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Many marketing departments are still structured
around either function or product (or a
hybrid of the two).
A typical “functional” structure
is:
Another increasingly common structure is
based around a semi-decentralised model,
with a small centralised marketing team
and decentralised marketing resources
in the business / product areas. In this
structure, product area marketers often
dual report to the central function and
product management, but frequently with
prime reporting responsibility to the product
area (example below):
Decentralised marketing resources typically
drive business development-sales efforts,
direct marketing campaigns and tailored
relationship marketing strategies, calling
on the central function for specific corporate-level
services (e.g. brand management, market
research, marketing supplier management).
Common pitfalls with the semi-decentralised
model are duplication of effort and expenditure,
brand inconsistency, sub-optimal use of
suppliers and lack of a broader organisational
overview and vision.
But these traditional structures (and any
variations thereof) are not especially well-equipped
to meet the two principal challenges for
marketing in the future:
a) Anticipating and meeting customer/client
needs (i.e “understanding the customer
experience”)
b) Identifying and rapidly capitalising
on opportunities for product, service, channel
and branding
innovations.
This is because of, in our view, a number
of inherent deficiencies in traditional
structures:
- They are built around internal operating
needs and structures not the actual customer/client
experience
- They place a heavy reliance (even with
access to external suppliers) on full-time
internal resources being inherently
creative and innovative
- They endorse – in most instances
- a hierarchical structure, encouraging
a “top-down” approach and culture
(making it difficult for ideas to be generated
from all levels)
- They consign the marketing function to
a very defined area of operation, inhibiting
the required agility and flexibility
to act quickly or to venture “outside
the square”
- The centralised part of the marketing
function is often too removed from the coalface
to spot genuine opportunities
for innovation, while marketers working
in the line can lack the bigger picture
perspective required to understand
the utility of product and service innovations
for the wider organisation.
Marketing structures of the future must
be able to incorporate and embrace the following
needs:
• How can we move quickly to meet
customer /client needs and expectations?
• What structure will best enable
our organisation to seize new market opportunities
• What must we do to be agile and
fast moving?
We consider that the optimal marketing model
of the future, will be based around the
belief and practice that:
• The customer-client experience
for each organisation will drive the type
and scope of “marketing” activities,
initiatives and ultimately resources –
mapping the customer experience,
therefore, is a fundamental
first step in determining what activities
and skills are essential
• It is everyone’s job (not
just Marketing) to identify new opportunities
and innovations – but Marketing
can nourish and steward this ethos
• The scope of Marketing’s responsibility
(and its size and structure) will evolve
continually to reflect changing
customer-client needs and opportunities
• The best product/service/branding
opportunities will be prioritised and fast
tracked by applying predictive modelling
tools and streamlining decision- making
by senior management
• To maximise flexibility, people
will be hired for marketing roles not
jobs in relation to specific projects and
initiatives (and these may be outsourced
to strategic partners & consultants,
undertaken by internal resources seconded
from other parts of the organisation, or
resources hired in from outside). Marketing’s
role will be as a project coordinator at
the centre.
The diagram below illustrates the marketing
structure of the future:
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