Write a note on line and staff organization.

Ans.

Line and Staff Type of Organization

Line and staff type of sales organization is usually found in large and medium size firms, where number of personnels are large enough. Sales may be of diversified products or may cover a large geographical area. As opposed to the line type of organization, in this form top sales executives are provided with a group of specialists, e.g., experts in sales planning, sales organization, sales personnel, sales training, sales promotion, dealer and distributor relations, sales analysis and similar fields. Specialists assist in increasing overall effectiveness of the sales department. Top-executives delegate some specific problems involving in depth analysis and time to such specialists.

Staff of experts executives do not have authority to issue orders. Recommendations of expert are submitted to the top-executives, who in turn take decisions or provide necessary directions. Following is the diagram of line and staff sales department organization:

Explanation of Working of above Structure

Chain of command flows from top to down as follows:

(i) Top Level: General Manager, Sales (1) (He is vested with all the powers and liable to everything done in sales department).

(ii) Next Lower Level: Dy. General Manager, Sales (2) (He collects all reports and information from lower level and reports to General Manager, Sales)

(iii) Next Lower Level: Manager, General Sales (6) (He collects reports and information from his subordinates and forward them to Dy. General Manager, Sales with his comments)

(iv) Next Lower level: Area/Branch Manager, Sales (11) (They collect informations and reports from sales personnel and convert them into more useful and logical reports before forwarding to his senior)

(v) Lowest Level: Sales personnel (12) (They collect the informations or data directly from markets and customers)

Positions numbered 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are for expert staff’ executives. They are responsible for their specialised fields only. position at number 5 Assistant Manager, Sales help, Dy. General Manager, Sales in his day-to-day working.

Advantages: These are given below:

(1) Sales department can avail maximum benefit from experts due to their specialized knowledge.

(2) Top-executives can devote more time and attention to other aspects of administration than that of regular business decisions.

(3) In this type of organization specialization in special field is encouraged.

(4) Due to encouragement for specialization there is always good spirit at lower level to find creative solutions for problems. Thus there is good prospects for hard working employees.

Disadvantages: These are given below:

(1) Specialization which is made possible in this organization is also a cause of weakness.

For Example:

(i) Work of specialist staff must be co-ordinated, which proves costly. Such staff should be expanded only when it can be confirmed that benefits expected from new staff will be more than that of costs incurred on them.

(ii) If experts are allowed to issue directions to line staff it will create conflicts at the same level of administration.

(iii) Since experts work in advisory capacity so they are not responsible for implementation of any decision and its consequence.

(2) Time between recognition of problem and taking corrective action tends to increase in line and staff type of organization.

(3) For critical matters usually advice from experts is sought. This makes line staff dependable on experts for their working.