need to be “rowing in the same direction.” We need clearly spelled out priorities and we need to get everybody on board and executing in an aligned fashion to fully capitalize on our opportunities. It’s constantly about building relationships across the company, communicating frequently, checking in, getting feedback, adjusting, etc. We need to do this on a global basis as well. And, we must leverage our communication tools to help in this effort – making sure everyone has access to the information about our plans and activities.
What’s your opinion on the question: Who owns the Customer Experience management success / failures?
I think there are two answers to this. First, I think there must be an executive owner that is the driver of this. At Conga and in my last company, there has been a Customer Success executive who I partner very closely with. I like to think of myself as owner 1B if you will to their 1A.
Second, I truly believe the answer is “everyone.” To me this is no different than the question of “who owns the brand?” The reality is customer experiences, like brand, are a function of every touchpoint with a company. So, while an executive, or two, can be the primary owners and orchestraters of the strategy around the customer experience, one failed touchpoint can undermine everything. So, a big part of that leadership is conveying this down to every employee so they understand their role in success.
Also Read: ITechnology Interview with Rohit Tandon, GM for ReadyAI and MD at Deloitte Consulting LLP
What are the biggest barriers in the adoption of CX management models for a modern data-driven company?
I’m going to go back to a theme I’ve hit on here – alignment. You can have all the right data-driven insights on where to focus, but getting the entire organization aligned and executing on that is the biggest challenge. And, as already noted, your success is a function of every touchpoint – so alignment throughout the organization to teams that don’t view it as their core mission is the biggest challenge.
What will Data Science for marketers look like in the next 2-3 years?
I think it is increasingly becoming an essential role. Marketing today is benefiting from a wealth of available data, but it doesn’t always have the resources, time and skills to fully utilize and make it actionable. Marketing teams will increasingly have people that live in the data and provide the business with actionable insights that are being missed today.
What is tour prediction on the “future of marketing analytics”?
I think we are at the very early stages of seeing how analytics can automate the orchestration of omnichannel engagement throughout the buyer and customer journeys. Analytics are starting to provide clarity of where people are in the journey and which people are involved. They can also start to orchestrate these interactions to provide more personalized, value-added engagement with both prospects and customers.
Thank you, Randy! That was fun and we hope to see you back on iTechnologyseries.com soon.
Randy is the Chief Marketing Officer at Conga, where he is responsible for driving market leadership as a strategic catalyst for growth. He is a deeply experienced marketing leader with more than decades of experience working with high growth software companies.
Prior to Conga, Randy worked in both private (including a prior Thoma Bravo backed company), and public companies. He has extensive experience in leading cross-functional teams, managing change, defining business strategies and driving execution to meet business objectives. Over the past 11 years, Randy served as the SVP of Marketing at Flexera and CMO and SVP of Global Expansion at NICE inContract, where he helped lead the companies to doubling in size.
Conga, the global leader in commercial operations transformation, helps businesses simplify and automate their approach to the essential quotes, contracts, and documents that drive commerce. We help our customers become more agile, so they can adapt quickly to change and create a fluid, connected customer experience. Companies choose Conga for the most comprehensive solution set in the market and expert guidance, enabling them to transform the processes and documents surrounding customer engagement, configure price quote (CPQ), contract lifecycle management (CLM), and the complete commercial operations lifecycle. With Conga, businesses evolve their commercial operations to streamline their revenue processes and derive the meaningful insights that lead to sustained growth.
