twin pillars – culture and structure – are critical to the achievement
of relationship marketing goals. The first of these, culture, has been
addressed in Chapter 5, but it is important that brief mention is
made of the need to have an organizational structure that is capable
of supporting the company-wide concept of Relationship
Marketing.
The fundamental idea that underpins the six markets framework
is that marketing can no longer be seen as the responsibility of a
single ‘vertical’ function. Instead there has to be a recognition that to
be truly ‘customer facing’ the organization has to move from the
vertical to the ‘horizontal’. In other words, the focus now is upon the
management of the cross-functional processes that we referred to
earlier in this chapter. Managing in the horizontal organization
brings with it some specific challenges:^14
The horizontal corporation seems to be characterised by seven main
trends: organised around process, not task; a flat hierarchy; team man-
agement; measuring performance by customer satisfaction; rewards
based on team performance; maximisation of contacts with suppliers
and customers; informing, training and retraining of employees at all
levels.There is no doubt that one of the biggest hurdles to becoming a cus-
tomer-driven business is the entrenched functional hierarchies that
dominate much of industry. It is only through processes that cus-
tomer value is created and hence it makes sense that the process
rather than the functional task should provide the foundation for
the organizational structure. Equally, the multiple levels that char-
acterize most organizational charts encourage a ‘top down’ mental-
ity and a focus more upon reporting and accounting procedures
than upon responsiveness and flexibility in serving the customer.
Functional ‘silos’ also create narrow, functional managers.
However, in today’s rapidly changing business environment the call
is for more broadly based skills profiles whereby managers can
work effectively in cross-functional teams.
Underpinning any successful relationship marketing strategy
has to be a corporate culture that recognizes that the delivery
of customer and consumer value is the primary purpose of
the business. Obvious though this sounds, it is not always
recognized by those who guide, direct and manage the business.
Relationship marketing strategies can only succeed where
426 Relationship Marketing