In the past, when a business was underperforming, its management selected from a set of traditional paths for improvement. They looked at specific functions or identified problem departments or concentrated on broken business units. For example, a company would take a function such as marketing and examine in great detail its staffing, structure, costs, and productivity. They would analyze that function across a broad spectrum of factors, including structure, geography management span, control mechanisms, and product lines. Usually, the outcome was a plan to reduce staffing and costs.