Departmentalization
Departmentalization by customer
Departmentalization by customer groups jobs on the basis of a common set of needs or problems of specific customers. For instance, a plumbing firm may group its work according to whether it is serving private sector, public sector, government, or not-for-profit organizations. A current departmentalization trend is to structure work according to customer, using cross-functional teams. This group is chosen from different functions to work together across various departments to interdependently create new products or services. For example, a cross-functional team consisting of managers from accounting, finance, and marketing is created to prepare a technology plan.
Also, Customer departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of common customers or types of customers. Jobs may be grouped according to the type of customer served by the organization. The assumption is that customers in each department have a common set of problems and needs that can best be met by specialists. The sales activities in an office supply firm can be broken down into three departments that serve retail, wholesale and government accounts.
A customer, also client, buyer or purchaser is the buyer or user of the paid products of an individual or organization, mostly called the supplier or seller. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services.
The word derives from "custom," meaning "habit"; a customer was someone who frequented a particular shop, who made it a habit to purchase goods of the sort the shop sold there rather than elsewhere, and with whom the shopkeeper had to maintain a relationship to keep his or her "custom," meaning expected purchases in the future. The word did not refer to those who purchased things at a fair or bazaar, or from a street vendor.
In commercial, market-driven or -oriented organizations, the customer is increasingly seen as the 'raison d'etre' of the supplier. This view only gained general adherence in USA from the 1950s, among others through the work of Philip Kotler. In the Toyota Production System it has been pushed to the forefront of all deliberations, in connection with added value.[citation needed]
Since the 1980s the term customer is also used by non-commercial organizations (local governments, hospitals,doctors practices), usually in a top-down effort to institute greater awareness of the goal of the organization: a shift from self-centered to serving. This shift, however, is often criticized, as the customer in a commercial organization has the freedom of choice, which is often absent when he deals with public services.