Successful Management, as ambiguous a term as that is, begins with taxonomy – the division of labor into categories, and the assignment of those labors to responsible parties in the managerial hierarchy.  The finer-tuned that taxonomy is (the attention to the subdivisional details), the more closely management can monitor the steps toward product or service completion, and the more closely the budget can be controlled.  The recent reduction in middle-managerial slots has resulted in much unsophisticated and unmonitored management.  For example, a company used to have European, Middle Eastern, Oriental, African, and South American sales management divisions; the company now has Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere sales divisions.  It is easy to see how clumsy this arrangement has become; it was accomplished by firing three managers and giving two managers more duties.  While on the surface this reduced the payroll, sales suffered severely, and upper management had trouble putting out fires in all areas.