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II. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES
You are a member of the senior management staff at ABC Corporation which is designing,
developing, and selling business analytics software and services. Your company has been using a
functional structure since it was founded in 1975. It is set up with five departments which are
production, research and development, finance, human resources, and marketing.
You prepared a report detailing the current problems your company is facing. In this study, you
highlighted the points as follows:
• Many innovations have passed right by ABC Corporation because the company was slow
to pick up signs from the marketplace that they were coming.
• Internal communication among the departments has problems. Some of the emails were not
replied, and some of the functional managers and their employees did not attend some
meetings at which their opinions and feedback were considered essential.
• There are new companies in the market, and there is a strong indication that new companies
are planning to enter the market with new software programs and services with lower prices
and better features.
In the board of directors meeting, it was decided to move to a project-oriented structure in line with
the corporate’s strategic objective to increase the competitive position in the global market. The
president wanted you to prepare a report which discusses different organizational structures your
company can proceed with.
ABC Corporation offers data integration, storage, analytics, and business intelligence applications.
The company’s solutions portfolio includes advanced analytics, AI solutions, business intelligence
and analytics, cloud analytics, customer intelligence, fraud and security intelligence, IoT solutions,
personal data protection, risk management, and supply chain intelligence. It caters to industries
including automotive, communications, education, financial services, government, health
insurance, healthcare providers, hospitality and entertainment, insurance, manufacturing, media,
retail, and utilities. It operates across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and AsiaPacific.
Its major strengths are a strong customer base across diversified industries, partnerships with major
technology firms, and a strong market position. The areas of concern are patent infringement and
private ownership (not publicly held). In the future, rapid technological changes, risk due to
increasing IT complexity, and competitive pressures could affect its business operations. However,
a positive outlook for the global machine-to-machine market, rising healthcare expenditure,
demand for cloud computing, and new product launches are likely to offer growth opportunities to
the company.
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QUESTIONS:
1. What might be some of the internal and external pressures that would contribute to your report
that it is necessary to alter the organizational structure? (15 points)
You should consider enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets
and consider SWOT analysis.
You should discuss at least two internal and two external pressures.
2. In your report, you advocated a transition from the functional structure, first to weak matrix
structure in one year, then to a strong matrix structure in three years. Based on the company’s
products and services, re-create the structural design to show how both matrices would look.
You need to draw two organizational charts, one for a weak matrix, another for a strong matrix.
(10 points)
You can draw it on paper, take a picture, and paste it on this document.
You can use Microsoft Visio, PowerPoint, another drawing app, and paste it on this
document.
3. What behavioral problems could you begin to anticipate through this design? That is, do you
see any potential points of friction in the new dual hierarchy setup? Discuss it first for the weak
matrix structure, then for the strong matrix structure. Consider the pros and cons of these
structures. (10 points)
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YOUR ANSWER:
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Page 9 of 11
III. IDENTIFYING STAKEHOLDERS
A mobile communications company’s organic and successful growth led to the need for an
enterprise-wide supply chain IT system. The company decided on hardware and software that had
been successfully used at a large number of other similar companies. The Supply Chain Director
was put in the position of the sponsor. After the system go-live, customers were not receiving
products they had ordered, invoices were delayed or lost, sales employees were resisting the
changes and, as a result, the company was losing credibility fast.
The project manager organized a stakeholder mapping exercise, which had not previously been
undertaken. This soon highlighted the core issues. The Supply Chain Director, relatively new to
the organization, lacked influence and credibility with the recipients in areas of the organization
most impacted by the change—most notably, sales. The stakeholder map also allowed the
leadership team to understand that the leads originally assigned to the project were not able to
persuade the front-line sales force to attend training—never mind even consider using the new
solution!
As a result of the insight gained from this activity, the decision was made to strengthen sustaining
sponsorship in the sales function. In particular, the sales director was characterized as someone
with high influence but low commitment. It was also decided to substitute some of the less credible
leads with more influential people, particularly in the sales function. These two actions helped
rescue a failing project.
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QUESTIONS:
1. Based on this case study, develop a power/interest grid.
a. Include all stakeholders mentioned in the case study above. (5 points)
b. Besides, you should include at least two more stakeholders that were not discussed
in the case study. Think about other functional units in the company as well as
external stakeholders. (5 points)
c. You can draw the grid on a paper, take a picture, and paste it on this document.
d. You can use Microsoft Visio, PowerPoint, another drawing app, and paste it on this
document.
2. Explain and substantiate why you placed each stakeholder in their relevant quadrant. (10
points)
3. Finally, develop strategies to manage these stakeholders more effectively based on the mistakes
the sponsor, project manager, and project team did. (10 points)
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YOUR ANSWER:
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