Specializing in specific martech products can drive deep proficiency yet may limit overall adaptability
Specializing in one martech product, say, a CRM or content management platform, can build strong expertise. It can also offer immediate value to your organization. You get someone who knows every button, every shortcoming, every workaround. They work faster and leverage the community to gain deeper insights. This kind of focus makes people operate with precision.
But there’s a real ceiling here. When someone gets too comfortable within one product environment, they stop paying attention to what’s changing in the market. Tools evolve. Vendors shift focus. Competitors respond faster to platform shortcomings. If your team relies too heavily on a product loyalist, you risk missing out on advancements happening elsewhere in the ecosystem. They won’t see when it’s time to pivot, because their reference point didn’t change.
That’s a problem if your organization is scaling, merging tech stacks, or responding to market pressure. What worked five years ago likely isn’t optimal now, especially in a fast-moving space like martech. A narrow viewpoint anchored in product preference slows experimentation and, eventually, slows down the company. Leaders should encourage tactical specialization without allowing it to become tunnel vision.
Tony Bryne, President of Real Story Group, said it clearly: “Vendors and platforms come and go… vendor attention and roadmaps can wander.” If someone’s entire operational approach is wrapped around one vendor’s tool, they’ll be the last to notice when that roadmap goes off-course. Practitioners have to lead future movement, not follow a platform that isn’t keeping pace.
Bottom line: hire for depth, but train for breadth. Create space for your team to stay sharp, see shifts coming, and adapt early. That’s how you build lasting capability.
Recruiting based on platform-specific expertise
It’s happened too many times: companies that hire developers because they know PHP, then plug them into a Drupal role. Yes, Drupal is built on PHP. But that doesn’t mean any PHP developer can jump into Drupal and deliver results from day one.
Drupal has a unique logic, a defined structure, and a big community that plays by its own rules. It takes time to learn that even if you know the underlying code. If you skip platform-specific experience during hiring, you pay for it later in longer ramp-up times, misconfigurations, and slower releases.
Some companies try to fix this with internal support, by assigning a veteran Drupal developer to get the new hire onboarded. Others rely on vendors. Both strategies work if done well. But wouldn’t it be simpler to ask upfront for platform experience, even if just as a preferred qualification?
There’s a bigger message here for leaders: job postings reflect business intent. If your posting doesn’t mention the tools your people need on day one, you’ll likely end up with the wrong candidate. Technical competence alone isn’t enough. Platform familiarity matters, especially when the business runs on it.
That being said, if you already hired someone with strong core skills but no platform background, don’t panic. Set up mentorship. Bring in vendor support. But don’t repeat the mistake. Get your hiring aligned with your stack. This alone can save your team months.
Structured support and training can help bridge the expertise gap for new hires specialized in specific platforms
If you’ve hired someone with strong potential but limited experience on a specific martech platform, your success depends on how fast they ramp up. That doesn’t happen on its own. You need a system.
Leverage the experts already inside your company. They’re the ones who know where the platform breaks and how to keep it productive. Getting them involved in structured onboarding for new hires isn’t a waste of their time, it’s a multiplier. The faster the new hire becomes competent, the sooner they contribute real value to the tech stack.
If your team doesn’t have that depth internally, look outward. Most vendors offer training, documentation, and community resources. Don’t wait for the new hire to stumble onto these. Give them a direct path and expected outcomes early.
This kind of structure does more than fill skill gaps. It shows that you’re committed to growth, which attracts and retains strong talent. It also aligns teams under the same operating standards. Whether you’re working in CRM, marketing automation, or content management systems, consistency matters. It reduces bugs, avoids misconfigurations, and improves time-to-value.
Leadership needs to treat training like infrastructure. Low upfront investment leads to high operational cost. Set the standard high, and make it scalable. You don’t want ad-hoc onboarding every time someone new joins. Training should be a deliberate process that enables platform fluency.
Deep product loyalty can obstruct broader technology adaptability and hinder optimal martech stack configurations
When someone is deeply committed to one martech product, they often double down on it, regardless of whether it’s still the best aligned with the business. That’s understandable. They know it well. They’ve built processes around it. They’ve seen results. But if that attachment becomes inflexible, it slows broader innovation.
Technology doesn’t operate in isolation. Most martech stacks today involve multiple integrated tools. If one platform lags or doesn’t cooperate with others, it impacts everything else. Product specialists may resist switching to alternatives that are more compatible, because switching takes effort, and it temporarily reduces output. But refusing to adapt creates technical debt and stack friction that grows over time.
This kind of resistance isn’t just a technical issue, it becomes cultural. Teams begin defending legacy tools, not because they’re better, but because they’re familiar. That mindset can hold back broader stack optimization and make leadership reluctant to initiate change, even when the strategic case is clear.
Executives need to lead on this. Platform choices shouldn’t optimize for short-term individual comfort, they should optimize for long-term cross-functional effectiveness. And yes, shift always comes with a learning curve. But that curve is temporary. The missed opportunities from staying stuck are permanent.
If a transition is necessary and likely to trigger resistance, use change management techniques designed for tech adoption. Set the vision. Make the benefits clear. Support your team through the transition period. The result will be a stack that moves the entire organization forward, not just one department.
Employee and stakeholder preferences influence tool adoption decisions
Sometimes, the tools you end up using aren’t chosen by strategy, they’re chosen by influence. Senior stakeholders can push for a specific analytics or marketing platform simply because they’ve used it before or because they had a poor past experience with its competitor. That push can override better options that make more sense from a technical or integration standpoint.
These decisions aren’t always based on performance data or alignment with the current tech stack. They’re often based on personal familiarity or risk avoidance. If two executives can’t agree, and neither gives ground, the organization may settle for using incompatible tools just to maintain internal harmony. The tools may function, but the integrations are weak, the workflows messy, and long-term efficiency is compromised.
This is where leadership needs to step in, rational decision-making must take precedence over preference. Platform selection should be guided by how well a tool fits with the current stack, how scalable it is, and how effectively it supports business objectives. When strategic alignment is deprioritized in favor of personal comfort, the organization pays the price in complexity and cost later.
That said, user adoption still matters. A technically superior platform that no one uses effectively doesn’t deliver ROI either. If two tools are close in performance, and stakeholders are deeply invested in one of them, then selecting that option may be more sustainable. But that should be a calculated trade-off, not a default.
For executives, the real challenge is balancing governance with inclusion. Let the specialists have a voice, but make sure final decisions align with broader systems and long-term outcomes.
Building system-agnostic skills in areas such as strategy and analytics
The most valuable practitioners today aren’t just product specialists, they’re system thinkers. Strategy and analytics skills apply across tools, across vendors, and across changes in platform leadership. These people aren’t locked into the success or failure of any single platform. They adapt, and they bring adaptable value to the companies they work with.
Martech moves fast. Vendors sunset features. APIs change. New competitors arrive with better integration or lower cost. Practitioners who only know one tool have fewer options when the landscape shifts. Those who craft their expertise around platform-agnostic functions, like customer data modeling, attribution strategy, or automation logic, stay relevant no matter what tools are in play.
This career-wide flexibility creates business resilience. It also makes hiring easier. When you’re recruiting someone who understands key concepts independent of any specific vendor, onboarding is faster, transitions are smoother, and rearranging the stack doesn’t require replacing the team.
Sarah McNamara, a RevOps consultant, said it best on LinkedIn: “If you become an expert in just one tool, you’re niched down. In consulting, the riches are in the niches, but so is the depression when that tool goes out of style.” She also pointed out, “Once you’re system agnostic, the world is your oyster.” That’s true for both individual practitioners and the companies that hire them.
Executives should be encouraging teams to develop portable skills. Instead of rewarding platform loyalty, reward strategic versatility. It’s the smartest way to future-proof both your workforce and your martech stack.
Key takeaways for leaders
- Specialization limits flexibility: Deep expertise in one martech tool boosts performance short-term but can blind teams to better-fit solutions as the technology landscape evolves. Leaders should promote broad awareness alongside depth to improve long-term adaptability.
- Hire for both core skills and platform fit: Candidates with general programming knowledge may struggle without specific platform experience. Prioritize platform familiarity in hiring to reduce onboarding delays and avoid early inefficiencies.
- Invest in structured onboarding and support: Internal experts and vendor resources can close early knowledge gaps for new hires. Proactively building scalable training processes shortens ramp-up time and raises long-term team performance.
- Avoid loyalty-driven tech inertia: When employees favor a particular tool, they may resist needed changes that enhance stack performance. Leaders should regularly audit for fit and encourage platform transitions when integration or capability improves elsewhere.
- Balance influence with integration logic: Stakeholder preferences can drive suboptimal tool choices that clash with stack strategy. Ensure platform decisions are based on technical alignment and business impact, not past bias.
- Build portable, system-agnostic skills: Team members with strengths in strategy and analytics adapt faster as tools and vendors shift. Invest in these foundational competencies to future-proof roles and maintain operational agility.
