We know the joke: consultants use way too many frameworks. But these are our favorites. Rooted in Jay Galbraith’s methodology and refined over years of practice, these are the essential models we rely on to guide our clients.
Strategy, innovation, and product planning sit inside the team.
Reports to a marketing executive or product management lead.
Drives new technology strategy and big bets; geography remains the primary point of business management.
Adds consumer marketing, product management, and product development team management.
Reports to a division head or product management executive; regions still hold most decision authority.
Owns global strategy and product or service plans, including development and life-cycle management.
Adds life-cycle management, product development, and sales channel strategy, rarely sales management itself.
Reports to the CEO, COO, or a group or sector president.
Oversees every element of strategy, offering, and marketing, with guidance into supply chain and commercial support.
Strategy, innovation, and product planning sit inside the team.
Adds consumer marketing, product management, and product development team management.
Adds life-cycle management, product development, and sales channel strategy, rarely sales management itself.
Reports to a marketing executive or product management lead.
Reports to a division head or product management executive; regions still hold most decision authority.
Reports to the CEO, COO, or a group or sector president.
Drives new technology strategy and big bets; geography remains the primary point of business management.
Owns global strategy and product or service plans, including development and life-cycle management.
Oversees every element of strategy, offering, and marketing, with guidance into supply chain and commercial support.
When an organization builds around products, categories, or offerings, the central design question is how much each unit should own. Heavyweight units carry broad accountability for winning in their market and directly control the resources needed to deliver, often operating as strategic business units with a leaner, enabling corporate center. Lightweight units hold narrower accountabilities and draw their people and capabilities from centrally managed functions like engineering or supply chain, typically sitting lower in the hierarchy. The choice determines where resources sit, how autonomous the middle units are, and how much cross-functional coordination the organization depends on.
We use this framework to make unit weight an explicit decision rather than an assumption. Clients often default to one end of the spectrum, either embedding everything and duplicating resources, or centralizing everything and starving units of control. Walking through the options forces the real question: how much functionality does this unit need to own to deliver on its accountability? The answer should flow directly from how closely or loosely held the organization is designed to be, so we anchor the discussion in the operating framework choice before sizing the units themselves.