ORGANISATION PLANNING AND DESIGN

Instructor: Dr. Ankita Tandon

Assignment 3

BoldFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the Mobile

Division

Group 6

Ananya Sharma

Devendra Dhumane

Preksha Motwani

Rakshit Kotecha

Shristi Shukla
1.What are the main problems being experienced by the Mobile division?

a)How does the current organization design and new product

development process add to the problems?
BoldFlash had a mainly functional structure.
The organisation was divided into divisions based on either product market- such as mobile or
OEM or organisational function - such as R&D or finance. Majority of the divisions were
function based.
These divisions were further divided into functional departments - such as manufacturing or
sales aligning with the scope of work of the division.

While this structure might work for some divisions, it was creating problems in the Mobile
division. The mobile division has the job to introduce and sell memory components for the
mobile devices sector/market. This calls for proper knowledge of market conditions and needs to
ideate a product to suit the market which can be developed with optimal inputs - physical and
financial.

The current design in the division allows all departments to work in isolation where each
department moves forward with different goals in mind. This creates an information gap where
each department does not understand the requirements or limitations of the others which creates
friction and inefficiency in the work.

Under Dr. Roger Cahill, the previous marketing department was divided into 2 parts based on
their tasks. Marketing department would be responsible for studying market conditions to create
forecasts for managing new product development opportunities while the sales department would
be tasked with selling the products. However the product development department was also
responsible for new product development. As this department was composed of academicians or
researchers, their innovations were many times not fit for the market or the manufacturing line.
All leaders and non manufacturing employees were relocated in the same time zone. This created
a wider gap between the employees at manufacturing sites and other departments and leadership
which caused further discontent and fear of being alienated in the production staff.

The changes Cahill made again did not address the issue of inefficient information flow among
the departments.

These created problems for the manufacturing department as marketing and product
development teams did not bother to give proper information about their developments and also
thus did not take into consideration the limitations of the manufacturing process. Frequent trials
disturbed the manufacturing process. The sales department also did not check in with the
manufacturing department before making deals, which caused rushed production and losses for
the department.

b) How does the division’s culture contribute to this? What has shaped
this culture?
The division’s culture has shaped up in a way where all departments function like independent
bodies with their own goals. Lack of understanding and well defined accountability has fostered
hostility among the functions.
This culture has taken shape because of goal misalignment, lack of clarity and a general lack of
interest in the effects one’s work has on others in the division. The leadership over the years has
made measly efforts to bridge the gap between the departments.

Lack of clarity - The division does not clearly define roles. Different requests and ideas from
marketing and product development for new products are hard to accommodate for the
manufacturing team.
It's hard to get information when this happens, as explained by the product development lead,
who had to switch between marketing and sales several times before he just gave up and made
work with the manufacturing department.
Cahill also placed accountability on the manufacturing and not sales department for not meeting
delivery dates while should have been a joint effort. This clearly divided the teams when both
should get the same response for a task which they were both responsible for.

Leadership - Cahill’s predecessor, Jim Harrison, was also known to be an autocratic leader. He
was uninterested in the concerns of the employees but wanted results. He was said to not attend
important meetings due to which he was not well informed about his division’s issues. This
created a lack of cooperation between the department leads as well as no one wanted to get into
Harrisons’s bad books - people were focused on protecting their own departments.

The department leaders on their own, also can’t seem to communicate well with each other. The
product development lead does not deem product meetings important as he cannot relate or enjoy
the discussions about the market and costs. He would rather focus on his research - something
he’ll also be rewarded for as per the organisation’s performance evaluation system.
Manufacturing lead does not get the point of the marketing team’s reports and does not check
half of those.

c) Any other aspects that you feel are resulting in the problem?
Other than the culture, there are certain framework-based issues that may be contributing to
organizational inefficiency. This may include the following broad categories:

Retention - A problem that emerges out as a central theme in the sales department is that of high
attrition. The nature of the job is such that people tend to work for a short period of time and then
move on other opportunities within or outside the organization. This stems from the fact that the
job gets monotonous after a few months and the growth seems distant.
Not only does it impact the morale of the rest of the team but also adds to the training cost of
new joinees.

Goal misalignment - In a division where all functions have to work together to focus on the same
final product, the teams have been given too much independence.
Rather than basing the employees’ performance evaluation and compensation on the division’s
overall performance, each department is given its own set of goals which - all in different
directions rather than aligning to the division’s goals.

Product development incentivises on the basis of academic research, presentations etc. Thus, the
researchers work on technology without considering market needs or production limitations.
Sales department on the other hand is incentivised on the number of deals they make and deliver,
which again pushes them to make customer promises without consulting the manufacturing
department.
There have been instances where the sales team was praised and incentivised for the extra sales
that came at the cost of losses to production margin, which then reflected badly on their
performance and was a concern for the division as well.

Inefficient Performance Management - Alignment between the goals of an organization and that
of divisions, teams, and individuals is essential for effective performance management. Clearly,
this is one area where the organization is not doing well. Good performance management is not
just about evaluation but also periodic reviews and corrective actions supported by mentoring
and coaching. The lack of framework for this leads to an oversight in the actions that may be
leading to inefficiency.
For instance, if the performance management framework explicitly says that inter-departmental
coordination is non-negotiable KPI for the employees, they are more likely to take it seriously
and work towards it, which in turn strengthens the horizontal communication channel.

2. Should one department take up more responsibility that the others to

integrate activities of the Mobile Division? Discuss with reasons.
Instead of giving only one team more responsibility, BoldFlash must concentrate on
incorporating the comprehensive or reciprocal technology of Thompson. Interdependence is
mutual in intensive technologies. Members of the organization function interactively with this
technology and use various methods to solve problems. There are several efforts that have been
made between various departments in BoldFlash such as, product development, sales,
manufacturing,finance and marketing to meet the end needs of their consumers. For BoldFlash,
the main issue was the miscommunication between the departments that contributed to higher
standards and decreased efficiencies. Reciprocal technology incorporation will ensure greater
participation and cross-functional communication. This would create a robust feedback
mechanism that will provide the development team insights on how to improve the products,
leading to a greater level of customer satisfaction. Further, the organization could move towards
an efficient functioning by enabling mutual adjustment on delivery dates and margins. There is a
dire need to improve the teamwork structure of the organization so as to increase cooperation
among departments, since increasing responsibilities of a particular department might exacerbate
the situation by augmenting non cooperation which would eventually be a barrier in achieving
the company's goal. In order to reduce the dependency on one function, the organisation should
arrange itself into teams focusing on a single product with all functions involved. This ensures
that all the processes are divided equally and the flow of information is smooth. It can also
eliminate bottlenecks, since all employees are not skilled enough to deal with increased
workload.

3. Were all the changes that Cahill made necessary? Were they too much or
too little? Discuss.
The Changes made by Cahill were short sighted and too little. Though it can be said that changes
were necessary in BoldFlash organization and structure, the specific changes made for like the
splitting of marketing and sales department was ill timed and not properly thought through.

Flawed Reasoning Behind the decisions:

Cahill was under pressure to revive the mobile Division and CEO Jack has told him to act quick.
As a scientist Making quick decisions was not his true nature so, the decisions were made in
haste without proper consultation with Directors leading the verticals and neither their feedback
was demanded. Cahill was not sure of the decision being right just to act, he made decisions.

Issues with Decisions:

Cahill didn’t have a reason to split marketing and sales, just because the two verticals operated
separately in consumer division so was done in mobile division. Even after the separation their
KRA’s overlapped. Even when Cahill attended the meetings, He didn’t give his opinion or tried
to explain his future plan to the directors and managers. Responsibility to expand the market was
not given to any of the two verticals.

Second decision of moving the Director of manufacturing from Shanghai to the Waltham office
was whimsical. Just because Cahill wanted all the directors to operate in one time zone, he
moved the Manufacturing director. But this action will increase the gap between the Director and
the Factory managers, which will eventually hamper the production. Rather Cahill could have
established a proper and timely communication channel to coordinate between the manufacturing
and other departments of the organization. This decision also led to loss of staff for the
organization.

Third major decision was to put the responsibility of product delivery on manufacturing
department. Cahill did not consult with the manufacturing team before fixing their responsibility,
their point of view was not taken into consideration. The manufacturing department was under
pressure from the demands of sales and Product development division and was already failing to
achieve targets. This kind of decision could lower the morale of employees of manufacturing
department.

Cahill was not aware of the functioning of departments, before making any changes, he should
have consulted the respective department and try to understand the structural flaws in the
process. This would have led to more prudent decisions.

4. What organizational design changes would you make to take care of the
current problems.

The organisation design changes that could take care of the current problems

The current organisational design is not the best fit with the external environment it operates in.
The organisation faces both:

a) A pressure on price &

 b) A pressure on product development

Theoretically and ideally, this operating environment calls for a ‘Matrix Structure’. Matrix
structure forces an employee to conform to the quality (the organisation’s differentiating factor)
with pressure from the functional heads and adhere to the budget with the pressure from the
project heads.

While other efforts at integration can involve introducing new roles of full-time integrators, but a
fast paced external environment can be better addressed by cross functional teams.

A project-based matrix structure, where each new product is a new project, with a project
manager who oversees a cross functional project team.

The challenges a project team-based matrix structure will address are:

The current research and development efforts, which are not aligned with the market needs, will
be directed via a cross functional team developing the product with insights from all the
functions.

The misaligned efforts of the marketing, sales, and manufacturing functions, which leads to
increased cost in manufacturing, will fade away as teams will improve coordination.

The incentive system of manufacturing and sales are conflicting in nature, which led to accepting
an order in which the organisation lost money, yet the sales executives earned as a result of
higher sales. The team-based approach allows implementing a team based / group incentive
system that aligns with the goals of the organisation.

It will eliminate the overlap/ redundancy of roles as stated where two departments are
responsible for the same work. A team-based approach with a functional head will be able to
derive cross functional insights in decisions like forecasting of individual products and
consolidate the data at the top to get an accurate forecast of a range of products.

Lastly, though the organisation is in a rapidly changing environment which requires

discontinuing older products and developing new ones, in case the number of products increase
leading to a very large number of project teams, the teams can then be consolidated based on
some categories to ease the functioning and reduce the number of standalone teams.

How would you improve the product development process?

Changes that can improve the product development process:

The challenges in product development are integration of cross functional effort and market
focus.

The matrix structure as elaborated above will address the cross functional effort to an extent
while making the product focused teams focused on market needs in development.

Additionally, the geographical barrier between the top and the middle management with the
manufacturing plant can act as a disconnect. Plant managers are already complaining of not
being considered in the decision making even with the presence of an on-site sale executive at
each plant. Moreover, Dr. Roger Cahill relocated the non-manufacturing employees from plant
sites to the headquarters increasing the disconnect.

To address this lack of integration comprehensively, a cross functional liaison team can be
established at each plant site which coordinates the effort between management and the plant in a
holistic fashion.

A complete cross functional team is a duplication of effort but is a step above a sales
representative assigned to each plant. It is essential to percolate the cohesion at the headquarters
and team-based approach to the plant level. A team will be better able to understand and
accommodate the requests of the plant managers.

Are people changes also needed along with design changes?

People changes that could complement the design changes.

The people changes become evident and part of the changes if we consider aligning the
organisation basis the 7S model.
The structure, system and staff will require realignment. While the organisational structure
changes into a matrix one it will also enable the system of Performance Management to change
to a team-based performance management. It will resolve the conflicting nature of performance
metrics as highlighted above. The change in the structure will also introduce generic roles like
project managers. To align the staff with such radical changes, learning and development can
ease their way to adapt to the same. The functional heads’ will have to share their authority and
power while managing diverse project teams. L&D programs can upskill the managers to
accommodate the changes. Such programs also benefit other employees to be able to function in
a project based dynamic structure which they are not acquainted to work in.

The style and staff alignment in terms of providing learning and development opportunity to Dr.
Roger Cahill to equip him with managerial skills along with his technical expertise. This will
allow him to translate his intentions of revamping the organisational performance. This will also
change his leadership style positively which will impact the leaders below in the hierarchy.
Currently, the directors see him as a scientist and not a manager by heart.

The share values, strategy and structure will align as a result of the changes. While the strategy
to differentiate carves a market for BoldFlash, the matrix structure enables rapid change and
market focus, the shared values will align as a result of the above. The functional departments
worked in silos. The value system didn’t induce desired behaviour to translate the strategy in a
product developed with integration. The hard elements will push the value systems to
complement the change.