MBA 580 Organization Overview (Processes, Structure, Culture) Your company manufactures and distributes automobiles across six continents. The structure is very complex and it is difficult to accurately count the levels of hierarchy. The company operates under a tall matrixed structure design. Tall structures can be cumbersome, and decision makers are often those farthest from the customer. Communication can be slow and difficult, also slowing down decisionmaking speed. The specialized functions and organizations, often referred to as centers of excellence or centers of expertise (COE), allow for deep knowledge and expertise. Your company has many functional COEs where increased structure, governance, and control allow for resource and process efficiencies. Resources are centralized, reducing duplication of effort across the organization. These efficiencies can, however, result in rigid, inflexible processes. In addition, COEs can create functional silos or reduced cross functional coordination and lack of connectedness, where each function is striving toward its own unique objectives. Your company follows a centralized and standardized approach where enterprisewide decisions are often made centrally and at the top of the hierarchy. This centralization makes it easier to implement common policies and practices, prevents parts of the organization from becoming too independent, and capitalizes on specialization. Matrixed organizations are often associated with this specialized COE structure. Rather than having permanent crossfunctional teams or organizations working on specific projects or product launches, matrixed organizations pull teams together from the various functional departments. Specialists are pulled from functional areas to work on a specific project or product design. In essence, they report to two managers at the same time and may work on multiple projects simultaneously. Although the project manager, who is on the same leadership level as the functional vice president (VP), supervises the project, the true management authority still resides with the VP. Specialists supporting specific product launches generally remain “seated” with their functional team but meet regularly with their product team to advance the project. They may be fully dedicated to the project or still work on other unrelated projects. Finally, product teams are pulled together at the enterprise level and are not regionspecific. Although they may produce differentiated projects for unique regions, their primary focus is on enterprisewide initiatives.
