Hi Andy,
Good to see the suggestions!
These are the rules I try to follow:
- Do not over do it. Simple is better and facilitates change.
- One sales organization for each company code unless significant differences exist between independent sales departments. Like one wants to use CRM and others won't. It's roughly equivalent to one by each top level sales director.
- One distribution channel for each sales channel group that defines different prices or different shipping conditions for the same material. Like retail and wholesale have different pricing. Special rules can apply like mail delivery require different contact settings.
- One division for each division of the company. If company has no clearly defined divisions (like Electronics and Footwear) there is no need (in sales) to split (it might in financials).
Using sales office and sales group for reporting is a lot better than the top level structures because it's easy to change them in master data, unlike sales org or distribution channel. And when departments get reorganized the system effort is significantly reduced if no change occurs at those three top levels.
So I normally use the sales office to the first or second level of reporting and sales group in some cases to represent individual sales persons or nothing at all in other cases.
regards,
Edgar