XT…未来的营销组织（作者：Razorfish）

Competing with Speed During the 1980s, Rosalia Mera, co-founderof the Spanish apparel retailer Zara, wasinstrumental in pioneering a concept knownas fast fashion. Unlike its competitors, whoregularly require six months to get newdesigns to the retail floor, Zara often does itin two weeks— a feat it has achieved throughinnovative supply chain practices driven bysenior management’s empowerment of teamsin local markets to make rapid decisions. Usingitsthink global, act localapproach, Zara nowoperates in 88 countries with four times theprofitability of its primary rivals. decided to rip up her detailed three-year plan,explaining that in her sector, predicting futurechallenges wasn’t practical, or even possible.Searching for an alternative technique, shewas inspired by Jack Welch, who believedthat business performance was better servedby building an organization with the agility torespond to change faster than competitors. In this piece from Razorfish, we explore: The Blueprint That Organized20th-Century Business Why Current Models Aren’t Equippedfor Agility and Speed After Mera became the world’s wealthiest self-made businesswoman, she was often askedabout the secret to her success. Her responsetypically began with a story about the day she How New Models Offer a SolutionRecommendations for Business Leaders The Blueprint ThatOrganized 20th-CenturyBusiness Before we dive into the details of modern organizationscience, let’s take a quick look at how we got here. By the early 1900s, Union and Pacific Railways had merged to form an organizationof 80,000 people managing 55,000 miles of track. Its leaders, wanting to expandthe organization even more, needed to scale its many functions. To do so, theyinvented a centralized model supported by a layer of decentralization: eight vicepresidents managing each of the company’s eight railways. As the company expanded its leaders added yet another layer, this one consistingof group vice presidents, each of whom oversaw two to three business units. Thishighly vertical structure became the blueprint that organized 20th-century business:strong leaders at the top pushing decisions down the organization in a command-and-control style. External change outpacesmost organizations’ capacityto adapt, leaving them preyto more agile competitors.New organization strategiesprovide a way forward. Figure 1: 20th-CenturyOrganization Design Mimickedthe Railroad Industry Next Came the Information Age In the Information Age, organizations began toresemble hospitals, universities—even symphonyorchestras, where individual contributors becamevalued participants in big strategic decisions.Hence, organizations became wider, flatter andless hierarchical, but more siloed. After World War II, the efficacy of the model shownin Figure 1 showed signs of decline. The economybegan a rapid horizontal expansion as scores ofnew industries were added with each decade. Thecentury concluded, of course, with the InformationAge, which brought armies of knowledge workersand technical experts who, while not executivesor even managers, had the knowledge and theexpertise to make big strategic decisions. Why CurrentModels Aren’tEquipped forAgility and Speed Now, the economy is experiencingyet another horizontal expansionas it becomes connected— as we puttechnology directly into the hands ofempowered customers, giving themindependent, personalized accessto information and tools to evaluateand buy products on their own. But in our zeal to fulfill customers’ appetite forself-service, we’ve slowed them down, asking themto traverse our internal departments, or silos, toget what they need (getting passed from internalorganization to internal organization is a classicexample of this phenomenon). But if the fragmented customer experience wasthe first symptom to challenge the health of themodern organization, it also challenged us to lookat the employee experience. As it turns out, ouremployees don’t like traversing silos any more thanour customers do. Competing in a Connected Economy How NewModels Offera Solution Now, all sectors are imitating technology andprofessional services as the economy becomesmore connected. A perfect example is Nike, aprovider of athletic apparel, and now a providerof athletic advice, given that it has appended itsphysical products with digital services. Seizing opportunities from a connected economymakes organizations even more reliant on the cross-functional, multidiscipline team, characterized byagility, rapid decision making and a penchant fortaking risks. Cross-discipline teams are also requiredto deliver today’s multifaceted customer experiencesolutions, which are powered by the creative use ofart, science and technology. Leading marketing organizationsare characterized by collaboration,solving customer problems withcross-functional, multidisciplineteams. But while the leader of sucha team is responsible for a teamgoal, his or her team membersoften still pay allegiance to