Imagine that you are the vice president of e-commerce for national cross-channel retailer. If you are like most of your peers, you probably rose through the ranks of a retail IT organization, or perhaps an IT vendor. You likely report to a chief information officer, and your primary success criteria is the profitability of your e-commerce business.

Unfortunately, your role and your perceived success may be based on a false premise-that your job to is to sell merchandise on your web site.

While online sales and profitability are certainly important, they may contribute far less to your organization's overall success than digital marketing's effect on brick-and-mortar.

For instance, your online sales last year totaled $250m, but digital efforts influenced $2.5bn in your retail stores.

So, you're no longer an IT professional; you are a merchant and a marketer.

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