Martech practitioners specialize in specific products. That’s not news. It makes sense for people to learn how to use a specific platform effectively. However, when putting together a team, this is not always ideal.
This is critical to consider when developing one’s skills, recruiting new employees, and building a martech stack.
Recruit with one product in mind
I’ve seen companies with Drupal developer openings that require applicants to have expertise in PHP, but no experience with the platform. Drupal is based on PHP and every developer working with it must know that programming language.
However, there is so much more to Drupal than PHP, and the platform and community have numerous standards and practices that aren’t involved in knowing PHP.
As a result, many companies hire competent PHP developers who, despite their best intentions, have not used Drupal effectively from the start.
Providing support and training to new employees
There are ways to address this lack of knowledge. For example, if an organization already has Drupal developers who understand the platform, they can help train the new employee.
Dig deeper: how to prepare your organization for the AI era
If the organization has a Drupal vendor, they can help the new employee get started. Of course, the organization could also have stated experience with Drupal as a requirement, even though that is desirable but not essential. The same goes for marketing automation platforms, CRMs, and so on.
Evaluating personal investments in a platform
As I said in an interview with Chris Wood about marketing activities in M&A situations, people not only specialize, but also personally invest in specific products.
Personal product investments can certainly provide benefits as people, for example, develop advanced skills and actively participate in user communities to find new and better ways to achieve their goals. By investing deeply in a community, practitioners can influence product roadmaps to meet the needs of their organization.
However, there are some disadvantages. When people invest deeply in one product, they may not closely follow developments in competing products. They may also not follow relevant trends because they rely primarily on their favorite product’s booster community for broader specialist trends. This means they may not adapt to changes over time. Their favorite product may make the most sense at one time, but competitors may evolve later to change that analysis. The personal investment can close their eyes to many important factors.
Taking into account the entire stack
Products rarely function independently. A broader stack perspective may indicate that it’s worth switching to a different product to work better with the rest of the stack.
This can lead to product specialists feeling threatened or frustrated about having to learn a new product. They may even fear that a temporary dip in productivity will put their jobs at risk.
This is similar to the concerns that arise when integrating stacks after a merger or acquisition. Fortunately, change management can help team members respond more positively to such changes.
Taking into account the perspectives of employees
While there are whole-stack considerations at play, it’s also critical to take the employee side into account. For example, two senior stakeholders may disagree about which analytics platform is best for the organization. One person may specialize in a particular product, while another has had mediocre experience with it in the past. Whose perspective prevails?
A more indirect trade-off occurs when stakeholders can defend products because of their own stack features. What happens if that connection is not ideal in terms of integrations or other vital connections?
I know that the success of a product depends on the extent to which owners and users invest in its use. So if the stakeholders can’t agree on a better link, it’s better to have two stack components that are both used. That may justify the business decision to stick with a specific combination, but it is wise to consider the costs associated with such an arrangement. It is essential to note that practitioners who specialize and invest in products are not necessarily en-focused. As I said with PHP and Drupal, there are advantages to this. This should not come at the expense of following broader trends and developing portable skills that are valuable regardless of the specific product in question.
Dig Deeper: How to Measure Your CreativeOps Maturity to Unlock Achievements
Well-known martech experts also discuss what practitioners should consider when it comes to platform specialization.
Real Story Group founder and president Tony Bryne cautions practitioners against committing to specific platforms and vendors. He recently shared in a LinkedIn article: “Vendors and platforms come and go…supplier attention and roadmaps can wander. Suppliers are undergoing reorganizations, just like your business.”
He says that while a supplier’s current capabilities and outcome objectives align with customer needs, this can change. Practitioners who invest too much in one supplier may not notice this. That can also make it more difficult to switch to another supplier that better meets needs in the future.
Additionally, revops consultant Sarah McNamara said in a LinkedIn message That “[i]Becoming an expert in just one tool puts you in a niche. In the consulting industry, the wealth lies in the niches, but so does the depression when that tool goes out of fashion.”
When practitioners focus on developing and maintaining foundational skills, they have more options. “[O]If you are system agnostic, the world is your oyster,” said McNamara, “you can go wherever the demand is.”
Both Byrne and McNamara say it is much better for practitioners to focus on skills (strategy, analytics, etc.) rather than specific platforms. This allows practitioners to maintain a broader view of a product category and more easily transition into different roles, regardless of the suppliers involved.
Energize yourself with free marketing insights.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the supervision of the editors and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. The contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of it Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
#pros #cons #specializing #specific #martech #products #MarTech