ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

In the last class Prof. Mandi brought 2 things to class. Today I am going to discuss about those 2 things & how they are related to organizational management.

 

The first thing was a piece of magnet. Actually we were back to our school days when we used to get excited to have a magnet. We were testing the magnet’s magnetism by touching it to each and every possible thing in our class. Now let’s hear about the concept that how it can be related to management. The idea was that the magnet can be compared as a leader. The magnet is a type of person who can influence other people & as a magnet causes a movement to a static iron piece, the influencing manager can get the best of the worst. 

          This type of manager can get the best out of his/her subordinates. These managers have very good relationship with workers & he/she has great understanding about their strengths & weaknesses.

Also he brought few structures having equal no. & same size of balls attached to it. Now we have to join the structures & finally it looked like an organizational pyramid. The pyramidal shape of a company's organizational chart reflects a hierarchy. Executives are at the top of the chart; middle management follows; and lower-ranking employees are at the bottom. 

There are three main types of pyramid organization structures: functional, product and matrix.   

 The point of views that came from students about the structure were-

•           It is symmetrical so everyone can change their roles as per requirement.

•           All the balls are of same size. So everyone has same importance on the structure.

•          There structure has different layers & it can be compared with organizational hierarchy.

•          The base layer or the worker class is providing support to the whole thing. So it can’t be ignored & have to be strong for company’s progress.
  
  
  
  
       The other possible structure that can be made was flat organization. This type of organization is good for a small group of people. But the structure has less no of contact points than pyramid structure.
  
  
  
  
  Organizational structure dictates how work is divided in a company. Small organizations may have a relatively flat structure, especially newly formed companies. However, a company's organizational structure will become pyramidal in shape as more employees are hired.
  
  
  
  
  Benefits
  
  
  
  
  • An advantage of a functional organization structure is that workers are divided by specific professions.
            For example, advertising professionals work together in the same department, as do finance   employees.
  
  
  • Work can be easily coordinated in a functional organizational structure.
  • The advantage of a product organizational structure is that all efforts emphasize ensuring product quality.
            For example, a vice president of women's clothing in a department store can focus all efforts on building sales for one product line.
  
  
  • Matrix structures combine the benefits of both functional and product organizational structures, especially for short-term projects.
  
  
  
  
  Disadvantages
  
  
  
  
  • A major disadvantage of a functional organizational structure is that coordination between different functional areas can be difficult. 
         For example, marketing may have difficulty knowing what the finance department is working  on.
  
  
  • A drawback of the product organizational structure is an overuse of resources.
         For example, five marketing managers may work for five different product departments.
  
  
  • In a matrix organizational structure, employees may experience dual reporting.
         For example, a marketing coordinator may need to report to both marketing and a product   development manager.
  
  
  Also there was a session by some of our senior batch students. And I feel very proud to say that in their 2nd year of college they have started a company based on gifting "Rakhi" online.The website is http://gift-rakhi.com/blog/. They discussed about the problems they faced but how they overcame those. It was a learning experience.They also inspired us to do something similar.
  
  
  Overall it was a learning experience as always.
  
  
  Thanks for Reading.
  Regards
  Arnab Mukherjee
  PGDIM-20