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2.6 Customer departmentation 
An organisation may organise its activities on the basis of types of customer, or market segment.
(a) 
Departmentation by customer is commonly associated with 
sales departments
and selling effort, 
but it might also be used by a jobbing or contracting firm where a team of managers may be 
given the responsibility of liaising with major customers (eg discussing specifications and 
completion dates, quality of work, progress chasing etc). 
(b) 
Many businesses distinguish between 
business customers 
and 
consumers
. 
QUESTION 
Types of organisation
 
Looking at the 'Product/Brand Organisation' chart following Section 2.4 above, what types of 
organisation can you identify, and why are these appropriate for their purposes? What 
added
type of 
organisation might this firm use, and in what circumstances? 
ANSWER 

At the head office level, there is 
functional
organisation. This enables standardisation of policy 
and activity in key 'staff' or support functions shared by the various divisions. 

At divisional level, there is 
product/brand
organisation. This allows the distinctive culture and 
attributes of each product/brand to be addressed in production processes and marketing 
approach. 

For each product/brand, there is 
functional
organisation, enabling specialist expertise to be 
directed at the different activities required to produce, market and distribute a product. 

This firm may further organise its marketing department by 
customer
, if its customer base 
includes key (high-value, long-term) customer accounts with diverse service needs, for example.

It may further organise its sales and distribution departments by