ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the issue of marketing centralisation as part of the departmentation issue that is, the vertical division of marketing responsibilities in the large complex organisation. Where there is the potential for both centralised marketing responsibilities as well as decentralised marketing departments. This style of analysis was then extended to the marketing department at the business unit level. Thus, the existence, form and structure of a marketing department may be analysed in terms of the information-processing burden imposed by the environment and the organisation itself. Finally, the chapter examines views about the future of the marketing organisation, recognising the growing instability of organisational forms and changing management orientation. It was seen that predictions include the possible disintegration of the mature marketing department, the 'hiving off' of certain marketing tasks to other areas, a reallocation and relocation of routinised, as opposed to developmental or strategic, marketing functions, and, indeed, the disappearance of the marketing department altogether.
