Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era

• Challenges of marketing in a digital era are discussed.
• 777 marketing executives have rated the importance of these challenges.
• ‘Filling ‘talent gaps’, and implementing ‘actionable metrics’ are important challenges.
• Adjusting the organizational design of marketing is also an important issue.
• Future research areas for marketing in this digital era are discussed based on the results of our study.

Internet usage continues to explode across the world with digital becoming an increasingly important source of competitive advantage in both B2C and B2B marketing. A great deal of attention has been focused on the tremendous opportunities digital marketing presents, with little attention on the real challenges companies are facing going digital. In this study, we present these challenges based on results of a survey among a convenience sample of 777 marketing executives around the globe. The results reveal that filling “talent gaps”, adjusting the “organizational design”, and implementing “actionable metrics” are the biggest improvement opportunities for companies across sectors.