Page 13 - CIMA OCS Workbook February 2019 - Day 2 Tasks

Chapter 9

ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT

(E1) PRACTICE TASKS

EXERCISE 1 (ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE)

TRIGGER

This morning you receive the following email.

To: You
From: Ping Bennett (Finance Director)
Subject: Organisational structure

Recent discussions with Tony Trigg have revealed that he is becoming more and more concerned about the
organisational structure here at Trigg Adventure. He is aware that the absence of dedicated HR
professionals and IT experts are taking their toll on my resources as I took over responsibility for these
functions really by default. As you know, our finance team works on ad-hoc projects as and when they
arise and we’ve learned to be flexible in terms of our roles outside of the finance function.

Sally Gomez is also stretched to her limit in terms of responsibilities as she has taken on roles outside of
her sales team, such as being responsible for the new Installation Department, the Despatch Department
and the Design Department. Sally and I are just two examples which serve well to illustrate the need to
rethink our organisational structure before inefficiencies impact our ability to meet corporate objectives.
Our spans of control are too wide.

The directors are also considering changing the organisational structure from the current functional
one to either a divisional structure or a matrix structure. With this in mind, Tony has called a meeting
with the senior management team to discuss the implications. Tony will be asking for our opinions on how
both a product based divisional structure and a matrix structure would suit our current position and how
we would see ourselves benefitting from each structure.

In order to adequately equip me for such a discussion, I would like you to provide me with a briefing
paper on the advantages and also the problems of all three styles of organisational structure i.e. the
current and proposed structures. Furthermore, I would be interested in your view as to which
structure you believe is best for us at Trigg Adventure and your main reasons for this. It may well be
that you recommend we stick with our current functional structure.

TASK

Prepare an email addressing Ping Bennett’s points.
(Time allowed: 30 minutes)

KAPLAN PUBLISHING 35