The measurement paradox: More data, less clarity.

Measure smarter, make better decisions, and deliver stronger results. That is what kept me up at night when I was sitting in boardrooms as CMO.

It is why I now help others navigate this challenge and why I recently hosted the CMO Leaders Summit 2025 with Accenture Song and SwissMBAs.

The measurement paradox we all face.

I asked the audience a simple question: "How many of you have more data than you did five years ago?" Every hand went up.

Then I asked: "How many of you have more clarity on what actually drives growth?"

Only a few hands stayed raised.

This is the measurement paradox and it extends far beyond marketing. More data, less clarity. More dashboards, harder decisions. More metrics, but less confidence in what actually matters.

The real challenge is not collecting data.

The challenge is transforming overwhelming data into actionable intelligence. We are drowning in metrics whilst starving for insight. Marketing, sales, and finance each track their own numbers, but connecting those dots to understand what truly drives growth? That is where most organisations struggle.

When your teams cannot agree on what success looks like or how to measure it, you cannot optimise it. You make decisions based on gut feel dressed up in spreadsheets.

What leaders are doing differently.

Thomas delivered a brilliant keynote on reinventing marketing with GenAI, showing exactly how to cut through the noise. We followed with candid discussions featuring leaders from Hitachi Energy, Webrepublic, CSL Vifor, Worldline, and Zurich Airport.

The AI demos on digital twins and performance measurement brought everything full circle, showing how technology can help us get there.

The shift that needs to happen.

Stop measuring everything. Start measuring what drives decisions. The organisations that win are not the ones with the most data. They are the ones who know which metrics actually predict growth and align every team around optimising those.

This requires clarity on strategy first, then measurement. Not the other way round.

Why this matters now.

When you bring the right voices together around shared challenges, you help shape where the industry heads next.

That is what summits like this do create space for honest conversation about the problems we all face but rarely admit in public. More data is coming. AI will accelerate it. But without clarity on what matters, we will just drown faster.

The measurement paradox will not solve itself. It requires deliberate choices about what to measure, how to align teams around those metrics, and the discipline to ignore everything else.