South Africa, Nov. 24 -- Things like your website, your data, your social media accounts, your CRM, and even your Google tools. Essentially, the stuff that makes your marketing work.

If you're outsourcing these functions - and you absolutely should if you want expert execution - you still need to make sure that you retain complete ownership of these assets. To be clear, ownership doesn't mean doing the work yourself. It's about having access, so your marketing and brand partners and internal teams can do their best work without delays or roadblocks.

It may sound like a redundant statement. It's your marketing and your brand, of course, you own the assets. But do you really?

We've seen it all. Clients locked out of their own websites. S...