Converge: Transforming Business at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology

Chapter 9

How to Change Your Organizational Structure

So you’ve got your convergence mantra, you’ve prioritized your projects, and you’ve figured out how to tell your story. Now what?

You may immediately be struck by the rather unpleasant feeling that you’re unable to make the changes you know you need to make. Perhaps you don’t have the right personnel in place. Or maybe it’s a matter of job descriptions: No one is tasked to perform the work you need to get done. If your company was born in the pre-Internet era, it’s very likely that your organizational structure is ill-suited to develop the projects on your lists. Maybe there’re past failings telling you that this kind of convergence experience won’t work within the setup you’ve got. Or it’s the simple realization that you’re not equipped to make the changes you need to make.

So how do you change this?

For many enterprises, the dis-integration of marketing and technology is a root cause of much dysfunction. It’s the culprit behind missed deadlines and the reason for why projects stall and fail. It explains why the experiences that brands created don’t live up to expectations. Throughout this book, we’ve talked about breaking down the silos, and although we’re serious about the sentiment, we’re also being slightly hyperbolic for effect when we use terms like blowing up silos. Of course, we’re not asking you to strip your organization free of structure. That would be encouraging a form of business suicide. Organizational charts ...