7. Organizing an Industrial Company’s Marketing and Sales Department

Designing a fitting commercial (marketing & sales) organizational structure for a business unit has been an overlooked corporate task. The consequences of a good or a wrong sales organization structure are abysmal. A proper sales organizational structure keeps customers well served and has a major economic impact for the company. On the other hand, a wrong sales structure usually goes unnoticed by the higher management, who in turn blame other reasons to explain lower sales and specification mistakes.The present chapter explores both simple and complex sales (e.g. cross-selling or complex industrial chains) and marketing organizational structures for an industrial business unit. Key requisites are company 'what-to-do' definitions and task specialization. A three-variable tool is here presented to structure global or regional sales teams. The structure of an Industrial Marketing Department is addressed on the basis of market complexity and best-practises already discussed in this volume.