What should a world-class marketing department look like?

The other day a client of mine asked me to give some thought to the question: "what does a successful marketing department look like?"

On the face of it, it’s quite an innocuous, reasonable question. But the further I got into thinking about it, and the more opinions I got from my colleagues and other clients, the more I realised what a can of worms the subject is.

This document is a written summary of these discussions and thoughts. I’d like to start by stating what this document isn’t. It’s not a fully researched, academic, authoritative white paper from a marketing guru. Neither is it exhaustive or complete. What it is, I hope, is an honest and considered response to an intriguing question which hopefully will give you some food for thought, based largely on experience from the coal face.

It also contains some insight and opinion from a number of colleagues and clients who were kind enough to respond to me through the course of writing.

Martin Christopher, Professor of Marketing & Logistics at Cranfield was kind enough to suggest I read the white paper 'Marketing in the New Millenium' by Peter Doyle which I’d recommend to you as further reading on the subject.

You’ll see from its date that it is now quite old, but still very relevant.

Happy reading – Kevin

Words – Kevin Mason
Pictures – Bryan Miles