Consumers are demanding a digital experience that seeps in marketing rather than splashes them in the face with it. The question is, how will companies orchestrate this and who will be at the helm?

“Marketing was always a silo,” John Furrier (@furrier) (pictured, right) told Peter Burris (@plburris) (pictured, left), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during today’s Oracle Modern Marketing Experience in Las Vegas, Nevada. (*Disclosure below.)

Meanwhile the trend in data and cloud computing is toward horizontal integration where value propositions differentiate at the application. “What does that mean for marketing in a digital business?” Furrier asked.

If companies go digital out of the gate to the moment of truth with the customer, is marketing now in every piece along the way? And with silos breaking down to deliver a coherent experience for customers, will there emerge an overseer to funnel it to them?

“Customers themselves are demanding that they be treated digitally in some coherent manner,” Burris said, adding that tensions between marketing sales departments still exist in most companies. Since marketing typically has the most touchpoints with the customer throughout the pipeline, he wondered if they can be “the orchestrator of a coherent and holistic engagement strategy with the customer.”

CRM not cutting it in digital world

Right now, the closest thing most companies have to a full blanket over their customers is the Customer Relations Management system, which isn’t very close, said Burris. Salesforce.com has put out the best CRM, he said, yet its integrative flow does not mirror the experience customers expect.

Salesforce’s software-as-a-service offerings are a bit disjointed and awkward; a full re-platforming is probably needed, Furrier agreed. “I think that’s a better approach than trying to take Salesforce and make it work over here,” he said.

This is why Oracle Corp. has an opportunity to corner this market, Furrier and Burris agreed. “Oracle has had an integration strategy that’s been kind of horizontal,” Furrier said.

The company’s integrating of its marketing, sales and product clouds could provide a more seamless marketing experience than Salesforce, Burris added.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Oracle’s Modern Marketing Experience. (*Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner at Oracle’s Modern Marketing Experience. The conference sponsor, Oracle, does not have editorial oversight of content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE