Organizational Structure Organizations can be of many types and it would be wrong to say that there are universal formulae for the success of all organizations. That is the reasons why there are managers to lead the organizations to success. They have to decide the type of organization it is and then adopt the required strategies that would lead it to success.

One of the recent developments in organizations have been organizations which have been set up with an alliance between two organizations or groups, or in partnership with each other. The requirement of these organizations are becoming very important as there is an increasing shift of work from the developed countries to less developed countries as the cost of labor in the less developed countries are much less. This is a very critical type of organization as it effectively has to keep two masters happy. The problems with this type of organizations are now becoming important headlines for newspapers and other publications as there are a large number of individuals in the developed countries who do not want these organizations to flourish, and thus the publication of such information also helps in increasing the circulation of the concerned publication.

The important point to remember while such organizations are being formed is that they match the needs of each other, are in co-ordination with each other, the organizations do not end up duplicating the services of each other and ensure that the tasks are done. The next set of problems come from the communications that are carried out by both organizations and for this purpose there has to be a central body of communicators; the links between the two organizations have to be clearly defined, though there may not be any structure that is legally enforceable; the roles of the two organizations in the new organizations have to be defined; there have to be advisors to both sides to sort out differences and develop new resources. The budget of the new organization has to be defined by the two organizations setting them up in consultation with each other. (Checking the temperature of Your Coalition)

The new organization can succeed only when the leaders are trying to sort out the problems and ready to go through complex decision making. In spite of that, there will be conflicts, but the process of communication has to go on. The level of such collaboration can even increase to the level of a partnership between the two organizations. (Checking the temperature of Your Coalition) This sort of a situation also comes up when there is merger of organizations and that is quite frequent now. What we are talking about is an internal understanding between management at all levels in running the organization. The understanding between the different parts of the management is formalized through certain procedures and these are being discussed next.

Changes for success:

The important factor in management today is the management in a changing environment. The changes which are taking place change organizational culture and values, value added processes, structure, customer interfaces, technology, organizational boundaries, metrics and human resources. The nature of the consumer has changed and the changed consumer is putting up new challenges for the management, and it is interesting to note how the organization is being changed by these challenges or demands from the consumer. This is making it essential that marketing develop new forms of executions and a part of entrepreneurship in designing the new forms. What we mean is that now the form of marketing that is required is modular and this makes marketing more similar to other parts of the organization and the customer is a part of the matters that cause these changes. When the entire structure of marketing is directly related to other functions of the organization, then the ideas that are brought out by marketing can spread in an easier manner throughout the organization. This is probably the new face of the direct link between the customers and producers of today. At the same time, the functions of marketing are divided into other jobs like product development, sales forecasting, advertising, distribution planning, etc. (Designing a More Successful Organization) All these elements have to be clearly understood and directly related to the areas of the organization with which they have to work in coordination.

At the same time, marketing also needs help from other areas of the organization like research...

Ultimately it is the job of marketing to tackle the demands of the customers through both physical and indirect reactions of customers to the products or services. For this purpose, one of the new areas that have developed is the services from the Internet Web, and also the services of outsiders who are directly related to the organization's marketing efforts. Thus it is most important to think totally fresh about the relations between the function and the total organization. This is not true only of marketing, but of all other functions of the organization. At the same time, all these functions are also a part of the strategic decisions that the organization needs to take. For marketing managers it is most important to determine important metrics for taking anticipatory measures and lifetime values of customers.
These are the methods that will tell the organization as to how they can get an increased share of customer spending and not only bother about market shares for different products or services. The dynamic thinking will also tell marketing managers as to how to find out the buyers and bring them to the purchase of the products of the organization. While offering this service, at the same time, marketing has to tell the individuals within the organization as to how the employees within the organization are also affected by marketing. (Designing a More Successful Organization) Thus the clear changes in organizations that have to take place are the improvement of communications within the organization and increased usage of the information for organizational development. This requires not only proper flow of information, but also choosing people who would be able to understand the information that is coming in.

Planning for success:

There are many aspects of any organization that have to be noted when the structure and changes in it are to be considered. The first of these is fall in production quantity and quality which ultimately are reflected in loss of market share. The second is a direct problem of management and this affects the staff, making them loose their morale and this is worsened by making them go through change programs with which they do not agree in terms of producing better results. The third comes from the top management when they feel that their performance is excellent and they can become very successful managers. The fourth is just dumping staffs that have got low scores in the appraisals conducted by the company. These may be felt to have been the reasons for the great success that Welch had, and if the company is doing very well, it may not hurt another executive also. (Future planning)

Problems did not come to Welch as all his defects were covered up through one great idea that he had. He recognized that all banks and other financial institutions used the money that they received from customers for generating their own income. This gave him the idea to use the resources that GE itself had for many other financial purposes than just financing of sales of GE. This led him to establish GE Capital and this caused a great increase in the market value of GE. Today the development of GE Capital is leading to half the profits coming from GE Capital. This is certainly a change for GE and it resulted in success. (Future planning)

The important points to note in this planning for success was that Welch did not lay any bets on changes in customer behavior. The change in the organization was also in familiar territory as GE has been handling funds due to the installment purchases that it was permitting customers. The third point was that the development of GE Capital did not hurt the development of other businesses, and on the other hand it helped the other divisions in generating extra sales. Thus one of the most important points in any planning is to think rationally about the future. In simpler terms it can be said that one must know where he is going, otherwise the person will not reach the objective, except through accidents.

At the same time, it is not enough to only get ideas, but the ideas must have the potential to lead, as it is the job of the manager to make things happen. This is the most important part of change and may be called the effect of the managers' Intellectual Capital or IC. This is clear through the experience of Xerox, IBM and Polaroid which were all leaders at one time in their industries, but are no longer in their leading positions. This leads to a little more…