Information Flow and Decentralized Decision Making in Marketing

Klasson Charles R. Olm Kenneth W. , “Managerial Implications of Integrated Business Operations,” California Management Review, VIII:1 (Fall 1965), 25.

See Dearden John , “How to Organize Information Systems,” Harvard Business Review, XLIII:2 (March–April 1965), 69–71.

Cyert R. M. Feigenbaum E. A. March J. G. , “Models in a Behavioral Theory of the Firm,” Behavioral Science, IV:2 (April 1959), 82.

The results of an experimental study that supports this contention are presented in my “Horizontal Information Flow: An Exploratory Study,” Journal of the Academy of Management, VII:1 (March 1964), 21–33.

This discussion is in terms of operating units rather than the company as a whole because in a highly decentralized company the operating units generally will be profit responsibility centers. In this type of a situation each profit center is a quasi-autonomous company. Obviously, what is said about operating units applies equally to the company as a whole.

The marketing information activity may be broken down into more specialized units than is shown in Figure 1, if the need for such specialization exists. For instance, an accounting data analysis unit may be established by those companies who believe that analyzing internal records is important enough to have a separate unit do the work.

The other proposals are found in Uhl Kenneth P. , “Better Management of Market Information,” Business Horizons, IX:1 (Spring 1966), 75–82; and Kotler Philip , “A Design for the Firm's Marketing Nerve Center,” Business Horizons, XI:3 (Fall 1966), 63–74.

Rather than just sending all the “raw” information it receives, Information Center #1 may put the relevant information into a short, meaningful report that is then forwarded to Decision Unit #1.

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, California Statewide Information System Study, July 30, 1965.

For a more complete discussion of this technique, see Kotler Philip , “The Use of Mathematical Models in Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, XXVII:4 (Oct. 1963), 40–41.

Reported in “Marketing Intelligence Systems: A Dew Line for Marketing Men,” Business Management, Jan. 1966, p. 33.

Ibid., pp. 32–34 ff.