Unit 1 - Company
In Unit 1, we will collect some fundamental data needed to get your Kompass up and running. We will examine three items in this Unit: Orgs, Departments and Services.
Orgs
Before proceeding to the actual data that needs to be collected, we should define what an org is. An org is defined as an organization in its entirety, not necessarily just a physical office. There are certain occasions where you might decide it’s best to split your operations into more than one orgs. To help you define whether you need more than one orgs, take a look at the questions below. If you respond positively to all of them, it would be better not to split into more than one org:
- Should customers and contacts be available to your entire organization?
- Do you want your Kompass dashboard to present KPI's and performance graphs across the entirety of your organization?
- Do you have global HR policies regarding start/end time and/or breaks?
- Should proposals, invoices, risk assessments, and other documents be the same across offices?
- Are you using same currency across your organization?
Once you decide whether to use a single org or more, we will record fundamental data for your operations. This includes the start and end time of your working day and duration of any breaks (should they contractually exist), time zone, your preferred currency, target gross margin, VAT rate (if any), and standard payment days for invoices.
One of the fields to define is your gross margin across the organization. We should note that gross margin is different than mark-up. Mark-up is most commonly used. If the cost of your service is $100 and your price is $150, then your mark-up is 50%. It is calculated as:
Mark-up: (150 - 100) / 100 = 0.5 = 50%.
However, to determine gross margin we divide by the price. You may not immediately recognize gross margin, but it is the percentage typically used on profit & loss accounts. Using the same numbers as above, the gross margin is:
Gross Margin: (150 - 100) / 150 = 0.33 = 33%.
Please note that most of these information will be completed on our first onboarding meeting.
Departments
Most organizations diversify their operations. Even if not at the moment, they might consider doing so in the future. This would allow them to get a better understanding of the areas that perform better than others and assist with strategic planning. Some examples of possible departments, per industry, can be seen below:
| Industry | Possible Departments |
| Geospatial engineering | Topographical, Laser Scanning, SUE, UAV, Construction |
| Legal | Employment Law, Family Law, Commercial Law, Criminal Law |
| Hospital | Medicine, Surgery, Skin, V.D., Plastic, Nuclear |
| Bank | Risk Management, Compliance, Investment Banking, Asset Management |
| Hotel | Front Office, House Keeping, Food and Beverages, Security |
Most of these departments would likely be billable, meaning they are profit centers, and their projects will appear in the financial records. Some others (usually the functions) like R&D, finance, HR, IT, etc., might not be billable, and we will define them as such during the onboarding.
Moreover, employees are assigned to departments. Therefore, if you mostly work in the office processing data, you might be in the Processing department. In many companies, Profit & Loss (P&L) will also be reported for departments.
Finally, some departments might have their own set target gross margin. In these cases, the target gross margin will override the original gross margin. However, you will always be able to amend your margins when needed.
Services
Services can be confusing for people, but they are actually quite simple and logical. They provide a further option to diversify your offerings to your clients. Here are some examples of services in the table below:
| Industry | Department | Possible Services |
| Geospatial engineering | Topographical | Road surveys, Right of light, Measure building, Hydro |
| Legal | Employment Law | Performance, Disciplines, Mental Health, Contract Law |
| Hospital | Medicine | Logistics, Lab testing, Warehouse, Packaging |
| Bank | Risk Management | ATM transactions, Fraud, Cybersecurity, Security |
| Hotel | Front Office | Recruiting, Decoration, Software development, HR. |
As can be seen, most of the possible services would probably not stand alone as departments. However, they are closely linked and related to certain departments.
Services are not essential for Kompass and you can skip them if preferred. However, adding them will offer valuable data to assist you in further understanding your organization, priorities, and pain points. Strategic planning based on numerical evidence will be available at a click of a button, and our existing customers agree that services helped them understand their direction and strategy as a company. Even if services are deemed a low priority at the moment for your organization, we would strongly recommend considering adding them in the near future.
Services are not unique, and they can have duplicates so long as they belong to a different department.
For example, the service "Measure Building" might be carried out within both the Topographical or Laser Scanning department. Finally, services can also have their own gross margins. Those margins (if added) will override both departmental and org gross margins.
Now that you have a better understanding of these terms, we can now proceed to: