Understanding organizational hierarchy

We briefly covered this in the Chapter 1, Consultant - An Introduction. Let’s look at why this can be a make or break situation for a consultant. A consultant needs to work with several functions in an organization. Every organization will have a hierarchy for each of these functions. A hierarchy is a structure in an organization where each level has a different role and responsibility. The hierarchy often reflects the different decision-making structures. The following is an example of the Sales hierarchy for a Multi-National Company (MNC):

If we look at preceding figure, it shows the Sales hierarchy for a large MNC. Though self-explanatory, we will try to cover in brief the different people involved. The structure is partial as it only covers America. The others, Europe and Asia, will also have similar hierarchies. The following is a brief explanation of the hierarchy:

• Global Sales Head: He/she looks at the entire organization's sales and is responsible for delivering the sales revenue targets.
• Sales Head Americas: He/she looks at the American continent sales. So, this person is responsible for sales in America, Canada, and Latin American countries.
• VP Sales America: He/she looks at the entire sales in the United States of America.
• Regional Manager: A country is divided into several regions and there is a person to manage each of these regions.
• Zonal Manager: A region is further divided into several smaller zones and each zone is managed by one person.
• Branch Manager: Each of these zones has several branch offices and each office has a branch manager.
• Sales Executive: Each of these branches has several sales executives who interact with the end consumers.

Now that we have seen who the users are in the sales function, let us now bifurcate them into various levels. This is called a pyramid structure in an organization. Let's see how we can depict this in the form of a diagram:

The preceding figure explains the hierarchy in the context of an organizational pyramid. The pyramid puts people from Sales Hierarchy in various roles. What the pyramid essentially shows is how the organization classifies different people and bifurcates the roles and responsibilities.

Let us look at each of the layers in the pyramid, from bottom to top:

• Feet on Street: They form a large chunk of sales functions. These people are the ones who interact the most with the customers. The organization may or may not consider them as analytical users. Co-relating with Figure 02, we can say that this layer maps largely with sales executives.
• Managers: These are the people who manage teams of sales executives. They are usually considered for analytical purposes, and some of them could be people whom the consultant interacts with during the requirement gathering phase. Co-relating with Sales Hierarchy figure, we can say that this layer maps largely with branch managers.
• Middle Management: The middle management is an important link between the senior management and the manager level in the pyramid. These people are analytical users for sure. This layer plays an important role in strategy executions and also plays a role in providing inputs which help in defining the strategies. Co-relating with Sales Hierarchy figure, we can say that this layer largely maps with zonal managers and regional managers.
• Senior Management: The senior management includes key people in the pyramid. These people are the ones largely responsible for the sales revenues in their respective countries and continents. They are key analytical users and it’s important for the consultant to vet all the requirements from them. These people are influencers and can drive adoption. When we look at Figure 02, we can associate the VP sales, the continental head, and the global sales head with this layer of the pyramid.
• Top Management (CXO): The top management comprises of CXO (typically, the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, and the Chief Operating Officer). They form the top most layer and are responsible for the overall functioning of the company. This layer comprises of users across various functions, like Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Operations, Supply Chain, Plant Operations, and Finance. The consultant will have to treat these users separately. They will have different sets of requirements, and usually the consultants will have to build a CXO dashboard for these sets of users.

The reason for explaining this in detail is to make the consultant aware of the different users who will be using the software. A generic approach may not work, as the needs of people in every layer of the pyramid will be different.

The way they look at data is also different, as the roles and responsibilities change across the layers. The consultant must also look at how he/she can provide information to the lower levels of the pyramid if the organization does not have budgets to extend licenses to all the users.

A consultant should remember that the lower layers in the pyramid are also equally important. If the company is not able to give licenses to everyone, the consultant can work on alternate mechanisms. Qlik NPrinting is a good option in such cases, since the information required at these layers can be disseminated easily by sending out reports via email.