It's going to take an indivisible organization to implement a truly optimal customer-centric strategy. The last thing marketers need now is yet another technology solution. Not because these technologies are superfluous or ineffective. There's simply too many of them. If marketers hope to realize the truly customer-centric approach of the Amazons and Googles of the world in their own organization, they must conquer the principal barrier to customer centricity: fragmentation.

The reality is marketing is buying more tech than at any point in history. In my humble opinion the CIO should be playing a bigger role in helping build out the road maps for how that tech will be managed throughout the enterprise. This connected CRM conversation extends beyond marketing. Most CMOs own the media budget. Once these things go out of the domain of the CMO then you have to integrate with another organization. Most CMOs don't own the Web experience or the commerce experience. These initiatives are ultimately going to have to be lead by a COO, a chief customer officer, or even a CEO to really find success.

Fragmentation often results from buying decisions by team members who do not believe you will address their problems in their best interests. This fragmentation is going to be debilitating to the Digital Value Chain. In effect, today's decisions to buy point solutions to address digital will become the legacy applications that prevent it. Your organization needs leadership from you, and you need a team that gives you the tools to effectively gain the confidence of your colleagues. How long will you wait to synthesize your digital value chain direction?

David Williams, author of Connected CRM: Implementing a Data-Driven, Customer-Centric Business Strategy recently made some observations that are well aligned with  our point of view on enterprise application direction for the Digital Value Chain.