Organizational Structure of Nuraphones: Analysis and Recommendations

This report provides an analysis of the organizational structure of Nuraphones, a company specializing in innovative headphones. The report begins with an executive summary and an introduction to Nuraphones, highlighting their product offerings and business profile. It then delves into the company's existing flat organizational structure, examining its advantages such as effective communication and focus on quality. The analysis identifies gaps in the current structure, including the lack of departmentalization and an overextension of the flat structure. Based on these findings, the report recommends several steps for improvement, such as classifying the structure into departments like finance, HR, and marketing, and adopting a more vertical approach to enhance management control and marketing orientation. The report concludes that while the current structure is effective, implementing the recommendations could further enhance Nuraphones' organizational productivity and practices.

Running head: MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
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Executive summary
The aim of this report is to discuss about the existing organizational structure of Nuraphones.
This report briefly stated about the product offerings and business profile of Nuraphones. In
addition, the existing organizational structure of them is being critically analyzed and gap areas
are being identified. This report concluded with number of recommended steps that can help
them to enhance the effectiveness of their organizational structure.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Existing organizational structure.....................................................................................................4
Identification of the gap...................................................................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
Reference.........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Innovation is the key factor for the contemporary business organizations in gaining
competitive advantages. Majority of the new organizations and the startups are leveraging more
on their innovative approach in order to compete with the existing and established players
(Volberda, Van Den Bosch & Heij, 2013). Nuraphones was founded in 2015 in Melbourne,
Australia. They came up with innovative headphones that can detect the hearing sense of the
person (Nuraphone.com, 2018). According to the information available in their official website,
Nuraphones play songs on the basis of the hearing sensation of the individuals and thus it creates
the most favorable and pleasing hearing experiences. They consider it as smart headphone that
can detect the mood of the individual and play the song accordingly.
This is an innovative product in the market considering the fact that no other headphones
are having this feature of detecting the hearing sensation. However, it should also be noted that
offering only innovative products will not enhance the organizational performance and
effectiveness but also the way by which the organization is being structured. Effectiveness of the
organizational structure determines the performance in the market (Bustinza et al., 2015). This
report will discuss about the organizational structure being followed by Nuraphones and how this
structure is helping them in achieving their purpose and objectives. In addition, this report will
also discuss about some of the recommended steps that can help Nuraphones to further enhance
their business performance. The gap areas will also be identified from their existing
organizational structure.

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Existing organizational structure
According to the available information on their official website, Nuraphones are having
relatively flat organizational structure. The major reason behind having flat or horizontal
organizational structures is their limited operation. Nuraphones are still in the nascent stage with
having the operation mainly in the Australian region. Thus, the organizational requirement and
resources are also lower that lead to flat and less hierarchical organizational structure (Yinan,
Tang & Zhang, 2014). It is identified that the organizational structure of Nuraphones starts from
their founder and CEO and comes down through Chief Commercial Officer. Then comes the
lead engineer, data scientist and social media coordinator. Under this level, there are number of
posts that work by supervision. The major advantage that is being gained by Nuraphones from
having this structure is effective communication process. This is due to the reason that
Nuraphones leverage more on the expertise of their internal stakeholders in order to generate
innovative ideas from them (O’Neill, Beauvais & Scholl, 2016). Thus, having relatively small
and flat organizational structure is helping them to manage the stakeholders effectively and
directly from the upper level management.
Nuraphones operate among the niche group of target customers and thus they are oriented
more towards maintaining the quality and premium tag over increasing the sales volume. In this
case also, flat organizational structure is helping Nuraphones to focus more quality over the
quantity. Nuraphones are also having the objective of offering their customers with more
innovative and one of the kind products and they markets their products accordingly (Chen &
Miller, 2015). Thus, in this case, it is important for them to have the effective coordination
among all the areas ranging from product development to marketing and customer support in
order to properly position the product in the market. Having the small and flat organizational

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structure is helping the upper level management including the CEO to initiate the future
strategies and coordinating directly with other internal stakeholders about how to go ahead with
the initiated strategies. The integration among the stakeholders is more and benefitting
Nuraphones in achieving their purpose and objectives.
Identification of the gap
There are number of gap areas being identified on the existing organizational structure of
Nuraphones. One of the major gap areas is lack of having proper departments in the
organization. It is identified that all the internal stakeholders are working without having any
departments. Thus the hierarchical structure is not uniform in nature (Felin & Powell, 2016).
Another gap area identified is more extension of flat structure. For instance, they are having
more posts across same level rather than having in vertical manner. Thus, use of power is not
effective in the organization, which is useful and beneficial in the majority of the cases.
Recommendations
 It is recommended that Nuraphones should classify their organizational structure among
different departments such as finance department, human resources department and
marketing department. This will help the upper level management to coordinate with the
stakeholders in more collective manner. In addition, it will also help the internal
stakeholders to follow a singular approach and this will enhance the productivity of the
stakeholders.
 It is also recommended that the Nuraphones should have more vertical approach for their
organizational structure. This will help the management to better control their
subordinates and this will also help the organization in driving through rough phase. The

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more vertical approach will be followed, the more will be the effectiveness of manager
and their leadership qualities. This will also contribute in increasing the productivity of
the stakeholders.
 Having classification on the basis of department will also help Nuraphones to be a more
marketing oriented organization. This is due to the reason that departmentalization will
lead to have a separate department for the sales and marketing and this will help in
effectively determining the market trend and offering products accordingly. Though they
cater to the niche market segments but sales volume is important for survival in the
market.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the existing organizational structure of Nuraphones is
effective and efficient enough in achieving their purposes and objectives. In addition, they are
also gaining the advantages of having flat and horizontal organizational structure. However, this
report has identified a number of gap areas in their present organizational structure design and
the impact of these gaps areas is also discussed in this report. In accordance to these gap areas,
this report concluded with a few recommended steps that can further help Nuraphones in having
more favorable organizational productivity and practices.

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Reference
Bustinza, O. F., Bigdeli, A. Z., Baines, T., & Elliot, C. (2015). Servitization and competitive
advantage: the importance of organizational structure and value chain position. Research-
Technology Management, 58(5), 53-60.
Chen, M. J., & Miller, D. (2015). Reconceptualizing competitive dynamics: A multidimensional
framework. Strategic Management Journal, 36(5), 758-775.
Felin, T., & Powell, T. C. (2016). Designing organizations for dynamic capabilities. California
Management Review, 58(4), 78-96.
Nuraphone.com. (2018). How It Works. Retrieved from https://www.nuraphone.com/pages/how-
it-works
O'Neill, J. W., Beauvais, L. L., & Scholl, R. W. (2016). The use of organizational culture and
structure to guide strategic behavior: An information processing perspective. Journal of
Behavioral and Applied Management, 2(2), 816.
Volberda, H. W., Van Den Bosch, F. A., & Heij, C. V. (2013). Management innovation:
Management as fertile ground for innovation. European Management Review, 10(1), 1-
15.
Yinan, Q., Tang, M., & Zhang, M. (2014). Mass customization in flat organization: The
mediating role of supply chain planning and corporation coordination. Journal of applied
research and technology, 12(2), 171-181.