Organizing marketing in industrial high-tech firms - The role of internal marketing relationships

The need for more flexible and often temporary types of organizational stru ctures in high-technology companies has resulted in an increasing use of te ams and project groups employing special know-how and expertise in carrying out marketing activities. These form partly planned and partly informal in tra-corporation networks. We contend that the handling of these intra-organ izational relationships between the different marketing units in industrial high-tech companies is a key prerequisite for the successful management of their customer relationships. This argument is supported by the findings o f a multiple-case study, investigating four major industrial process automa tion producers (ABB, Honeywell, Measurer, Valmet Automation). The main find ings suggest the dismantling of traditional marketing departments in favor of a relatively large collection of marketing-related units and structures. The development of these internal marketing units, the establishment of go od communications between them, and the coordination of their activities pr esented major challenges for the case companies. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.