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Eric Kavanagh has just published an interesting article…

…The Magic of Abstraction: Hierarchy Management and Decision-Making, at tdwi. At first I was a little put off by its highly academic style, but in fact it was very thought-provoking. This whole area of hierarchies is fascinating to me, but perhaps not from quite the same angle as Eric’s. I look at hierarchies, and particularly organizational hierarchies as a tool that can significantly increase field productivity, reduce costs, improve customer service and play a key role in compliance management. This subject is covered in detail in my Illuminatus Research paper on Organizational Hierarchy Management, although sadly this paper is not one of our free ones.

Eric discussed organizational, financial and product hierarchies, but one key category he did not mention that I am particularly interested in is household hierarchies – usually rolled up under the organizational hierarchy umbrella. This is a reflection of John Smith having the same address / telephone number as Jane Smith, and hence being assumed to be in the same household. The idea of this concept seems to offer all sorts of additional sales and service possibilities that might broaden a company’s market to a whole network of previously unaccessed hierarchies and customer prospects.

Of course, it also seems to smack a bit of ‘big brother’…

Steve