[Orlin]

So, in an attempt to create a "company profile" [misused term?] of Heckler & Koch, the divisions (or departments) might look something like this:

Marketing - Responsible for advertising the product through any form of media they can get their hands on. These are the people that design everything from the corporate website to the television commercials. As a gun company, they probably have numerous journalist contacts to arrange magazines articles.

Sales - These are the people that close the deals with major distributors and appeal to law enforcement and military when attempting to present new standards of firearms. I've done some research on this and I didn't have to look far to find that most major military operations will hold contests to determine the best firearm in order to determine standard military issue.

Here's a question: who sets the price of these transactions? Do the salespeople follow a static formula, shaving off retail percentages as the volume of the product increases, or is there generally a great deal of haggling done between clients?

Human Resources - These people deal with the public. They design customer support centers, establish the orientation (and sometimes the hiring) process, and work on maintaining a positive public image.

Finance - These people do everything from validate (or in some cases manage entirely) the payroll process. If the company has payroll software (in Corrections, we use a system called Kronos which identifies employees by laminates, six-digit identification and fingerprints. The employees review a web-based "timecard," which is then approved and reviewed again by a supervisor and finally is submitted to payroll) their job becomes easier. I'm guessing that employee payroll is a small part of what they do, while the larger part of their function would be to review and calculate expenses, conduct inventories, file taxes, determine the company budget and calculate the annual profit margin. These are the people who would operate under the CFO that was previously mentioned, who constantly look for ways to make more and more money.

Research and Development - These are the people that make better, more powerful, more accurate guns. They are the proverbial architects, creating blueprints for manufacturing to follow. If my research is correct, H&K was responsible for carbine format, which can probably be attributed to their research and development team.

Manufacturing - IIRC, the only manufacturing plants owned by Heckler and Koch are in Columbus, Georgia and Orsmurfenburf [or something at least as difficult to spell as it is to pronounce], Germany. They may also have a plant in the UK, but I can't remember where and don't care to look. I'll probably edit this later because I'm obsessive-compulsive like that. As Captain Midnight described, the manufacturing plants may be divided by category -- rifles, shotguns, pistols, machine guns, anti-aircraft, etc.

Legal Division - As ladyarcana mentioned, being a gun company, H&K probably has a HUGE (or just a powerful) team of lawyers that cover their collective butts.

Security Operations - This is something that recently came to mind, as (at the orange county jail), we put a high priority on safety and security. I imagine that a gun company would do the same. A security operations department might be responsible for any number of tasks, but I'd see them as primarily responsible for transporting software, protecting corporate executives, and securing the perimeter of any compound where weapons are stored. I can't be sure whether or not H&K would have its own department, or if this is something that would be outsourced to other companies.

IT - Information and Technology? What do they do?

If I'm missing anything, or I'm wrong about something, please correct me.

As a side-note, while I don't want to overdo it, I think the right Celestials (or the wrong ones, in the case of Demons) in the right places could make things very interesting. Any Celestial might be at any level in any company, with the possible exceptions of Seraphim and Cherubim -- and exceptions can be made.

Given the direction that this thread is taking, I wouldn't find it unreasonable if it were moved toward the "Role-Playing in General" section, in spite of the In Nomine-based content.