Appex Corporation Case Study
Autor: vivekiimc02 • October 12, 2015 • Case Study • 1,626 Words (7 Pages) • 7,034 Views
Appex Corporation Case Write Up
What were the challenges Shikhar Ghosh faced when he joined Appex?
Appex Corporation was a rapidly growing business, with increasing employee strength and added project work. It had initially begun as a startup and transformed into an organization which needed a proper well-defined organizational structure. Shikhar Ghosh was recruited by Appex’s investors to provide the crucially needed control and structure to the organization. Major early issues recognized by Ghosh were
- Ghosh realized that the atmosphere at Appex had changed from “entrepreneurial” to chaotic because of structural issues due to quick expansion of Appex.
- Long term goals were not addressed and there was lack of financial planning. Many tasks were addressed on daily basis when they became critical.
- Customers were dissatisfied due to lack of technical assistance when required.
- Information flow among team members had become difficult, for e.g. two developers were unaware about the work each was doing.
- There was lack of project orientation and looseness. Further, unclear responsibility and accountability had made the functioning of Appex unproductive.
- To provide a well organizational structure to Appex, Ghosh applied innovative organizational structures he had been exposed to at BCG. However, most of these innovative structures did not sustain practically and had to be altered.
- The initial iteration of structures, namely circular and horizontal, was not able to achieve the desired results, as most of the employees could not relate to them or were not willing to accept.
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?
Organizational Structure | Importance | Problems Addressed | Problems Created |
Circular Structure | To create non-hierarchical organization where there is continuous & free flow of information within the organization & with the customers. |
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Horizontal Structure | It was a non-hierarchical structure in which employees could fit themselves |
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Functional teams | It was a more broadly classified structure with clearly defined functions & division of teams which had better hierarchy & flow of authority. |
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Product Teams | The structure was made more product centric with product team managers assigned with the role of writing business plans for the products & integrating the functions. |
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Business Teams | Business teams included representatives from senior management & had the authority to make decisions including those related to resource allocation & products. |
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Divisional Structure | Appex’s product could be divided into one of these two businesses. A separate Operations division could service both the businesses with utility functions. |
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What would you have done in Shikhar’s place?
The most pertinent issue in the implementation of multiple structures over a course of 3 years was that Shikhar kept on changing the structure of the organization at such a rapid pace that he did not provide enough time to observe the long-term effects of the changes. Change is always welcomed with resistance. The same happened in the case of Appex Corp as well. However, Shikhar could have done better by keeping a particular structure in place for a substantial amount of time to understand if the employees were finally getting to accept it bit by bit. Rather than keeping a very flat structure, which invited complacency or a very hierarchical structure, which polarized the teams, he should have assigned authority and control to respective managers and senior executives first. A divisional structure would have been a better starting point. After having implemented the changes, he should have kept maintained the structure for a substantial amount of time to gather feedback from the employees for the next wave of change. He could then have discussed job rotation, incentives and funding requests for projects with the division heads while communicating the implications of the same to the employees and registering their responses.
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