Sears Organization\'s Strategy and Structure: Sears Holdings

Sears Organization's Strategy And Structure:

Sears Holdings is regarded as one of the most significant broadline retailers with more than 4,000 full-line and specialty in America and Canada. The organization is the leading retailer of home appliance, consumer electronics, tools, automotive repair and maintenance, and lawn and garden. One of the major features of this organization is that it operates through its subsidiaries like Sears, Kmart Corporation, and Roebuck and Co. The company is committed to enhancing its customers' lives by providing quality products, services, and solutions resulting in trust and development of long-term relationships. As part of its organizational culture, Sears and its associates value positive energy, integrity, and teamwork.

Sears Organizational Strategy and Structure:

In attempts to improve its satisfaction of customer needs, Sears recently transformed its organizational structure in various ways. The company adopted a more flexible structure that embraces change in line with the various elements of the organization. The main source of decision-making at Sears is provided by the firm's former Sears Roebuck because of its long-term relationship with customers. Following its merger with various companies, the organization has developed reconciled policies, compliance regulations, and other pre-determined guidelines. The other notable feature of Sears's organizational structure is the existence of various levels of hierarchy that are each accountable to their own actions. These bodies of hierarchy in the organization are corporate governance, audit, finance and nominating, and compensation (Thomson, 2007). Most of these hierarchies of units have a structure that includes general managers, operation managers, supervisors, and several first line managers.

With the comprehensive organizational structure and core competencies, the organizational strategy at Sears is geared towards stability and prosperity. The organization's strategy has three main elements which as focusing on customers, developing and aligning teams, and maintaining its productivity. While incorporating these three elements, the company continues to emphasize on success and productivity as the driver of its vision, mission and values. This basically suggests that the organizational strategy and corporate culture at Sears is centered on results that imply a forward-centered approach.

Relationship between Sears Organizational Strategy and Structure:

A good organizational structure normally contains an administrative, responsibility, and account or control structure which are determined by the organization's strategy. The administrative structure is usually portrayed in organization chart while the responsibility structure deals with the distribution of authority and duties to its individuals. On the other hand, the account or control structure is the system of analyzing and measuring performance ("The Strategy-Structure Mismatch," 2008). Notably, organizational strategy is the patterns of policies and goals that define the organization and determines its structure. The organizational structure is also regarded as its missions that determine its position in the environment.

Sears organizational strategy that focuses on results and profitability supports it's flexible and well-designed structure. As the organization focuses on customers, builds, and links teams, and sustains its profitability, it supports its structure that contains administrative, responsibility, and control departments. This focus on customers and profitability has enabled the organization to develop a structure that also incorporates and reconciles the structures of other companies it merged with. The ability of Sears's organizational strategy to support its structure is evident in the organization's strong presence in the market, balanced mix of brand, wide product offerings, and effective response to pressures.

Generally the organizational structure of a company determines its attitude towards organizational strategy, environment, and change. The basic result of the degree of fit between strategy and structure is success and profitability in the market. This is evident from the fact that successful organizations use their structure to respond their strategy and core competencies resulting in huge success and profitability.

Understanding of Concepts:

One of the most evident aspects of the link between Sears's strategy and its structure is decentralization that has improved the company's effectiveness in the market. Decentralization not only involves the delegation of authority and responsibility along the organization but it also incorporates the clarification of the objectives and functions of every department (Thompson, 1991). Through its corporate strategy and structure, the company has also established necessary procedures for evaluating and rewarding employee performance.

In order to enhance its reliability and privacy, Sears is committed to the efficient and effective use of its resources to develop products that meet the existing customer needs. Additionally, the organization is committed to the transparent implementation of a procurement policy that guides its relations with suppliers. Sears has been able to achieve this reliability, transparency, and privacy through the development of a supportive organizational culture. Since the organization has a strategy that is geared towards sustaining stability and profitability, it has adopted a flexible structure to support it. Through this, all the elements of the organization embrace creative management styles and processes that promote its transparency and reliability.