Determining Organizational Structure

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Carefully determining a Dashboard organizational structure for your managed service customers is important, as there are several meaningful consequences for each type of structure. There are two common scenarios for a Meraki partner offering managed services, and the type of solution or service being offered can help determine the recommended organizational structure:

Sell-Through Managed Service

Sell-To Managed Service (i.e. Network-as-a-Service)

Any service offered by a partner that shares control of customer-owned Meraki equipment and manages the network and IT. Characteristics End customer holds title Provider typically grants management access to end customer Recommended organizational structure Organization-per-customer (see Figure 1 below) Customer Profile Enterprise

Any service offered by a partner organization that provides IT and network connectivity as a service, and typically includes the hardware. Characteristics Customer leases Meraki hardware equipment, Partner holds title Provider does not grant management access outside of provider organization Examples ISP-provided WLAN/LAN connectivity Fully managed guest access network Recommended organizational structure Single organization (many-to-one) if base standardized service for all customers (Figure 2 below) Multi-organization (Org-per-customer) if utilizing SD-WAN feature set (Figure 1 below)

Figure 1: Organization per customer (one-to-one)

Figure 2: Network as a Service Structure (many-to-one)[/caption]

Note: SD-WAN based service offerings require a multi-organization structure (organization-per-customer).

It is also possible to have a hybrid structure -- where certain customers have their own organization, while all others are grouped into a single organization (a combination of Figure 1 and Figure 2). An MSP may choose this hybrid structure, for example, in cases where only a small subset of customers have more customized service requirements, or leverage SD-WAN services (e.g., Auto-VPN). Additional details are available via product documentation: Meraki Dashboard Organization Structure

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