Organisational Structure

This article discusses the importance of organisational structure and the issues faced by companies. It explores the lack of training and collaboration among departments as major problems. The article also compares tall and flat organisational structures and provides recommendations for improvement, including employee training and recruitment strategies.

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive summary:
It transpires from the discussion that MBIT suffers from several issues like lack of training of
employees. The management should transform the entire organisational structure to facilitate
faster decision making. This would enable the company to satisfy more clients which would
ultimately lead to revenue generation.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary:....................................................................................................................1
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Body:................................................................................................................................................2
Causes of the issues:........................................................................................................................2
Lack of sufficient employees:......................................................................................................2
Lack of interdepartmental collaboration:.....................................................................................3
Lack of dynamic decision making mechanism:...........................................................................5
Organizational culture and how it affects performance:..................................................................6
Tall organizational structures vs flat structures:..............................................................................6
Tall organisational structures:......................................................................................................6
Flat organisational structures:......................................................................................................7
Comparison between the two structures (advantages vs disadvantages).....................................8
Recommendations: What and how to implement:...........................................................................8
Training of employees:................................................................................................................9
Recruiting new employees:..........................................................................................................9
Flattening of the organisational structure:...................................................................................9
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction:
Business organisations have to operate in dynamic ways in order to serve clients to
ensure satisfaction of the latter. Providing services to clients in today’s competitive business
environment often requires different business units and departments to collaborate with other.
Further, the organisational structure of the concerned service providing organisation has to flat
and comparatively free from red tape to make approval to take important decisions easy. The aim
of the paper is to delve into the importance of dynamic decision making process. The research
into the importance of a dynamic decision making process would be conducted with M & D IT
Private Limited abbreviated as MDIT. The medium sized IT company had three main business
areas namely, IT infrastructure implementation, IT support and cyber security consulting. The
three lines of business were assisted by accounting and finance department, human resource
department and sales department. The organisational structure of the company was tall which did
not allow prompt decision making. The number of the employees in the organisation was
insufficient compared to the numbers of managers and assistant managers. The scarcity of
employees inhibited the company from serving the clients efficient which resulted in resentment
among the latter. The owners of MDIT namely, Ian Murray and Jenny Darling were compelled
to hire a business consultant to ensure customer satisfaction. The outline of the task is divided
into two main divisions. The first division would deal into causes of the issue followed by
comparison between the tall and flat organisational structure. The second portion would involve
the consultant presenting recommendation before the management on the basis of finding of the
analysis. The discussion would end in a conclusion on the basis of the analysis and
recommendation.
Body:
Causes of the issues:
The following are the main issues which MDIT encountered:
Lack of sufficient employees:
The first issue which MDIT faced was lack of sufficient employees which prevented the
company from serving clients efficiently. Bowen (2016) mentions in this respect that employees
hold important positions in the service providing firms. This is because the employees in the

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service providing firms, especially the lower level employees play immensely important role of
communicating with the clients and their representatives. These lower level employees gain
information of the service requirements of the specific clients which they communicate the
assistant managers and managers. Sok and O'Cass (2015) strengthen the argument by pointing
out that lower level employees on extensive basis gain information about the needs of the clients.
This gaining of extensive needs of the clients lead to forming of strategies by the assistant
managers and managers enable the latter to gain more profound knowledge about the needs of
the clients which in turn leads to formation of more innovative strategies to meet the
requirements of the clients. The findings from these two articles holds extremely true for the
company under consideration namely, MDIT. The company as mentioned in the case study
consists of three lines of business namely, IT infrastructure implementation, IT support and
cyber security consulting. Coltman et al. (2015) point out in this respect that IT requirements of
companies are dependent on their individual requirements. For example, large scale companies
require more stringent IT support compared to small scale companies. Further, it can be pointed
out that companies holding and sharing immense amount of business date on the digital
platforms require more extensive cyber security. This explanation holds very true for the MDIT.
The case study in the fourth paragraph while introducing the owners Murray and Darling
mentioned that the firm was in business for 20 years. Thus, it can be assumed strongly on this
basis that the firm had acquire business clients of small, medium and large scale having varying
IT needs. Thus, it can be pointed out that the lack of employees in the lower level inhibited it
from serving these diverse client base efficiently which in turn led to dissatisfaction among the
latter. Thus, it transpired from the analysis that lack of lower level employees emerged as the
first issue before the company.
Lack of interdepartmental collaboration:
The second issue which MDIT faced was lack of cooperation among the lines of the
business departments and the supporting departments. The case study in the introductory
paragraph reports that MDIT consisted of three main lines of business (LOBs) namely, IT
infrastructure implementation, IT support and cyber security consulting. The case study right in
the second paragraph reported that the three LOBs were supported by accounting and financing
department, human resource department and sales department. The case study clearly mentions
that the three existing LOBs did not collaborate the supporting departments or among

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themselves. The table below shows that the accounts and finance department plays the important
function of allocating funds towards operations of all the other departments like IT departments.
Gitman, Juchau and Flanagan (2015) mention that the accounts and finance department allocates
funds towards payment of salary to the staff members operating in the company. Similarly, the
accounts department receives the sales turnover of the sales department. The account
departments is also responsible for making payments of the creditors. Cascio (2015) stresses on
the importance of the human resource department pointing out that the department is responsible
for acquiring, training and managing employees employed by the company. Similarly, the sales
department plays the crucial role of selling goods to clients, thus generating revenue. This
analysis shows that all the departments of the firms are interdependent on each other.
Figure 1. The general organization of a corporation and the finance function (shown in yellow)
(Source: Gitman, L.J., Juchau, R. and Flanagan, J., 2015)

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As far as the MDIT was concerned, it can be pointed out that the LOBs and the
supporting departments should have collaborated among themselves. The case study reported
that the departments did not collaborate with each other. This lack of collaboration among the
departments was responsible for the first issue. For example, the 3 LOBs did not cooperate with
the HR and accounts department. This resulted in inefficient operations in these departments.
The LOBs did not communicate the requirement of new staff which resulted in lack of proper
staffing. Moreover, the existing employees were not provided with training which in turn
inhibited them from serving customers efficiently. This resulted in improper client service which
resulted in resentment among the latter. Thus, it can be pointed out that lack of collaboration was
one of the greatest issues faced by MDIT.
Lack of dynamic decision making mechanism:
The third issue which MDIT faced was a lack of dynamic decision making mechanism.
The company had a tall structure which hindered smooth decision making. Jabbour and de Sousa
Jabbour (2016) point out that efficient human resource management enables firms to manage
their human resources efficiently across departments and designations. Guillén and Kunze (2019)
strengthen the argument by mentioning that collaboration among employees in different
department enables smooth flow of communication of business information up, down and
laterally. This smooth flow of business information enables the managers take appropriate
decisions as per the needs of the customers. As far as MDIT was concerned, the case study
clearly mentioned that there was an acute lack of collaboration among employees in different
departments. Thus, it can be established very strongly that employees of different departments
did not communicate the information obtained from the clients. For example, the requirements of
new IT security which a client communicated with the sales department was not communicate to
the cyber security consulting. Thus, the cyber security package which the cyber security
consulting department delivered to the client did not cover the new requirements communicated
to the sales department previously. This resulted in the lack of client satisfaction since the cyber
security package was not able to meet the requirements of the client. It can also be established
that the lack of communication among the departments inhibited proper decision making
(Ashkenas 2015). The case study further mentioned that business decision at MDIT involved a
long approval process. It can be established that the lack of collaboration among the departments
at MDIT prolonged this approval process. Thus, it is evident that the lack of collaboration among

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departments led to slow and improper decision making which in turn summed up to client
dissatisfaction.
Organizational culture and how it affects performance:
Organisational culture refers to the behaviours and value which illustrate the unique
social and psychological environment. Corfield and Paton (2016) define the term is complex
integration of the different values of individual employees into a set of behaviour and practices
which reflect the entire organisation. They further mention that organisational values exist at
three levels. The first level consists of ‘artefacts’ or common behavioural traits among
employees. The second stage contains the values on which the entire organisation stands while
the deepest stage or the third stage hold the basic values of the organisations which are presented
by the vision and mission. Thus, it is clear that the organisational culture refers to the specific
behavioural traits of the employees of a particular organisation. As far as MBIT was concerned,
it can be pointed out that the organisational culture was weak. The employees of the organisation
were attributed with common behavioural traits. First of all, the employees lacked collaboration.
Secondly, the organisational structure of the company was tall which inhibited smooth decision
making. The third organisational structural attribute of MBIT was lack of employees in the lower
level coupled with no employee training which summed up to high employee turnover (Zhu
2015). The case study was evident that poor organisational culture resulted into inappropriate
decision making. The lack of communication among the department resulted in prevented
business information from being circulated among the departments. This resulted in providing of
inappropriate services resulted in lack of satisfaction among clients. Thus, it can be established
that the poor organisational structure result in poor organisational performance.
Tall organizational structures vs flat structures:
Tall organisational structures:
Tall organisational structures are structures are organisational structures in which the
authority follows a single chain of command. The tall organisational structures are characterised
by multiple layers of management between the topmost and the lowermost levels of execution.
This organisational structure has fewer number of employees reporting each manager.

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CEO
Director 1 Director
2
Director
3
Manager Manager Manager
AM AM AM
Lower level
employees
Lower level
employees
Lower level
employees
Figure 2. Figure showing tall structure
(Source: Author)
Flat organisational structures:
The flat organisational structure compose of multiple levels of authority instead of one
single line of command. The flat structure is characterised by a less numbers of hierarchies
between uppermost and lower most line of staff. The flat organisational structure is characterised
by flow of smooth information which in turn facilitates smooth decision making.

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CEO
Director 1 Director
2
Director
3
Lower level
employees
Lower level
employees
Lower level
employees
M M M M M M
M
MAM
AM AM AM
AM AM AM
Figure 3. Organisational structure showing flat structure
(Source:Author)\
Comparison between the two structures (advantages vs disadvantages)
The first advantage of a tall structure is that it enables a more systematic line of authority.
The first advantage of a flat organisational structure is that it enable smoother decision making
compared to the tall structure.
The second advantage of tall structure is that, since lower number of employees report to
managers. The managers need less time to monitor the numbers of employees. The second
advantage of flat structure is that it has more employees reporting to one manager which means
that managers are able to take up more job responsibilities.
Recommendations: What and how to implement:
The following are the recommendations which the consultant can put before the
management of MDIT:

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Training of employees:
The management of MDIT should train the employees of both the LOBs and supporting
departments. This would enable the employees of the organisations take more prudent decisions
in order to deal with the requirements of the clients. Training would also result in the employees
developing new skills and competencies which would in turn boost their confidence. Thus, it is
evident that provision of training would enable the existing employees to meet the expectations
of the clients successfully, thus ensuring more satisfaction among the employees. In fact
provision of training would improve the skills of the employees and enabling an employee serve
more customers effectively. This would reduce stress on the existing employees which would
enhance customer satisfaction.
Recruiting new employees:
The management of the MBIT should recruit new employees to serve the clients more
effectively. It can also be pointed out that recruitment of new employees would lower the stress
on the existing employees, thus leaving scope for them to undergo training. The management of
the company should acquire new employees from external sources.
Flattening of the organisational structure:
The apex management of MDIT should transform the organisational structure from tall
into flat structure. It would result in more dynamic decision making operations in the company.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded from the analysis that the management of MDIT required to bring
about several transformation within the operations of the company. The management should first
establish a flat organisational structure which would enable faster decision making. The
management should ensure more collaboration among the LOBs and supporting departments.

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References:
Ashkenas, R., 2015. There’sa difference between cooperation and collaboration. Harvard
Business Review, 20.
Bowen, D.E., 2016. The changing role of employees in service theory and practice: An
interdisciplinary view. Human Resource Management Review, 26(1), pp.4-13.
Cascio, W.F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Coltman, T., Tallon, P., Sharma, R. and Queiroz, M., 2015. Strategic IT alignment: twenty-five
years on.
Corfield, A. and Paton, R., 2016. Investigating knowledge management: can KM really change
organisational culture?. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(1), pp.88-103.
Gitman, L.J., Juchau, R. and Flanagan, J., 2015. Principles of managerial finance. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
Gitman, L.J., Juchau, R. and Flanagan, J., 2015. Principles of managerial finance. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
Guillén, L. and Kunze, F., 2019. When age does not harm innovative behavior and perceptions
of competence: Testing interdepartmental collaboration as a social buffer. Human Resource
Management, 58(3), pp.301-316.
Jabbour, C.J.C. and de Sousa Jabbour, A.B.L., 2016. Green human resource management and
green supply chain management: Linking two emerging agendas. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 112, pp.1824-1833.
Nyamita, M.O., Dorasamy, N. and Garbharran, H.L., 2019. A review of public sector financial
management reforms: an international perspective.
Sok, P. and O'Cass, A., 2015. Achieving service quality through service innovation exploration–
exploitation: the critical role of employee empowerment and slack resources. Journal of Services
Marketing, 29(2), pp.137-149.

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Zhu, C., 2015. Organisational culture and technology-enhanced innovation in higher
education. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 24(1), pp.65-79.