3.6 Hybrid structure
In practice, organisations evolve and changes to their structure should occur as and when necessary. This evolutionary process can produce structures that are well adapted to meeting the particular needs of the moment. A hybrid (mixture) of functional and product or service structures is common, and Figure 9 illustrates how this might look. Here we see that the sales function is structured along product lines.
Figure 9 The organisational structure of a department store as a typical hybrid of product and function.
A hybrid structure might include functional departments, the work of which is primarily internal (e.g., finance and HR), with the rest of the company organised on a product, service, geographic or project basis, as required to meet best the needs of the customer (as in Figure 9).