ICS Learn 5CO01 Task One –Report for strategic planning day

Solution

1.1 Advantages and disadvantages of organisational structures, products, services and customers and link to organisational purpose

As evidenced in CIPD (2021), the purpose of an organisation structure is offering an increased clarity, assisting in managing expectations, enabling better decision-making process and providing consistency. Depending on the organisation structure (see figure 1), it is appropriately used in assigning responsibilities, organising workflow and ensuring critical tasks are timely implemented.

Figure 1: Types of Organisation Structures

Top-Down Structure

For the BMC case study organisation, they adopts a strict centralised policy with majority of their operations guided by head office and a traditional Top-Down management structure in the structure. It is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who is engaged in setting the pace in the organisation. This is affirmed by Project Manager (2019) who identify the top-down structure as involving the CEO setting the course to be followed by the entire organisation. BMC organisation structure is as shown in figure 2;

 

Figure 1: BMC Top-Down Structure

The advantages of the Top-Down organisation structure to BMC include;

  • CEO being able to set elaborate objectives and expectations– For instance, in the organisation acquisition strategy, the CEO communicates the process to be adopted strictly with employees following the process. The effectiveness of this is mitigating any potential communication breakdown (Burghate, 2018).
  • Appropriate for maintaining an effective control– The relevance of this is that, in modern business environment, organisations ought to maintaining a high-level control, compliant and safety regulations (Butt et al., 2020). For example, in BMC organisation, the management ought to make sure achieving entire standards complying with government regulations.
  • Communication and coordination prompt and easy– A case example is provided by Project Manager (2019) noting on an organisation with a person dictating a message to 100 individuals as opposed to 100 people debating a message. The effectiveness of this is that the former contribute to prompt communication and easier coordination (Burton & Obel, 2018).

The disadvantages of the top-down organisation for BMC on the other hand are;

  • Disconnected employee and goals– For the BMC case study organisation, this disadvantage is evidenced by presence of high-level employees turnover. As evidenced in Hadi and Muhammad (2019) the core issue with the BMC top-down structure entail employees not being aware of their role to the organisation operations.
  • Employees voice not felt or valued– As evidenced in Donaghey et al. (2019) employees voice are discouraged in a top-down organisation structure. This is since the CEO fully assume the role of decision making in such an organisation (Shrestha et al., 2019). For BMC, this has been evidenced to contribute to issues with employees dissatisfaction, high-level competitiveness in their operations.

Flat Organisation Structure

As evidenced in Incorporated Zone (2021) this is a structure where the highest management level is hierarchically close to the workforce at the lower end of the organisation. This means that the flat organisation structure has less levels which separate workforce from the high-level managers or executives. This is a structure which is popular in organisations such as Facebook, Google and Amazon (Palmore Institute, 2019). For example, the Google organisation structure is as shown in figure 3;

Figure 3: Example of Google Organisation Structure

In regard to the advantages of the flat organisation structure, these include;

  • Reducing operational costs of an organisation– As evidenced in Forbes (2018), the flat organisation structure reduces the overall operational costs incurred in an organisation. For instance, in Google, the employees are offered with freedom of implementing their roles with limited supervision.
  • Improving Communication– As opposed to the top-down organisation structure, Mazorodze and Buckley (2019) note that the flat has an implication with improving the overall communication. This is since there are no intermediaries used with the communication being direct.

For disadvantages, they include;

  • Flat structure is noted to affect the relationship of different organisation strategies (Mazorodze & Buckley, 2019). The problem with this is affecting the capacity for promptly and spontaneously making best decisions.
  • The employees lack of supervision would end up performing dismally particularly those lacking a self-drive. This is identified in Tariq and Ding (2018) as influencing the scope of successful performance and involvement of all stakeholders.

1.2 Organisational strategy link to products, services, customers and revenue

Adopting the definition of Hosseini et al. (2018), an organisation strategy is based on an appropriate framework used in linking people management activities to develop initiatives to guide achievement of organisation goals and outcomes. Therefore, there is a need to link the identified components in an entity.

Products and Services– Considering Google organisation strategy, Şekerli and Akçetin (2018) note it as inclusive of making sure they improve global life quality, accessibility and networking. Their strategy is associated with products and services as part of their vision and mission. An elaborate strategy is adopted to interact and generate product with minimal considerations of their background and area of practice. To evidence these factors, Porter’s 5 forces analysis can be used to note how the products and services and strategy are interlinked (LinkedIn, 2021) (see figure 4);

Figure 4: Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis

Customers and Revenues– Demonstrating he relevance of organisation strategy with customers is identified in McKinsey & Company (2016) as being informed by the capacity of establishing a customer experience business. For instance, considering Amazon and also Walt Disney Company, they are able to adopt a customer-driven approach for supporting their organisation operations. For instance, for BMC, this can be achieved by establishing a unique clients experience, performing distinctively in their market while also being aligned to delivering of an inspired, aligned and fully guided innovativeness.

For revenues, Impactplus (2021)  note that an organisation strategy need to harness an organisation revenues by maximising the short and long-term sales potential. This is since gaining appropriate revenues is important for generating process for offering value and encompassing alignment of the strategy, structure, people and processes. In the context of BMC, this can be achieved by the organisation embracing the factors of Value, Rarity, Imitability, and Organisation. This ensures that the organisation strategy is oriented towards the employees maximum satisfaction. On the other hand, they achieve an increased profitability and also market dominance (see figure 5);

Figure 5: VRIO Framework Process

1.3 Current and ongoing impact on organisations of the range of external factors and trends

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