Issue 2: A Spicy Way to Put the "B" in HRBP!

The "B" In "Business Partner"
One of the biggest blind spots for new HR Business Partners is that no one thinks to teach us about the group we are supporting. You can’t advise an executive team if you don’t know what the company sells, who the customer is, or how money actually flows through the organization, and most importantly - what is their role in all of that. Without that context, HR becomes reactive, not strategic.

This doesn’t mean HRBPs need an MBA. It means they need a simple, structured way to break down a company quickly and understand the basic mechanics that drive it. When HR people skip this step, they end up supporting functions they don’t fully understand, and every conversation becomes surface-level. When they don’t skip it, everything about the job becomes easier.

When I meet with HR teams -I ask each one to present a 20 minute presentation of their org. What does it do, how do they do it, where are the Org weak points? What does the succession look like? Where are the falling behind?

I do this because I am so curious I find all of this fascinating, but also to let the HRBP see how familiar and comfortable they are with the ins and outs of their department - overwhelmingly, many are not and beyond a few surface understandings, it's clear they are not comfortable articulating it because nobody ever thought to explain it to them

I have found this methodology to be the most useful for HR of all tenures to quickly understand the concepts, relationships and purpose of the business so they can learn how to best work with their department: 

First Question: What Does the Company Actually Sell?

Every business sells one (or a combination) of five things. This is the basic foundational step and becomes your starting point.

• Physical Products Consumer goods, hardware, clothing, vitamins, houses, land, plants, tiny silver french spoons - if you can touch it, it's a physical product
• Digital Products Software, apps, downloadable content, APIs, platforms, websites, — non-physical products that still have a lifecycle and can monetize behavior, engagement or knowledge
• Subscription Products Anything tied to ongoing access: SaaS, memberships, premium tiers, monthly plans, repeat services, streaming, bank accounts, etc
• Experiential Products Hospitality, travel, live events, charters, entertainment, services where the “product” is the experience itself.
• Service Products Everything from gym coaches, consultants, interior designers, car washes and gardeners - the product is the expertise of the person performing the service.

Each type of product creates a specific set of needs around staffing, operations, scalability, margins, and customer expectations. HRBPs who understand this can predict problems before they happen. HRBPs who don’t are always playing catch-up.

Next: Who Is the Customer? (This Determines Everything Else)

Once you know what the company sells, the second question is who they sell it to:

• B2C: Direct to consumers. Fast cycles, high volume, brand sentiment matters.
• B2B: Selling to other businesses. Long sales cycles, relationship-driven, credibility matters.
• B2B2C: Serving businesses who serve customers. Two layers of expectations, complex operations.
• C2C: Marketplace models where you’re really supporting a community, not a buyer.

This matters more than HR people realize because your customer determines your company’s pace, talent profile, and operational stress points. Supporting a fast-moving consumer product company is nothing like supporting a regulated B2B business, even if the job titles look the same.

The Job Families That Hold the Company Up

Every business, no matter the industry, is built on three generally defined types of job families:

• Core Families These are the families that every business from 1 person to a 1 million people MUST have: Finance, Sales, Marketing, IT, HR, Even if you dont have the title, the function is being performed. Roles like Legal and Real Estate would technically go here as well.
• Product Families These are specific to what the company sells and make up the lions share of the endemic and associates families. For a physical product, that’s manufacturing, supply chain, quality, R&D. For digital products: engineering, product management, UX, data, architecture. For experiential: hospitality teams, guides, on-site staff, coordinators. For subscription: customer success, retention, renewals, onboarding.
• Auxiliary Families Roles that support the business indirectly - they are usually attached to another team that increases their effectiveness. Project and Program Managers, Agile Coaches, Operation Managers, Administrative and Receptionists.

A strong HRBP can map these families in their head quickly and immediately understand which functions create revenue, which create cost, which create customer retention, and which create risk and can guide their department effectively.

An Example 😈😘 - Adult Entertainment.

(I find giving the most avant-guarde and anti-HR seeming examples to be the best way to learn - I mean do we really want to talk about a bank?)

Let’s say you were hired as a VP, HRBP for an adult entertainment company - but it's one with a digital storefront, downloadable content, subscription services, and physical brick-and-mortar shops in both Europe and South America. This is a perfect case of a business that’s far more complex than people realize, and a perfect illustration of why HRBPs must understand the business before they can influence it.

1. The Product Mix (Digital + Physical + Experiential)

This company sells:

• Physical products
• Digital media
• Subscriptions
• In-store experiences

One business, four product types — which means four different operational needs and organizational stress points but with many examples of where they overlap, cross-promote, share information or must remain separate.

2. The Business Type is B2C (Business Selling to Customer)

Customers are individual consumers with highly specific preferences, cultural differences, privacy concerns, and varying comfort levels depending on location. This alone shapes marketing, sales, operations, store staffing, product decisions, and legal risk.

3. How the Functions Work Together

Here’s where the role becomes strategic. A strong HRBP can “see the whole machine,” not just the people sitting in different seats and as a new VP, HRBP - this is what your HRBPs should be able to put together for you.

Note this is just a tiny sample of how the orgs work together - not an exhaustive list.

• Data & Analytics Analyze consumer behavior by region, device, preference, and purchase and sell — (especially across different countries with different regulations).
• Marketing Research identifies customer cohorts. Marketing refines themes, language, imagery, color palettes, brand tone, and placement strategies. MarCom crafts copy that removes shame and emphasizes inclusivity and safety. HRBPs need to understand these customer drivers so they can support roles that uphold them.
• Product / UX Marketing works separately with insights and with UX and Product. They take the experience and sentiment and decide to design a digital storefront where navigation feels intuitive, shelves feel curated, and customers feel safe and welcomed. HRBPs who understand this can anticipate the roles required to build and maintain these touchpoints.
• Finance Manages multi-region payments, handles currency differences, ensures compliance with digital payment rules, and tracks subscription revenue vs. physical-store revenue. If HR doesn’t understand the cash engine, they can’t anticipate workforce needs.
• Physical Store Operations Store managers handle staffing, merchandising, customer experience, in-store safety, and discreet service norms. Regional leadership manages demand cycles and cultural nuance. HR must understand the operational model to diagnose culture problems early.
• IT - Provides the laptops, software, programs and technical administration, server management and network architecture to ensure everyone has the equipment they need to perform their roles.Why This Matters for HRBPs

When you understand how these functions feed each other, three things become obvious

Why This Matters

You can see bottlenecks before they blow up.

If Product is behind, Stores get angry. If Marketing is off, UX redesigns don’t land. If Legal delays, Finance can’t release new SKUs. If Data is wrong, everything else is wrong. As most VPs tend to be siloed and focused on their own departments they sometimes can miss very obvious blind spots - being a good partner is not just helping your client departments thrive, it's also about how you are setting up their organization to thrive within the perspective of the entire business.

You can detect culture problems early.

When teams that should be working together are frustrated, siloed, or quietly blaming each other, the HRBP becomes the only person who can see the full pattern.

You can redesign org structures that actually work.

Instead of simply “filling seats,” you begin shaping the ecosystem — the workflows, dependencies, communication loops, and capabilities that make the business run.

This is the difference between an HRBP who “supports” and an HRBP who “partners.”

One understands job descriptions, but the other understands how the business actually makes money, where it loses money, and how people decisions impact both.

That second version is the one executives trust - and the one this guide will help  you become. There's whole chapters dedicated to it!

Dan

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Daniel "DanFromHR Space"