You have been hired by a website design, production, and hosting company whose new animated website designs are attracting a lot of attention and many customers. Currently employees are organized into different functions such as hardware, software design, graphic art, and website hosting, as well as functions such as marketing and human resources. Each function takes its turn to work on a new project from initial customer request to final online website hosting.

The problem the company is experiencing is that it typically takes one year from the initial idea stage to the time a website is up and running; the company wants to shorten this time by half to protect and expand its market niche. In talking to other managers, you discover that they believe the company’s current functional structure is the source of the problem—it is not allowing employees to develop websites fast enough to satisfy customers’ demands. They want you to design a better structure.

Which of these structures do you think is most appropriate, and why?