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In some industrial organizations, corporate communications is a staff function with a direct reporting link to the executive committee, whereas marketing communications is part of the sales & marketing organization and hence reports to the sales & marketing manager -- or an executive with a similar title.

Is this split a good or a bad idea?

The tasks of both kinds of business communications teams have to be different for this split of communications functions to be valid. In companies that spread these communications functions over two teams, the marketing communications department often focuses on selling products and services to concrete market niches. They are servicing the sales people in generating qualified leads and producing sales collateral. The corporate communications teams on the other hand, are taking care of press relations, brand image and house style, the corporate brochure, the annual newyear client event, the corporate website, and are often project owners of the annual report. At least, that is what I have been able to assess in some companies we are working for.

A major difficulty with the split communications organization, is that you still have to get both teams cooperating intensively and harmoneously. Guarding the brand image and making sure all communications respect the house style guide and the corporate messages is one of those tasks -- and this one often leads to frictions between the executive-committee-budget-driven corporate communications and the hasty "get me results now" sales environment the marketing communications is operating in. Other frictions arise in budget decision taking. Both teams are craving for their great portion of the annual sales & marketing budget, and the one with the best executive-level relationships is in pole position. And what about the position of product information on the corporate website? Depends on the priority goal of the corporate website, of course, but who is the one that defines this priority? Corporate communications who ownes the website since it is in the corporate comm's budget, or the executive committee itself?

Anyway, there are good reasons to split communications into a corporate communications staff reporting directly to the executive committee and a marketing communications team that services sales & marketing. But there are also good reasons not to split those functions into two distinct teams.