The organization for which I am working is an FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) company; which is facing problems related to the proper inter-departmental communication, tough corporate funding competition, outdating of a product line, and the declining of its market share. I am recently been appointed as a manager and I have to change turn the company around by taking off its problems; and for that, I have made a plan to change the organization’s structure that includes its vision, steps to manage the transformation, and certain policies that I would implement in order to buttress the organization’s structure.
Since the organization in which we are working is bound to have a mechanistic structure; which is the one with a narrow span of control and a high degree of centralization (McShane & Travaglione, 2003). Moreover, we are facing the divisional structure due to which the company is less efficient due to the duplication of tasks and absence of employees expertise in their respective areas; especially marketing. Our product line of detergents is outdating, thus our market share has dropped from 50% to 35% in just five months. The plan to overcome these issues is discussed below.
Since I’m a manager, so many people would think that my job is to manage only. But the reality is that proper management involves suitable planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. I would have to develop goals and strategies, properly assign tasks to respective employees and manage resources, motivate the employees, and finally monitoring the overall activities and correct them if needed, in order to obey the true management duty (Daft, 1997).
I would introduce the Organic and Functional structure in the division in place of a mechanistic one.
The vision for my new organizational structure is to promote effective communication among departments and the workforce and to bring effectiveness and efficiency to the overall performance of the company. The new structure would help us to cut costs, minimize the duplication of processes, promote effective communication among departments and the workforce, and bring value to the respective tasks and projects. The organic structure which would have a wide span of control and decentralize decision making (McShane & Travaglione, 2003), would encourage the employee involvement in making certain decisions and sharing their knowledge and thoughts. I would realign the employees by bringing them close together by conducting formal meetings and think tank sessions, which would surely motivate them to participate and define their problems and points of view. I would assign them the relevant tasks in which they have specific skills and knowledge in order to bring effectiveness to the performance. Moreover, those tasks that require frequent cooperation and communication, I would form a team that would be responsible for the entire project; for instance, I would form a team of 10 employees that would conduct research over the reasons behind the decline of market share along with the identification of opportunities to promote, distribute, and sell the detergents properly at the right place and at the right time.
Of course, it won’t be easy to switch to a different structure quickly, because many people would oppose it and act as a restraining force. Nevertheless, in order to manage such contradiction, I would choose the suitable change managing techniques – such as, communication, training, employee involvement, negotiation, or coercion – that would ease the process of change and minimize the confrontation. The current circumstances ask me to effectively coordinate the need and purpose of the new structure to the resisting force – mainly employees. In addition, I would involve the employees in making key decisions, encourage their participation and ideas, and remove their misconceptions about the consequences of the proposed change. If required, then the training of certain employees would be done to ensure the availability of skills and awareness for the sake of quality performance and output. Along with that, fundraising programs would also benefit the organization as they did to the orchestra music in the U.S. (Kinzer, 2002).
Certain policies that would be brought into action right away after the proposed change in structure include, the Open-book policy that would enable the workforce to know the information about the needs and tasks of each other. Secondly, there would be no compromise in place of excellent quality; and Total Quality Management (TQM) department would focus on that. Third, the rewards would be based on performance and output; whether it is for R&D department of marketing department. This would compel the employees to work hard and achieve the targets in order to be rewarded for their job. Fourth, abandoning departments that are extraneous and have duplicate the tasks will increase to the costs and ambiguity. Fifth, recruitment of skilled and experienced employees would be done, in order to cut down our training expenses. And finally, the feedback would be provided from 360 degree – by all managers, supervisors, and employees – in order to ensure motivation, consistency, and need to fulfill the required skills.
Though our company is facing certain technical issues; however, it’s not impossible to turn around the situation completely and bring on the new structure and policies that would bolster the overall organizational efficiency. The issues have already triggered the need to bring on the change, so the plan mentioned above in bringing it on and tackling the confrontations would hopefully going to work and take the company our from the dark.
References
Daft. R. L. (1997). Management. Fourth Edition. U.S.A. The Dryden Press.
Kinzer, S. (2002). From notes to flowcharts; saving the Symphony: Theme and variations. New York Times.
McShane. S. and Travaglione. T. (2003). Organisational Behavior on the Pacific Rim. Australia. McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Limited.