Org Structure [ – Céspedes Senior Professor of Business

Céspedes, Senior Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, explains in detail how organizational design affects sales effectiveness and emphasizes the importance of carefully selecting a structure. The structure of the sales organization is linked to the design of the sales team. The structure of a sales team has an important influence on its success. Source: Table 8-1 based on Frank V’s “Aligning Strategy and Sales”. Keep up to date with the latest news and tips on marketing, sales and service. Want more? Then investigate the difference between sales and business development. In his book Aligning Strategy and Sales, Frank V. Excellent sales people are very good at managing a certain environment and the organizational structure is the basis of that environment. Below is an example of a sales organization chart. For example, an agent who used to sell in a certain region can stumble when asked to focus on a single sector in the country. If each of your company’s products requires specific, in-depth technical knowledge, it may not always make sense for agents to sell all products by region. It’s just not true that commercial talent adapts to every situation. Take a software agent who only sells to manufacturing companies and ask him to start selling hardware in all industries. In the following table, he shows the advantages and disadvantages of four commonly used structures.