Case Analysis Numi

1. What were the challenges that Shikhar Ghosh faced when he joined Appex? Do you agree with Ghosh’s assessment upon joining Appex that what the firm needed was ‘control and structure’? He found that there was no structure within the organization, that everyone would do what was convenient for them, and not for the company. Ghosh was right the company did need control and structure. Organic = grows and adapt. (company)

2. Why did the circular structure fail to achieve its desired outcome? What does this tell us about the role that structure plays in an organization? First, the employees couldn’t relate to the structure, they were completely unfamiliar to it. They didn’t know whom to refer to in case of a problem, or whom was the authority of the power, since they didn’t know anything about this non traditional structure. Furthermore, this structure inculced to the employees that the customer was the enemy. And finally, it was completely geared toward responsiveness, and not toward any form of planning. This shows us, that the organization within a company is a determinant factor of the well being of the company. Without any structure, or any convenient structure to the company, it becomes chaotic and any of the employees knows what to do and what role to have.

The circular structure failed to achieve its desired outcome because it isn’t prepared for growth. The company receives more and more orders, and has more and more clients, it became harder to do the basics tasks, with this structure the company couldn’t handle the increasing demand. As a results Appex, became to fall behind, missing apointements, and having difficulty with the software, and more and more they we’re starting to loose their clients,

3. Was the functional structure a good way for Appex to solve its earlier problems? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the functional structure? The strengths were that everyone finally focused on their role, and the divisions were more and more visible between each section within the structure. Weaknesses : we saw that the hierachie was more and more present, and that the work was done diffentely depending on the person who was controlling it, and not the task given ‘’role of personalities’’. The source of authority was functional, not managerial expertise. Difficulty of new managers to earn the respect of the team because employees had not valued managerial competency traditionally. And it was very difficult to measure managerial competence. In the case of the product, the employees didn’t know who had the authority to decide on wheter or not to implement a change in the product, since every division had different opinion about it.

4. Do you think the product and business team structures (hybrid structure) were useful ways of addressing the problems with the functional structure? No it had many shortcoming : there were way more meetings, and the company started hiring new employees whom didn’t have any knowledge in the cellular industry since it was only 7 years old, so they had to train them which was very costly. The employees forgot about the financial goals. 5. What do you think about the change to a divisional structure? What are its relative advantages and disadvantages compared to the earlier structures? It inpproved accountability, budgeting, and planning. Employees focused on meeting the financial targets (compared to the business team structures). Within the divisions there was a more fluid cooperation. The CEO finally was focusing on his role of planning, a contrary of being involved in every ones decisions. Some of the other structure (functional per example) problem persisted like the resource allocation, which senior executive decisions were not always perceived like equitable.

Further more the divisions wanted control over all of their resources and did not want to share them. A Second problem was that there was a little communication flow between the division and little cross-pollination of ideas 6. How would you address some of the problems with the divisional structure? What implications do you think the acquisition by EDS might have for the structure of Appex? For the communication problem within the three divisions, I as a manager would of preasured all of the 3 senior executive of each division to work closely together, and I would have had monitor that. And no need to buy 3 time the same object, it can be used by the 3 divisions by scheduling it. Well the acquisition by EDS is going to have some impact of the Appex structure by creating a new EDS divisions, that would aslo collaborate with the 3 other divisions. 7. What do you think of Shikhar’s views of organizational structure? Would you have done the same things as he has done over the last 30 months at Appex?

Yes I would have had, to find the best structure you do have to try many to see which one fits better the organization. It a process that needs time, and collaboration of the employees, which Shikhar had, and finally it will be customized to the company because everyone is different and everyone one brings something more to this organization.