OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The pandemic has caused huge supply chain issues throughout the company. Across
the country stores have seen outages of popular product, food, and even cups and lids.
Many customers flock to Starbucks locations for their favorite drinks or promotional
treats. Like many of our store locations, staffing is a huge issue for our chain. This has
caused daily disruptions that our partners have to deal with. Those disruptions include
spending more time trying to find product elsewhere and dealing with an increase of
disappointed customers. When it comes to our customers, if they can’t get their favorite
item at one of our stores, we are subject to losing them if they go to a competitor and find
a new favorite that isn’t with Starbucks.

I am a District Manager in Starbucks. I lead a multi-unit portfolio that consists of 10

stores throughout the market. My role is to plan, identify, communicate, and delegate key
responsibilities and practices to the store management team to ensure smooth flow of
operations within the district. In my role I also motivate, coach, and help strengthen and
build capabilities within my team of leaders. I also serve as a resource to support with
customer issues, team staffing, store operationas and company policies and procedures.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

Starbucks is considered a very popular coffee chain, with thousands of stores across
the globe. Starbucks has a matrix structure that consistes of functional and product based
divisions with multiple chans of commands (C. Gennnaro, 2021). Some of the divisions
include coffee, merchandise and baked goods. In 2008, during the financial crisis, Peter
Gibbons, was put in charge of handling the supply chain management of Starbucks. Some

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 of the main issues they were facing back then were the current supply chain could not
keep up with the global growth it was rapidly seeing, many stores were not getting
deliveries on time, and they heavily depended on outsourcing arrangements such as
logistics and contract manufacturing. Now, during the pandemic in 2022, we have been
seeing some of the same issues continue to happen.

When the company started to expand across the world, the demand for a stronger and
more efficient supply chain emerged. Operational costs had increased drastically which
was one of the reasons a stronger supply chain was evident. Although Starbucks had been
making significant improvements in the supply chain issue, issues have continued to
resurface as we face this world wide pandemic. Some are consistenet with the same
problems we were seeing in back in 2008. Disruption is inevitable in a supply chain,
that’s why it’s very important to find ways to creat strategic plans in place that have a
structured approach that is clear and easy to follow.

3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

A structural frame is an important strategy to improve performance across the board.

An organizations structure at any moment represents its resolution of an enduring set of
basic issues. I think it’s important to remember that as complexity grows, the
organization needs to consistently change and adapt it’s current and future strategies. In
order to prevent some of the gaps , I would go over the key responsibilities and assign
individuals to certain roles and activities that they are responsible for tracking and
making sure we don’t see overlap which could cause confusion and wasted effort. I
would also ensure that work is balanced to create a better structural balance for all.

I would also make sure that the vision is clear on what the system wide goal is and
help create a plan to get there. I think an investment in helping the supply chain with
programs and initiatives could help with a significant increase in staffing that is needed to
keep production flowing in a seamless manner. I would also continue to recruit and hire
only the best talent available for our leadership team so they can work together and create
innovative strategies that help us with some of these issues we continue to face. I would
also try to reduce some of the complexity with some of our products. Innovation is
important for continued growth, but some of our products take multiple ingredients that
we often run out of. I would focus more on what consistently sells and possible remove
some of the products that don’t to create a more streamlined structured approach to our
product.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

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 The size and scale of Starbucks operations make its supply chains very complex. The
continued focus on a simple structure that works, strong management tools, and a continued
focus on the use of digital technology will continue to be the key to Starbucks success. Without a
foundational structure, many organizations will see continued gaps and failures in it’s operations.
An efficient supply chain management system will enable an organization to manage it’s
inventories to meet customer demand and will have inventory buffers built-in for business
continuity (A. Soni, 2020 ). Much of our valued high customer engagement comes from
Starbucks meeting the demands of the customers.

If we continuously fail at meeting the expectations of our customers, then they will start to go
elsewhere and we will lose them. I strongly believe if we continue to stay focused with helping
the people that make up the supply chain, from the top down, then we will see progress and
continued growth. Most operations continue to thrive when the resources available are centered
on the people driving the business and delivering the products. Investments in staffing has to be
an integral part of the foundational structure that the company is built on. Without people, you
can’t sustain the continued success and growth that you would like to see in the organization.

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 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Gennaro Cuofano. (2021, March 29). Starbucks organizational structure in a Nutshell.

FourWeekMBA. Retrieved January 23, 2022, from https://fourweekmba.com/starbucks-
organizational-structure/

Soni, A. (2020, August 24). Role of supply chain function in Starbucks coffee by Anesh Soni
22/08/2020. LinkedIn. Retrieved January 23, 2022, from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/role-supply-chain-function-starbucks-coffee-anesh-soni-
anesh-soni