Dynamics CRM : Difference between Site and Sales Territory - dynamics-crm-2011

Question

I am creating organization architecture in dynamics CRM.
I have one question regarding - Site vs Sales Territory
or BU vs Site
When exactly we should create Site, Sales Territory or BU ?
Or we can say what are the limitations of them ?
I have gone through many forums and websites but not able to find any good document on this.
Any online book which I can read to understand this difference ?
Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Mittal.

Answer 1

Those are all quite different things used for different purposes. You may find you will need all three or just a couple depending on what you are trying to do. E.g. If you are not doing any sales you wont need sales territories, if you want to model a security model where only some users can see some data you will want business units.
I would suggest digging into each area in more detail (scheduling, sales, security) as described below to make that decision.
Sites are part of the scheduling engine.
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, a site entity represents a location or
branch office where an organization does business. Many Microsoft
Dynamics CRM customers have multiple sites. Sites enable resources,
services, and appointments to be defined at a particular location with
an associated time zone. Location, correct selection of resources, and
time zone are important elements in the scheduling of service
appointments when multiple locations of doing business are involved.
You can use sites to limit what resources, such as users and
equipment, can be scheduled for a specific service activity.
When you search for an available service activity resource calendar
time slot, to avoid making an appointment in the wrong location, the
scheduler must be able to select the site or delivery location as a
constraint to the search. For example, a customer may ask for an
appointment at the Seattle office. To support this, there must be a
site named Seattle and there must be required resources assigned to
the service type to be performed. When generating appointment
proposals, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 must be able to avoid proposing
appointments with resources that cannot physically be together to
provide the service. The site entity serves this purpose. Sites
provide for the grouping of resources, such as users and
facility/equipment, services, and appointments, according to a
location with an associated time zone and locale.
Sales Territories are part of the sales process.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 uses the fiscal calendar entities and the
territory entity to track sales information for a salesperson. A
salesperson is a user in Microsoft Dynamics CRM who has to meet sales
objectives, such as sales quotas. A territory is a geographical area
that is assigned to a salesperson.
Business Units are part of the security model.
An organization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, such as a holding company
or a corporation, is made up of business units. A business unit is a
unit of the top-level organization. Business units can be parents of
other business units (child business units). The first business unit
created for an organization is called the root business unit.
A business unit can own records as defined in the ownership type in
the metadata definition for an entity.