The rapidly changing marketing environment is making it harder than ever for marketers to compete effectively. Many traditional approaches to organizing the marketing function result in a group that can’t respond to evolving market complexity quickly enough.

Recognizing this challenge, marketers are struggling to reinvent their marketing organizations so decision making can keep pace with the changing marketplace.

Organizing for Growth
The winners in today’s market are able to rapidly identify and mobilize to capture new growth opportunities. By focusing on building marketing capabilities that link directly with the strategic and economic objectives of the business, McKinsey helps clients create marketing organizations that contribute directly to growth.

We typically begin with an analysis of the company’s strategic and profit goals; these elements help define the structure, skills, and style required for the new organization. Rather than build generic capabilities, we build precision marketing capabilities designed to achieve targeted marketing and business goals.

Tailored Support
Our programs can be grouped into three broad areas:

• Integrated marketing capability building programs. Companies facing a discontinuity in their industry or a major strategic repositioning often need to significantly upgrade their overall marketing capability. We identify the two or three marketing skills a company must excel in to achieve its business objectives and develop a comprehensive program to pinpoint the talent, build the capabilities, and design the organizational processes and metrics required.

• Marketing organizations. We help companies change their organizational approach to accommodate the greater complexities of on-line and off-line channels and keep ahead of market pace. This involves moving away from rigid structures to a team-based organization that can evolve rapidly. We focus on developing accelerated decision making processes and a more fluid structure. With enhanced processes and structures in place, our clients are able to anticipate and build the specialized capabilities they need to drive pace ahead of the competition.

• Functional skill development. When companies need to rapidly enhance a particular skill – pricing, CRM, branding, or sales and channel management, for example – we design a skill building program to help develop a world-class capability.