ABSTRACT
Once the hard work of segmentation has been completed and a strategy has been chosen, the basics of marketing must be put in place. Nothing is more basic than the organization structure. The design and implementation of this structure can empower employees to make the strategy work or place insurmountable obstacles in the way of this success. Marketing can be organized around functions, product lines, target markets, or some combination of these. The most common structure used by multinational organizations is the product structure. One key decision to be made in international marketing is the degree of independence to be given to local organizations. The first and most important driver of organization structure is strategy. Continual tinkering with the structure is not an optimum solution in most cases, because employees will become unsettled by the changes: it is probably better to build in the required degree of flexibility when first designing the corporate structure.
