Beyond Dependency: The Martech Risk

Risk management is big business. There are entire sub-industries devoted to minimising corporate risk, whether it’s through financial exposure, security threats, or supply chain uncertainties. Well known information security certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 are also ultimately about managing risks introduced through the use of technology. ISO 27001 requires IT departments to draft contingency plans for unexpected business scenarios, such as what happens if Microsoft or Salesforce go out of business.

Plan for Downtime

Now, Salesforce is hardly likely to go down permanently. Temporary disruption is a realistic possibility. Even brief spells of downtime could lead to key systems becoming unavailable. Recent experience shows what can happen. Glitches within Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure have led to many leading websites going offline, just within the last few months. Meanwhile, high profile hacks caused several leading UK retailers to go dark last year. Those businesses are still counting the cost of that disruption. Proper planning can minimise that cost, while allowing companies to benefit from the scale and functionality of best-in-class cloud platforms.

Operations teams build the business around the available technology, assembling a tech stack to deliver all the capabilities necessary for executing campaigns and accelerating revenue generation. Systems are customised to business requirements, while processes are tuned to the available tech stack. That synergy of process and technology allows marketing teams to deploy marketing programs at record speed, and tune them in response to customer demand.

Map the Benefits

For many go to market teams, Salesforce is the ultimate source of truth. Individual sales reps may have their own contact lists in Excel or Gmail, but executives use Salesforce opportunity data to forecast the sales pipeline and manage territory assignments. If Salesforce goes down, many businesses cannot predict future revenue, which affects planning across the entire organisation. That makes your tech stack a business risk, but one which ultimately benefits the business. The risk attached to most enterprise technology is minimal, because the likes of Salesforce are still reliable products despite recent security issues.

Nonetheless, the risk associated with a particular technology configuration should be considered when customising the stack. Such concerns need to be weighed against the benefits. Theoretical security issues shouldn’t be a barrier to system integration. Hypothetical data leaks shouldn’t be a blocker to data processing. System architecture can be tweaked to minimise the downsides of technology dependency, while boosting technology adoption. Utilise vendor support to discover the biggest risks, and leverage expert assistance to advise on the configurations which maximise business impact while guarding against potential threats.

Prepare for Change

Serious problems only arise when the risks associated with a particular software product outweigh the business benefits. That could be because changing business requirements mean that a particular application is no longer suitable for current business needs. It’s often because skills shortages result in businesses deploying applications that no one knows how to use. The biggest threat comes from legacy applications, where the vendor has stopped supporting a particular product or feature that is widely used in your business. Typically, that requires a platform migration, with all the associated costs and disruption.

Until then, risks can be managed using leading information security management frameworks such as ISO 27001. It's best to be prepared. Make sure that process can be separated from technology. The business needs to be able to tweak processes or change core platforms. Such transformation projects are inherently disruptive. Stagnating on broken processes designed for unsuitable platforms is worse. If operational challenges are holding back the business, then devise an action plan to fix and issues. If outcomes don’t meet business expectations, develop a roadmap to improving marketing performance. Evaluate the costs and opportunities associated with any technology transformation. Everything carries a risk. Strong planning and effective change management are the keys to delivering constant improvement.

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Seismic and Highspot announced a major merger last week. The two firms specialise in hosting enablement content for sales teams, but are facing increasing competition from general purpose productivity platforms, as well as from DAM vendors. As a result, they plan to join forces in a bid to develop better AI for sales teams.

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