ORGANIZATIONAL

BEHAVIOUR - II
CASE ANALYSIS
EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
In Apex Corporation, Mr. Shikhar Ghosh, an ex. Partner from BCG, is facing multiple issues
while getting the organization to function properly. The case describes the journey of
implementing different structures and the effects of them.

Himanshu Jindal – 0268/56

Aditya Kolawale – 0277/56
Darshak Lodhiya – 0278/56
Ashwini Mendhe – 0280/56
Prathna Disodia – 0286/56
Rohit Rao – 0297/56
(1) What were the challenges Shikhar Ghosh faced when he joined Appex?
• Shikhar Ghosh observed that people were working without any specific structure. This was leading to
overlapping responsibilities.
• There was no division of responsibilities; Everyone was doing what they thought was needed to be
done.
• The employees lacked motivation to work and the developed an indifferent attitude while speaking
with customers. For example, most of the time the customers will receive the response that they will
be called back.
• Appex was spending cash too haphazardly and could not handle the increased customer demand.
• The firm had no fixed structure for pricing of new products and services.
• There was lower job satisfaction. The working environment led to increase in employee attrition rate
in the company. Due to this, they had insufficient resources to address the technical issues faced by
the customers. As a result, the Appex’s support team was unable to handle the increasing demand of
customers.
• The company was project centric and the employees defined their working hours as per their
respective project needs.
• There was no financial planning in the company and any amount of planning seemed fruitless.
• There was no proper structure to handle customers’ complaints.
• There was less accountability due to lack of centralization in the system.
• Unstructured allocation of resources
• Appex started to fall behind schedule and missing installation dates given to customers.
• There was no structure for payment to employees and their career progression.
• The atmosphere at the office was highly disordered; no one took initiative t prioritise the tasks or to
organize the meetings or plan schedules. As a result, even the basic tasks were difficult to
accomplish. Shikhar Ghosh thought that the employees are not progressing in their tasks.
• There was a clear lack of communication between the employees and at times multiple employees
were working on the same systems which led to redundant work. The flow of information sometimes
led to system crash.

(2) Evaluate the importance of each of the structural changes Shikhar Ghosh
implemented. How important were they? What problems did each new
structure address? What problems, in turn, did it create?

Type of Structure Importance Problems Addressed Problems Created

Circular Free flow of information The circular structure • Employees
within the organization as was unable to resolve could not
well as between the Any issues or achieve relate to the
organization and the Anything structure
environment. • New hires
Creation of a non- could not
hierarchical organization understand
 how they were
meant to fit
the
organization
• Employees did
not know how
their
performance
was being
evaluated
• People did not
know who had
the authority
to make which
decisions.
• Mentality was
developed that
customer is
the enemy.
• It was
completely
geared
towards
responsiveness
not towards
any form of
planning
Horizontal Clear communication. Power structure was
Cost efficient not properly defined.
Faster decision making. Created power
struggle.

Functional The functions were Team structure The employees lost

Structure organised were organised succeeded in count of the number
as teams. focusing the of teams formed.
company in Job titles were given
completing the task. informally and people
Every teams were cared more for the
more focused on the titles than the actual
task assigned to it. job.
The system brought People were
more accountability concerned about their
and every team desk location.
reported directly to As the functions were
Ghosh. being redefined after
Teams created sub- every 3-4 months,
functional groups teams were becoming
within themselves polarized.
and each function Differentiation of
had managers and function restricted
assistant managers.

Product Team Integrated functions based
Structure on their respective teams:
Inter Carrier Solutions,
Information services and
New Products.
Regular meetings to review
progress of the structure.
Divisional Established two divisions
Structure ICS and IS.
Also created a third
division, operations, which
catered as the utility
functions for the other two
divisions.
To improve the quality and
create a multidivisional
and multi-functional team,
cross functional
collaboration.
Role of personality
became pronounced.
Standards were set by
individuals rather than
by company policies.
Source of authority
was functional and not
managerial, expertise.
Difficult for new
managers to gain
respect of the teams,
because employees
had no managerial
competency
traditionally.
There is limited senior
management network
The product team Ghosh was involved in
operated on the every function which
same network and might hinder the
same customer base operation of the
reported to one company on the larger
business team. scale.
Multi-functional
product team had no
system of authority to
take decisions.
Had no system to set
priorities about how
the resources will be
divided within the
team.
Customer focus
diminished as people
became more
concerned with
internal process rather
than meeting
customer needs.
Improved the The divisional
accountability as the structure created a
head of each problem of resource
structure was allocation.
responsible for their Each division that the
respective divisions. resources were
The budgeting and allocated unjustly and
planning were done were therefore not
in an organised ready to share the
 employees were rotated
across divisions to get
insights in each divisional
product development
(3) What would you have done in Shikhar’s place? Were all the changes in
structure necessary? How would address the challenges Shikar is facing
towards the end of the case? What would you have done in Shikhar’s place?
manner within each resources with other
division. divisions.
There was a great This also expanded the
deal of cooperation, scope for politics in the
intra-division. organisation.
Ghosh was able to It was observed that
focus more on the company had to
planning and buy things in triple
strategic aspects of because divisions
the business instead refused to share
of solving the resources.
structural aspect of The communication
the business. flow across divisions
Each division grew stopped which led to
independently in reduction in cross-
profit and in size. pollination of ideas.
As the divisions grew it
became difficult for
the senior executives
to analyse the financial
statement of the
company.
Each division started
acting like an
individual company
and the problems of
structure and
organisation began to
arise within the
division again.
Appex specialised in
new product
development, but due
to the divisional
structure there were
very few new product
ideas as their little
communication
between divisions.