Solution

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different types of organisation structures, including the reasons underpinning them. (AC1.1) Short references should be added into your narrative below. Please remember to only list your long references in the reference box provided at the end of this section. Word count: Approximately 500 words.

Organisation structure is defined as how activities and practices are planned in an organisation with an intention of achieving organisation mission (CIPD, 2020). The importance of organisation structure is to establish how information flow in various organisation divisions.

Hierarchical Structure This first structure is identified as inclusive of a chain of command in an entity initiating from the senior management and executive teams to the final levels of employees (Indeed, 2022). In Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs (MNGH-A) organisation, hierarchical structure is used. The underpinning reason of hierarchical structure is ensuring the high-level managers and executives appreciating the relationship in the entire hierarchy. This lead to improving the overall efficiencies and effectively. In MNGHA structure is inclusive of the top management and as such managing maximum authority and engaging less staff. The organisation structure is as shown in figure 1;

Figure 1: Hierarchical Organisation Structure
The advantages of hierarchical organisation structure are;
Elaborate career path and development path-When an organisation successfully follow the hierarchical structure, staff are in a position of guaranteeing a good chain of command. In line with Ali (2019), this lead to attraction and retention of substantially talented staff.
Increased departmental loyalties– The entities which adopt a hierarchical structure group their employees in various teams and departments. The outcome of this is establishing a team-based practice and loyalty.
The disadvantages are;
Costly and time-intensive for implementation– As illustrated in figure 1, there are many departments in the entire hierarchy. As evidenced in nIBusiness (2022), to manage all these departments is a costly affair. Often the multiple highly qualified staff require to be provided with increased remuneration.
Slowed decision making– In a hierarchical structure, there are limitations on responsibilities and authorities of individual staff and as such reduced ability to adopt to dynamic business environment.
Horizontal Organisational Structure
Also identified as a flat organisational structure, it is identified with existence of limited managerial layers. In this structure type, Tao et al. (2020) identify management teams as capitalising on the need for achieving a large broad scope where multiple subordinates and reduced chain of managerial practice.
As illustrated in figure 2, an example of horizontal structure is presented.
Figure 2: Example of Hierarchical Organisational Structure
The underpinning reason for using the horizontal structure is guided on their capability of offering a chance to staff in prioritising and providing an increased control to individuals. By use of the structure, it also provide chance to utilize direct communication lines by management teams and staff since there are no detailed hierarchical report structure.
Considering the advantages, they are;
Increased employees satisfaction- This is a major advantage of the structure noted as providing the employees with clear job responsibilities control. This lead to what Perez-Lara et al. (2020) identify as increasing autonomy in entity practices.
Optimised resource use– This this strength of the structure, it include appropriate use of resources hence not costly to implement. The rationale of this is that the department is compartmentalized and separated from the other organisations styles. The ability of the process to share and distribute resources and assets effectively among the engaged players is an advantage.
The disadvantages however are;
Reduced productivity– For the organsiations which departments are integrated together in an interdependency manner, productivity is affected significantly. Expectations unclearly defined– This entail employees capitalising on a high-level of freedom. This is since as MindTools (2022) note, it is not all the staff are appropriately positioned to make decisions to prioritise on an entity future-based practice.
Link of Structure to Purpose, Strategy, Goals and Objectives
An organisation structure represent an entity which are in alignment with their assigned purpose. A case study is the MNGHA which use hierarchical structure pursue a strategy which guarantee an increased quality in patients services delivery. Further, a horizontal structure has the purpose and their strategy executed in different departments which is appropriately highlighted with the resources which are important offered. Also, in regard to their goals and objectives, the structure is found linking this to stakeholders in the entire hierarchy and the job role working in collaborative to achieve assigned objectives.

Analyse connections between organisational strategy, products, services and customers. (AC1.2) Short references should be added into your narrative below. Please remember to only list your long references in the reference box provided at the end of this section. Word count: Approximately 400 words.

Strategy goals and objectives logically linked to products/Services By using the resource-based view theory, the strategic goals and objectives directly correlate with provided products. This is since as defined in Tao et al. (2020) strategy when appropriately adopted in an organisation, they are able to achieve their goals and objectives both in a short and long-term way. This is since the resources are appropriately budgeted in specific strategies with a leverage on competitive advantage achieved. For the most appropriate products to be offered in the market, resources are offered to qualified people and experts in the organisation. This is informed by the outcomes of strategic planning which offer an organisation with performance data on their already existing products for ensuring existence of a future-oriented products with diversification achieved. For instance, in regard to MNGHA organisation case, by use of relevant approach, they are in a position of offering an increased products quality in the healthcare industry. This is different from competitors existing in similar industry. The most appropriate perspective of exploring the connection of organisation strategy and products/services is the business-level strategy. Through an implementation of business-level strategies, it is possible to integrate strategies formulated by different functional units with an aim of coming up with different products and services suitable for particular customer groups (Tao et al., 2020). This means that the management and administration of an organisation would facilitate development of products and/or services superior than those of their competitors and which are not easily substituted. The limitation is that this could take a lot of time to be fulfilled and also immense resources to be used. ~~Strategic goals and objectives logically linked to services~~ This link is evidenced by the fact that intangible nature of the services demand a sustainable strategic goals and objectives. By aligning this, an entity is in a position of engaging the best qualified service providers. This is noted by Patti et al. (2020) as possessing positive impact to increase sustainable value creation in an organisation remaining competitive in business sector. According to Cicek and Almali (2020), in the current business market, setting of a strategy entail consideration of VUCA model. Through this, the service offered is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. As such, the services provided are of high-level quality and relevant for all the customers. Strategic goals and objectives logically link to customers The link of customers and strategic goals and objectives are evident at the point where it is important to initiate sustainable clients experience in organisation and personalised scope. For instance, considering MNGHA, in their operations in the healthcare sector, they make sure that their clients interest is the priority. This is by embracing a customer-centric approach with strategic goals and objectives attained (Mio et al., 20202). Through an increase in the entire satisfaction of clients, innovativeness and embracing technology for optimum clients satisfaction. In the process of making decisions on the resources allocation, an organisation priority would need to be on the satisfaction/achievement of their customer needs. Customer needs can be classified as cravings, desires or wants whose satisfaction could be achieved through good product attributes (Patti et al., 2020). Hence, the organisation strategies need to clearly link products/services to their customers needs. This is by ensuring that the strategy is aligned with the organisation customers expectations. The challenge of this is that all customers have varying wants and expectations and satisfying all of them is a major challenge. However, by analysing macro-environment factors by using frameworks which include PESTLE, it is possible to identify customers needs and link this to the organisation strategy goals and objectives. Considering the horizontal and vertical orientation, the latter identify a phenomenon where the partnership is pursued in different organsiations for their growth in similar environment and smaller organisation. Conversely, the vertical integration entail organisation getting a holistic control of the various phases in products and services distribution process. It is by this practice where a structure is modified for integrating overall interests of new entities or involved as part of the structure of the organisation. As evidenced in CIPD (2022), vertical integration entail a process of integrating HR activities with the people practice strategy and integrating HR strategy with the business strategy. This means that the organisation HR strategy is aligned to corporate/business strategy. Conversely, the horizontal integration include integration of HR activities with each other which lead to an increase in their impact.

Analyse external factors and trends impacting organisations to identify current organisational priorities. (AC1.3) Short references should be added into your narrative below. Please remember to only list your long references in the reference box provided at the end of this section. Word count: Approximately 400 words.

External factors represent the issues altering business environment substantially. Since an organisation could not be able to keep up with these pace, the external factors impact organisations ability to capitalise on competitive advantage. PESTLE analysis is applicable for evaluating Politics, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal and Environment relevant for evaluating organisation influence level (CIPD, 2021). This is to guide people practice professionals and top management for strategic decision process.
Current Factors
Taking into account of MNGHA case, the selected factors are;
Economic– For global economy case, a report in IMF (2022) note the likelihood of increasing to 3% as at 2023. This is from the current 2.7% which has been the case in the year 2022. Also, considering the KSA case, the economy has faced immense issues owing to the decreased oil costs and COVID-19 pandemic (World Bank, 2022). The influence of the factor to the MNGHA organisation is lowered resources for HR practices.
Priority– The factor priority for MNGHA can entail engaging government authorities for increasing the entire support in regard to financial. This positively impact ability to ensure sufficient resources are available for their practice in today hard economic challenges.
Social Factors– This is primarily evidenced by the increased number of Generation Z and the Millennials who have increased and entail 15% of the overall KSA population. Further, the Millennials have equally increased and include 30% of the overall population. This impact on the MNGHA capability of recruitment of more employees with the elderly being less.
Priority– For this factor, the priority need to entail integration of Saudisation policy to anchored the MNGHA practices. The importance of this is ensuring KSA citizens are prioritised in the resourcing strategy. Further, representing the most appropriate strategy, resourcing by using technological strategies ought to be prioritised in the entity.
The current trends entail;
Technology impact– Considering the findings presented in Statista (2022), it is clear that the entire revenues development are at 5% leading to an increased volume by 2027 at $3BN. The entire averaged spend for different employees in IT services and products are projected to range at $US155 as of 2023.
Priority– The priority here would entail MNGHA ensuring they invest in robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and also robots to ensure they holistically invest in resourcing approaches. The most appropriate strategy is ensuring they are investing on most appropriate strategy to recruit staff in various departments.
Competition levels– Today, organisations operates in highly competitive environment/context as having a strong influence on the organisation strategy. This is to formulate and pursue profitability hence successfully operating. Currently, there is a surge in competitiveness in contemporary business environment impacting entities operations.
Priority– Considering the case of MNGHA organisation, priority is ensuring they offer detailed guide to best practice for ensuring they provide employees with relevant capacity development strategies. The rationale of this is ensuring acquisition of appropriate skills and capability to attain their roles. The importance of this is to dominate industry and capitalise on competitive advantage.

Assess the scale of technology within organisations and how it impacts work. (AC1.4) Short references should be added into your narrative below. Please remember to only list your long references in the reference box provided at the end of this section. Word count: Approximately 350 words

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