How do you define what should be de-centralized or centralized core processes that impact how teams launch and execute campaigns?

This question is specific to scaling a business. No one size fits all answer, what you choose to centralize or decentralize has a lot to do with what growth stage you are in and your priorities. In the case of Morningstar, we have central marketing functions (like brand, PR, demand, and customer marketing) and marketing functions like product marketing that live in a decentral business unit. Decentral models allow for agility and focus and the central functions play a role in consistency and amplification. I do find it particularly useful to centralize a function if the discipline does not exist to drive consistent KPIs and processes. For more on this topic check out the great blog post from First Round Review on “Give away your Legos and other commandments for scaling startups.”

The direction for this question is specific to your business. The degree of centralization and decentralization is based on your business's goals, the structure that is best suited for your business at a given time, and available resources.

What I recommend is considering the support needed for your goals based on the current stage of your business. This will help guide what should and shouldn't be centralized, understanding that these considerations can and will change over time.

I think that strategically, there are definitely some things that make sense to work from a centralized perspective: Ex. global lead scoring, tech stack integrations, lead routing, website operations. Then, there are places where decentralized operations make sense, especially as it relates to regional demand generation programs that need to be localized - emails, events, field, campaign activities. It became not scalable for us at Eventbrite at a certain point to have a single email marketing manager who was supporting the globe, though that worked for us for a time. So I think there's also an argument for starting centralized with some functions until it just doesn't scale for your business.