Question

What type of organizational specialization within the sales department do you recommend for each of the following companies? Explain briefly your choice.                                                          

a.Manufacturer of high-quality ladies’ ready-to-wear with 500 salespeople selling to department stores and specialty stores throughout the United States of America.

b.Hardware wholesaler with a product line of nearly 10,000 product items, covering the South-west quarter of the UK with 40 salespeople.

c.Local manufacturer of office machines with 120 salespeople.           

Answer 1

Since the organization is engaged in the manufacturing of high-quality ladies wear hence it needs a departmentalization or divisional organizational structure. Departmentalization is a combination of departments that are operating department, marketing department, HRM department, logistics, and finance department..Since manufacturing takes place hence all these four departments are the need. Operation department will help in better facilitation of work in a processed way, marketing is required as it is a cloth brand and it needs to create a customer base so that ROI can be achieved easily, Nowadays online presence is very important for any industry hence marketing department is a must. Since number of employees involved is more so HRM is required to look into the needs and wants of employees and finance is the most important as the cost of production till distribution.

A divisional structure will work best for hardware wholesales this is because the product line has a number of products that are being required by different sector of the customer. This structure will group the customer into teams that will be based on products and use to create specialization so as to meet the exact need of the customer in no time. The division of labor in this structure ensures that workers making similar products can achieve greater efficiency with higher output.

Local manufacture is a small scale start-up hence the use of a flat structure will suit it the best. One of the best advantages of the horizontal or flat structure is that many middle-level management is eliminated. Since it is having a small sales team many layer is not required. This will help the manufacturer to be in direct touch with the salesperson which will help them in a better understanding of the market and will enable them to make quick decisions .