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Below there are listed 6 events that can occur within a company. For each one, decide whether it would be easier for the company to deal with if it had a functional (F) or divisional (D) organizational structure. Give the reason for your decision.
E: F Event 1. You just learned that a consulting firm is offering five-day training for accountants next week in Manchester. The f5,000 fee is being discounted to only 2,000 if registrations are submitted in the next 24 hours. Two accountants must be selected immediately to attend. 2. A critical flaw has just been discovered in the operations/production process. It is imperative that production be shut down at all plants for at least 48 hours to discover the root cause of the problem before producing any more products 3. The corporate office has authorized a crash programme to develop a new line of children's products for Sportswear. This requires that the needed changes are worked out between Operations, Sales and Marketing, and HR managers who are associated with this product. 4. Due to sagging corporate-wide sales, it has been announced that each division must increase profits by 10 per cent. This requires tight coordination among personnel in Operations, Sales, Human Resources and Accounting. 5. One division is being sued for a Human Resources violation of highly complex employment laws. It is necessary to discover the cause of the violation and revise the offending policies across all product lines in the company as quickly as possible. 6. A sales representative has found out that our largest competitor has piloted a drastic price reduction for their entry into our most important product line - trainers. Industry sources say that they are about to take this strategy into all of our other product lines (sportswear, equipment, etc.), requiring a response from each division. E: F Event 1. You just learned that a consulting firm is offering five-day training for accountants next week in Manchester. The f5,000 fee is being discounted to only 2,000 if registrations are submitted in the next 24 hours. Two accountants must be selected immediately to attend. 2. A critical flaw has just been discovered in the operations/production process. It is imperative that production be shut down at all plants for at least 48 hours to discover the root cause of the problem before producing any more products 3. The corporate office has authorized a crash programme to develop a new line of children's products for Sportswear. This requires that the needed changes are worked out between Operations, Sales and Marketing, and HR managers who are associated with this product. 4. Due to sagging corporate-wide sales, it has been announced that each division must increase profits by 10 per cent. This requires tight coordination among personnel in Operations, Sales, Human Resources and Accounting. 5. One division is being sued for a Human Resources violation of highly complex employment laws. It is necessary to discover the cause of the violation and revise the offending policies across all product lines in the company as quickly as possible. 6. A sales representative has found out that our largest competitor has piloted a drastic price reduction for their entry into our most important product line - trainers. Industry sources say that they are about to take this strategy into all of our other product lines (sportswear, equipment, etc.), requiring a response from each division
