Keeping a large group of people with different perspectives and assignments moving in thesame direction is a challenge for organizations. Organizational structures were designed toprovide a framework that keeps information flowing to the functions and employees whoneed it to keep the organization moving forward. Some structures are more successful atthis than others, and over time, as the business environment changed, different structureswere developed to solve the shortcomings of traditional structures. In some cases, organizationsmay use different structures in different business units. For example, the vice presidentof sales in an organization with a functional structure reports to the CEO, but thesales organization may be organized with a geographic or product structure for the mostefficient management of the sales operation: