We recently held a small client summit where we brought a handful of our clients together to network and share their experiences with multi-channel marketing and commerce. I took on the job of facilitating the conversation, and I came up with 20 provocative questions that I felt would drive some interesting dialogue. The first question we pulled out of the hat (it was actually a bowl) was.

"What is the biggest obstacle your company is facing in adapting to a multichannel world, and what are you doing to overcome it?" - The first person quickly said "my organization gets in the way" two and a half hours later and we never made it to question number two. In fact everyone had something to add - turf wars, incentives etc. Not a single one had anything to share regarding a solution and these were all "C" level folks from some very big brands you all would recognize.

So now I'm putting my team to work on a whitepaper on the subject of "organizational design in a multi-channel world"

I'm very interested to hear from you. Do you have any first hand experience on how someone has broken down those barriers? Any suggestions on what industries, companies or individuals "get it"?

I'll share some preliminary thoughts in the next few post