The challenge is getting to this point. Those who are effecting this shift must understand tangible growth is a multifaceted process that requires culture change. Different companies have taken different paths toward reinventing their marketing organizations. One that has achieved success is General Electric.

GE needed to demonstrate how collaboration between corporate and business unit marketers could result in the best thinking of both being put into play. Rather than force-feeding GE’s 11 disparate business units with the new corporate brand strategy (positioned around °∞Imagination at Work°±), corporate and two of the units partnered in test-driving the initiative, working out the kinks and ensuring that the effort would be meaningful across the organization. This collaboration paid off in substantial improvements in external perceptions of GE as an innovator (up 35 percent) and as a dynamic industry presence (up 50 percent).

As businesses recognize the power of brand and marketing to transform an organization, they also realize the ability to tap into that power requires the right structure (supported by the right people with the right capabilities) to be in place. To do that takes a collaborative effort to leverage and integrate the best of both marketing worlds-at center and at the business units-with a structure that best supports the business model and strategy.