Anchor enterprise innovation in purpose, not pressure

The enterprise technology market right now is fast and loud. Every week brings a new acronym, a new vendor promise, a new “must-have” capability. And for leaders navigating this environment, the noise creates a specific kind of pressure—the pressure to move, even when it’s not clear where you’re headed. I get it, believe me. I’ve seen this happen before. The instinct to keep pace is strong, especially when your competitors seem to be sprinting. Urgency without a strategic framework doesn’t result in innovation as much as it creates exposure. Not ideal. When asked to consider what common mistakes companies make when trying to innovate, I didn’t have to think hard for my answer. It’s failing to set clear guardrails—and even more critically, failing to communicate them to important stakeholders. AI is the obvious example where urgency creates risk that outweighs innovation. Without clear policies, employees may unknowingly share sensitive data with unvetted tools or platforms with murky data practices. The intention is productivity, but at what price? At Ivanti, we made the deliberate choice to create a governance committee specifically to vet any third-party tools we are looking to use, specifically because of concerns about data ingestion and security. That’s just one example of ways that we have worked to offset risk, but I could fill (many!) pages with others. THE BUYER HAS ALREADY CHANGED—HAVE YOU? While leaders grapple with internal innovation pressure, something I’d consider equally significant is happening on the other side of the table. Enterprise buyers are more autonomous, anonymous, and self-directed than they’ve ever been. By the time they reach a vendor, they’ve already completed their research. Forget persuasion; at most, they are looking for validation. And, increasingly, they may not need even that. To me, that buyer evolution calls for a different kind of innovation. Not the flashy, speedy, press-release kind––the kind that earns trust. When we brought together marketing, customer success, and renewals into one unified team at Ivanti, the structural change was in service of something very specific. We were making sure that every customer interaction—from discovery through renewal—reflects a consistent, honest experience. The right person, with the right message, through the right channel, at the right moment. That kind of alignment does not happen by accident, as I’m sure you already know. The intentionality required starts with understanding what your customers need, then organizing around that understanding. To put it another way, you can’t trend-hop your way there. EFFICIENCY AND ORIGINALITY HAVE TO COEXIST One of the trickiest tensions within this topic lies between AI-powered efficiency and original thought. AI has made marketing teams faster (genuinely faster, as campaign development cycles have compressed in ways that would have seemed impossible even two years ago). Teams can turn raw data into targeted campaigns in days instead of weeks, freeing up bandwidth for more creative, impactful work. That tricky part shows up when everyone is training AI on the same publicly available content, and the outputs start to converge. Thoughtful oversight is so important for keeping AI-generated material from becoming formulaic and losing the authentic connection that makes customer engagement meaningful. And if teams stop exercising their own creative muscles, the output will reflect it. We’ve all started to see the kind of homogenous, clichéd output that shows up when AI gets left in charge. I set a clear boundary early: no AI-generated likenesses of my colleagues or me. No fake images, no synthetic videos. The line between helpful efficiency and manufactured authenticity is worth drawing in advance, before something goes sideways. TALK ABOUT OUTCOMES INSTEAD OF HYPE I understand why no one wants to feel like they’re behind. Especially in industries that already prize warp speed (ahem, like tech!). But there’s a reason I gravitate toward credible leaders who don’t let shiny object syndrome distract them from what we’re really here for: business outcomes. Retention rates, renewal velocity, ARR growth, EBITDA impact, employee and customer experiences. Those outcomes come from trusted tools anchored by human oversight. If you’re a marketing leader (or any functional leader) struggling to earn credibility with your CEO and CFO, ask yourself if you’re scrambling to spout out the newest AI buzzword or hyping up activity metrics, when what people really want to hear about is financial outcomes. CLARITY IS ALWAYS THE RIGHT ANSWER Given all the pressure on leaders, it’s no wonder that they respond to all the change wrought by AI by doing more, faster, louder. But that’s so dangerous, and it sacrifices real gains for short-term dazzle. It sounds counterintuitive, but the more AI pushes toward clichéd, homogenous outcomes, the more I think human skill sets will matter more. Collaboration, original thinking, adaptability, and above all, clarity. Clarity in communication, clarity of business objectives, clarity of purpose. Clarity in what differentiates your team, your product, your services from all the rest. Clarity that the innovation you’re seeking is grounded in reality. There will always be hype. If all you focus on is chasing it, the best outcome you can hope for is just that: hype.We still have the opportunity to reframe things, take a breath, and innovate with clarity. Let’s not waste it. Melissa Puls is chief marketing officer, SVP customer success and renewals at Ivanti.