Constellation analyst Martin Schneider unpacks his latest report, discussing the need for organizations to adapt their growth strategies in the age of AI and emphasizing the importance of the office of the chief growth officer and the role of AI as an enabling technology. He also highlights the need for a modern growth strategy, taking into account the shift from the subscription economy to the retention economy and the post-pandemic economy.
View the full transcript here: (Please note this has not been edited and may contain errors.)
Martin, hi. This is Martin Schneider, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. I'm excited to talk about a new Big Idea report I've just published called why every organization needs to rethink its growth strategy in the age of AI. And that why is a really big why we've seen a lot of changes in the market and just in the economy over the past 510, 15 years, we really saw this wholesale shift to subscription, slash retention, slash everything as a service economy. But what we've not seen is our go to market strategies really supporting this fully.
We've We've operationalized around product and service delivery with these models. We've done revenue recognition changes things like that. But for a lot of organizations across almost every industry, most people are thinking still in the old way of you know, new business drives everything lead to opportunity. Conversions are the most important metrics. So people really just not thinking about the right metrics and the right approach. And that needs to change right now. What's really been interesting is leading organizations are creating either an office or a role called the chief growth officer. So the C suite is being augmented to include a more strategic leader when it comes to planning for growth, because you need to plan for growth across the entire customer life cycle. It's not just about, you know, elevating a chief revenue officer, right? We're really talking about a strategic member of the C suite here, so that Chief growth officer is becoming more and more prevalent and and more and more leading companies have that role installed.
What's really kind of interesting in supporting that is that ascendancy of what we would call rev ops to more growth ops, really, where you're seeing, you know, again, that strategic middle office, not just being kind of part of the bean counting in the deal desk, but really turning more into a strategic office where we're thinking about approaches to growth, thinking about optimizing workflows and key business processes and taking a leading role in how we utilize technology to optimize our growth strategies, you know, because they really have that interesting they're not as mired in the the weeds that, like sales leaders are.
They're not totally just thinking about campaigns and content the way a marketing might be. And they're not stuck with, you know, fire drills and keeping customers happy the way chief customer officers are. They can really attack the issue strategically and have that really great vantage point. So that's really interesting. And of course, in the age of AI, in the title, AI is a catalyst, but it's not driving these changes, these changes and these, you know, disruptions have been here, and they're affecting us. The great thing about AI is it allows even the smallest organization to take on these challenges head on, a little faster, a little better, a little cheaper, right? So it really is a catalyst and an accelerator for kind of rethinking your growth strategy, but it's not the reason we're making these changes, right? So it's important to have that perspective. Also in the report, I talk about four elements of a modern growth strategy. And you know, some foundational elements right that you really need to be thinking about as you rethink your approach to growth. And then finally, 10 questions that you can ask your self or the organization or your C suite as you rethink your growth strategy, or even just level set, and say, you know, where are we in our growth strategies?
So again, this is a really important report for growth leaders, for Chief growth officers, for CROs and for other C suite who are really thinking about growth and understanding the challenges, the pressures and all the changes we've been facing over the last, you know, decade plus, and how we can really approach these head on, leveraging AI to make it maybe a little easier, A little more cost effective and get more outsized results for these new strategies. So it's definitely a report worth checking out. If you're a client, you can access it in the library today, and if you're not, just contact us and find out how to be a client, because this is a this is kind of a can't miss report for growth leaders. Thanks a lot. You.