DM: what is it in modern business structures

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Commercial enterprises, like manufacturing enterprises, have a structure aimed at performing certain tasks. And it is quite natural that the decision maker is at the head of the process. What it is? How does this abbreviation stand for? The decision maker is the decision maker. It can be the president of the company, and the general director, and the executive director, and the commercial director, and the lead manager, and even the office manager.

DM: what is it in the structure of the organization?

The adoption of strategic decisions regarding the definition of the main goals of the enterprise, as a rule, is laid down even before the start of activity. Usually all this is spelled out in the Charter of the enterprise, adopted by the founders. That is, at the initial stage, decision makers are those (or the one) who make the decision to create the organization itself.

Most often, the founders trust the appointed director (general, executive, commercial) to manage the created organization. The very name of the position does not change the essence: he is entrusted with the management of operational activities. And in this situation, the decision maker is the head responsible for the financial well-being of the company (in the broadest sense of the term).

The appointed director is working out the structureof the enterprise entrusted to him: determines not only the number of services, their interaction, but also appoints the decision maker accordingly for them. What is it in a particular service, what regulates its position and status? The answers to these questions are usually determined by the staffing table and spelled out in job descriptions.

Financial Solutions

The functions of the structural unit determine the problems that, by virtue of their abilities and status, the appointed head solves.

The financial director, who usually reports to accounting staff, has to make decisions about the timeliness of paying taxes, paying salaries, paying bank and commodity loans. Financiers are in contact, as a rule, with banking and tax services, with employees of similar services of enterprises of creditors and debtors. The performance of tasks by these services is regulated, the responsibility for making decisions lies strictly within the framework of job descriptions.

Business Development

Any modern enterprise, be it production, services (household or logistics) or resale (wholesale, retail) for development, must constantly expand its field of activity, gaining new buyers (customers, consumers). A well-established process, in which all components are taken into account and there is no place for crisis phenomena, allows managers to work in a fairly calm and stable environment. Unfortunately, there are very few such enterprises. Basically, the decision maker does not have enough time to think through the consequences and must, of the many proposed (oravailable) options to accept the only one.

It is natural that the founders entrust the management of their business only to trusted and professional employees.

Contacts with external organizations (clients)

Any modern enterprise is unthinkable without a department that sells the product of production. Usually this is done by the sales department, or just an employee (manager) who monitors the constancy or expansion of the clientele. The decision maker (decision maker) is almost always an ordinary employee in these divisions (although nominally this is the head of the sales department): the possibility and conditions for the client to receive a service (or product) depend on him. These powers (rights) are laid down in the job description of an employee of the sales department, and an increase in the shaft (the amount of shipments) allows him to receive a bonus. Advanced clients (buyers), knowing this feature of doing business (more often unconsciously, less often consciously), are looking for contacts with those who can solve issues of shipments (sales) at a discount.

DM: what is it in procurement?

Produced product should not lie in the warehouse of the enterprise, especially perishable and non-unique. The marketing services of manufacturers come up with all sorts of "lures" for new customers: bonuses, deferrals, advertising support, tastings - this is just a small list of tricks. But finding a new buyer in an era of no shortage is next to impossible. Purchasing departments (only in rare cases in industrialenterprises call them supply departments) know that it is possible to find (or replace) the right product without much hassle: just ask, they will line up, shower with commercial offers. But the choice is the prerogative of the decision maker. It can be the buyer himself, if he has confidence, but more often it is not even the head of the procurement department, but the commercial director. It is they who negotiate the terms of the contract, preferences, logistics - everything on which long-term profit depends.

How to contact a responsible decision maker?

Each sales manager has his own arsenal of tools that allow, with varying degrees of confidence, to find the right employee in the structure of the enterprise of interest. One of the non-standard is considered to be access to the decision maker through the sales department, when a "colleague in arms" suggests who is most likely to make the right decision.

Cold contact (telephone conversations) with an already defined employee may not take place: a trained (trained) office manager (secretary) will not connect.

Technique "How to bypass the secretary?" there is a huge variety: from personal acquaintances to the “exit” of the tax. But the goal (concluding a new supply contract) justifies all means, even not quite loyal ones.