Best Practices Winners in Marketing Dashboard Development: Cisco Systems and Tektronix

This IDC study provides insight into how two leading IT organizations created marketing dashboards. Both companies established a process for developing a marketing dashboard that is widely adopted internally and intimately tied to both strategic business objectives and the bottom line. In a case study format, this document outlines how Cisco Systems and Tektronix worked to implement effective and widely adopted marketing metrics dashboards. Their best practice nominations were selected from among all nominations across the IT software, hardware, and services industries, and the two companies were named the most successful practitioners in this area, receiving CMO Tech Marketing Dashboard Development Process Best Practices Award.

"To create a marketing dashboard, many marketing departments have first turned to selection of commercially available software packages on the market today. There is, however, a great deal of groundwork and activity that must take place before a software tool even comes into the picture. The process of determining and validating the dashboard metrics and source of data for these metrics needs to be the first priority," said Michael Gerard, director, CMO Advisory Research. "This IDC study focuses not on the features and functionality that can be found in the many dashboard software packages today, but rather on the process that must be used to develop a successful marketing dashboard."