Business insights. Баутина И.В - 6 стр.

companies have a chief operating officer to take care of the day-to-day running of
the company. The finance director may be called the chief financial officer.
In the US, senior managers in charge of particular areas are often called vice
presidents (VPs).

III Reading
1. Before you read. Work in pairs. How many different ways of organizing a
company can you think of? Think about departments, products and markets.
2. While reading.
1) Skim-read the text and name four main types of organisational structures.

Doing the business
       Roisin Ingle hears how efficient management structures are vital for success.
The need for a solid structure within all the business entities is “absolutely
fundamental”, according to Ms Angela Tripoli, a lecturer in Business Administration
at University College Dublin. “Organisational structure concerns who reports to
whom in the company and how different elements are grouped together. A new
company cannot go forward without this and established companies must ensure
their structure reflects target markets, goals and available technology’.
       Depending on their size and needs there are several organizational structures
companies can choose from. Increasingly though, in the constantly evolving
business environment, ‘many firms are opting for a kind of hybrid of all of them”.
The most recognizable set up is called the functional structure where a fairly
traditional chain of command (incorporating senior management, middle
management and junior management) is put in place. The main benefit of this
system is clear lines of communication form top to bottom but it is generally
accepted that it can also be a bureaucratic set up which does not favour speedy
decision-making.
       More and more companies are organizing themselves along product lines
where companies have separate divisions according to the product that is being
worked on. “In this case the focus is always on the product and how it can be
improved.”
       The importance for multinational companies of a good geographic structure,
said Ms Tripoli, could be seen when one electrical products manufacturer produced
an innovative rice cooker which made perfect rice – according to western standards.
When they tried to sell it on the Asian market the product flopped because there
were no country managers informing them of the changes that would need to be
made in order to satisfy this more demanding market.
       The matrix structure first evolved during a project developed by NASA when
they needed to pool together different skills from a variety of functional areas.
Essentially the matrix structure organises a business into project teams, led by
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