BOSTON, MA (NAMC) - Aquent, a global professional services firm, today announced the launch of a new staffing business, Aquent Marketing IT. This latest move addresses the growing need for collaboration between marketing and IT departments—a crucial strategy for today’s complex marketing environment where data access, management and analysis play an even more critical role in a marketing department’s success. Kicking off today’s launch is a new Aquent video, “Leveraging IT for Marketing Success,” with AMA sales and marketing vice president Nancy Costopulos. More information about Aquent Marketing IT, as well as the video, is available at http://www.marketingit.aquent.com.

President of the new business is Aquent co-founder Steve Kapner. “Aquent has worked with marketing and IT departments at the world’s leading companies for 20 years,” says Kapner. “Recently, we’ve seen a significant surge in the demand for experts in data management and analytics—people who can bridge the knowledge gap, or intersection, between these two functions. As companies shift their campaigns from mass to targeted media and segment their customers by behavior instead of demographics, they are discovering that this level of predictive modeling requires more and more people with skills and experience that cut across both marketing and IT.”

In her video, Costopulos discusses how marketers require an integration of business data and customer data across all lines of business and how they need that information aggregated so they can focus on customer behavior. IT and all the resources and expertise that it can bring can really help a marketer determine who the customer is and what kind of relationship this customer really wants. She contends that when marketers better understand how to utilize technology, they will soon realize how IT can facilitate their ability to make better marketing decisions. On the other hand, this collaboration helps IT to become far more strategic within the organization.

Since co-founding Aquent in 1986, Steve Kapner has played a central role in developing and implementing the company’s strategy, in roles ranging from billable consultant to head of both creative and IT staffing operations. His experience also includes stints with the Boston Consulting Group and in managing venture investments for Harvard University. Kapner earned both an MBA and an AB, with honors, from Harvard.