theory, by understanding this chart you should be able to understand the operation. This is hardly ever the case. Corporate organizational structures show us how the people have been organized, but they do not tell us how the work gets done. To truly understand how the organization works and how the activities of groups are interwoven into the symphony that is the operation of a modern telecom, we need to analyze three levels of operation. These levels include the missions (what people are supposed to accomplish), functions (what they do to accomplish their missions), and the departments (groups of people organized to execute functions to accomplish their missions). eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook The missions people are expected to define the intent and wishes of upper management in terms of the relationships these people have with customers. The functions and organizational structure determine whether these missions will be well or poorly executed. Only by understanding the missions, functions, and organizational structures that have been assembled to manage customer relations can we begin to determine the adjustments necessary for providing better churn management. We see in the diagram in Figure 17-3 that missions, functions, and organizational structure are related to each other. However, their relationship is hardly ever clear-cut. Typically, real departments attempt to execute many functions to accomplish different missions. More importantly, missions and functions tend to seriously overlap among the groups. It is here where the great majority of contention and confusion originate. The Retail Model of Customer Relationship Missions At the highest and most abstract level, the job of managing the relationships customers have with the organization can be organized into a series of related missions. These missions define the parts of the overall customer relationship that groups are trying to enhance or maintain. One model that is used quite often to help explain the roles of marketin