Corporate/Group Roles, do they work?

[Bobby]

In our company we have a GM Supply Chain at the corporate office, but he does not have any direct reports. The Supply Chain people out in the field report in to the Regional Operations GMs. Do you reckon this structure really works? How can the Supply Chain GM really make any impact?

Any experience of structures like this appreciated.

[Loggie]

I have seen centralised Supply Chain management structures like this before. In my experience, they only work well if the field management report in to the central Supply Chain manager. If they report locally, via Sales, Ops etc, then the central Supply Chain manager has no management power/authority and is therefore ineffective. They tend to become 'project' managers and 'trouble shooters'.