Hierarchical Structure vs Flat Structure? A very common debate when the decision to govern an organization comes up. Each of these structures has their own advantage and disadvantage. The most appropriate use of these structures would be to assess the needs and wants of the organization keeping goal set in view. This can help understand the requirements better. A proper route to decision making can help solve the Hierarchical Structure vs Flat Structure debate for any organization. Jump to Matrix Structure, Network Structure, Functional Structure, or Divisional Structure. The Flat Structure The flat organizational structure eliminates middle management and adopts a more casual, people-powered approach to running a business. Small organizations, naturally adopt this structure because of limited employees. The lower number of employees who are focused helps in ensuring that the business is able to manage without complicating things for the organization. When the businesses start growing with a lot…

What is a matrix organization? An organization will be known as matrix organization when it follows the matrix structure. During a project, an organization usually follows the matrix structure. In a matrix structure, the employees report to two different managers at one time. One of the bosses is the manager who has authority due to vertical hierarchy. The second boss is the one who gets the authority due to flat hierarchy. Due to this divided flow of horizontal and vertical authority, this type of organization is said to have a ‘matrix’ structure. The matrix organizational structure is a mix of two other organizational structures, the project system, and the functional system. The matrix structure cancels out the extremes of the two structures to balance them somewhere in between. For example, if you are a software engineer at a firm and that firm receives a project that requires a software engineer,…

We all love Hollywood and we watch movies every now and then, but some movies leave an imperishable impression on our minds by teaching us a worthy lesson. One such movie that outperformed many others in relaying the importance of teamwork and the true value of leadership, in my experience, was none other than 300. King Leonidas led 300 Spartans against a million Persians for days because they were strong, well-trained and powerful. Have they be able to achieve what they achieved in those days if they became myriads of a strength of their own and walked an individual path! The movie showed that they were destined to unite and work in coherence to take down the enemy. But, here’s the thing, if you see the combat mode of the 300 Spartan in the movie, you will realize that they attack the enemy in successions. And that’s what made them…

A network structure is the one in which more than one organization combine to produce a good or provide a service. These organizations can either get into a partnership for a particular venture, or one organization can hire others to handle one or more of its functions (outsourcing), for example, marketing, production, sales and so on. Outsourcing is done by organizations pursuing network structure. We also covered Functional Organizational Structure or Divisional Organizational Structure. if you’re interested to read about different types of organizational structures. Network Organizational Structure Examples An organization that has been using network structure is H&M (Hennes & Mauritz), a very popular brand that has followers world over.  H&M has outsourced the production and processing of their goods to different countries majorly Asian and South East Asian countries. The figure above explains the fundamentals of a network organizational structure. In the middle, there is a blue circle with ‘core company’…

We’re going to illustrate some horizontal integration examples to help you understand why it is used, and how it helps business to win against competing companies. In a nutshell, horizontal integration refers to the acquisition of a company operating at the same level of the value chain. The acquired business can belong to either a similar industry or different one. Unlike in the case of vertical integration, whereby a company either expands upstream or downstream. A few horizontal integration examples will enable us to clarify what it means in a better way. You can refer to some below, in this post. Why is Horizontal Integration Used? A horizontal integration is a business growth strategy (or a competitive strategy) that could be implemented for a number of reasons varying from: Diversification and pursuit of increased product offerings, increasing product differentiation Achieving economies of scale Trying to curb down the competition Gaining market…