Three structures, not one

Here is how this usually starts: the client hands you an org chart and says build this. That org chart is one of three structures, and it is usually the least important one for what you are about to configure. The legal structure. Registered entities, who legally employs whom, and what each entity is obliged to report and to which authority. This is fixed by law — you do not design it, you discover it from the client's legal or company secretarial function and then model it faithfully. The management structure. Who reports to whom, how the business is actually run — the org chart they handed you. Its defining property is that it changes constantly: divisions merge, functions centralise and decentralise again, a new chief executive arrives and redraws it inside six months. You model it with divisions, departments, manager hierarchies and trees — objects designed to change. The…

In this module: Module 3 · Enterprise Structures and the Global Model

1. 1Three structures, not one
2. 2The enterprise object
3. 3Modelling a global organisation
4. 4Guidelines for global enterprises
5. 5Geographies and the foundation layer
6. 6What breaks
7. 7Lab: model the enterprise, three ways