3 Organizational Hierarchy

The organizational hierarchy allows you to create the relationships that are necessary to support the operational structure of a company. You can create a preferred organizational structure to support consolidated reporting at various levels of the company. Also, you can assign responsibility for any level of the hierarchy to a person or persons in order to satisfy internal reporting requirements.

The following are the levels of the organizational hierarchy in Merchandising:

Company: The highest default organizational and merchandise hierarchy level defined in Merchandising. Only one company can be defined.

Chain: The first level below the company level in the organizational hierarchy. The definition of a chain is based on the needs of the company, but a chain can be used to group various store formats, concepts, and geographical locations within the organization.

Area: The second level below the company level in the organizational hierarchy. The definition of an area is based on the needs of the company, but an area is used typically to define a geographical group within the organization. An area can belong to only one chain.

Region: The third level below the company level in the organizational hierarchy. The definition of a region is based on the needs of the company, but a region can be used to group geographical locations within the organization. A region can belong to only one area.

District: The fourth level below the company level in the organizational hierarchy. The definition of a district is based on the needs of the company, but a district is used typically to group geographical locations within the organization. A district can belong to only one region.

Store: The fifth and lowest level of the organizational hierarchy. A store, which is associated with a single district, can represent a physical selling location, a virtual selling location (e.g. e-commerce site), or a customer (e.g. franchisee) location.

Warehouse: Considered the bottom of the organizational hierarchy, but unlike stores, it does not roll up under a specific level of the hierarchy, as it can source many store, districts, areas, and so on. Warehouses can be physical or virtual. Physical warehouses are meant to represent the physical building, whereas virtual warehouses are where inventory is held. One or more virtual warehouses can exist in one physical warehouse.

The Organizational Hierarchy page allows you to create, edit and view the organizational hierarchy of the company. The screen can be accessed either from the Locations Destination landing page or the Home Experience.