Functionalstructure

Functional structure:

A company organized with a functional structure groups people together into

functional departments such as purchasing, accounts, production, sales, marketing.

These departments would normally have functional heads who may be called

managers or directors depending on whether the function is represented at board level.

Though titles vary depending on the organization, each unit in a functional

structure includes employees who are trained to perform specialized tasks. The top

tier of a functional structure may be a company president. The second tier may be

comprised of several vice presidents, each positioned in an area of expertise, such as

vice president of manufacturing or vice president of sales and marketing. Below each

vice president may be one or more directors with abilities in the same specialized area

as that particular vice president. The directors might be followed by managers, and

the managers followed by assistant managers, all possessing skills in the same area as

those preceding them.

The larger the organization, the more challenging it is for each specialized group

to clarify how individual departments ultimately connect and contribute to the

business succeeding as a unified company. For this reason, the functional structure is

most successful in organizations that are small to medium in size and only deal with a

few product types and services

Strengths:

1) Functional groups are reservoirs of skills and knowledge in their areas of expertise.

2) Functional groups’ well-established communication processes and decision-making

procedures provide timely and consistent support for the group’s projects.

3) Functional groups provide people with a focused and supportive job environment. Weaknesses:

1) Because each unit in a functional structure is focused on its own area of specialty,

it might be lacking a broad view of the company if there isn't consistent integration of

and communication between departments.

2) Units may have limited flexibility in problem-solving, making changes or

responding quickly to customer demands or needs since the final decision-making

authority rests with the top level of management.

3) It is not good for innovation since a company is separated into different

departments according to their functions.Matrix structure:

Definition: a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills

are pooled for work assignments. For example, all engineers may be in one

engineering department and report to an engineering manager, but these same

engineers may be assigned to different projects and report to a different engineering

manager or a project manager while working on that project. Therefore, each engineer

may have to work under several managers to get their job done.

The matrix structure is often viewed as being the most suitable for project work

relating to new product development. Many projects are often interdisciplinary and

requiring staff and resources from a number of different functional areas, hence a

matrix structure would be most suitable.

Remember that the matrix structure is a constantly changing form of

management. As projects are created and dissolved, workers are redistributed. A

matrix structure can be temporary, lasting only as long as a project, or it can be an

ongoing approach to the management.

Advantages:

1) The matrix structure makes it possible to assign specialized resources to projects

when needed. For example, Individuals can be chosen according to the needs of the

project. 2) it is beneficial for information sharing. Because people work on more than one

project at a time, they can keep one another informed about the progress in other areas

of the company.

3) Few people need to be hired because workers are shared among different projects.

Disadvantages:

1) A conflict of loyalty between line managers and project managers over the

allocation of resources.

2) Projects can be difficult to monitor if teams have a lot of interdependence.

3) Costs can be increased if more managers (project managers) are created through

the use of project teams.Line structure:

This is the kind of structure that has a very specific line of command. The

approvals and orders in this kind of structure come from top to bottom in a line, hence

the name line structure. This kind of structure is suitable for smaller organizations like

small accounting firms and law offices. This is the sort of structure that allows for

easy decision-making and is also very informal in nature. They have fewer

departments, which makes the entire organization a very decentralized one.

A wide variety of positions exist within a line-and-staff organization. Some