By M. Isi Eromosele

Competition continues to intensify in every industry and business sector. New players are changing the basic rules of doing business with new products, technologies, marketing activities and business models.

The advantages implicit in geographical location to acquiring customers and getting capitalization has been largely rubbed out by globalization. New technologies have substantially lowered entry barriers into new global markets.

The rules of business engagement have changed forever. The last remaining source of true sustainable competitive advantage lies in "business organizational capabilities" - the unique ways in which each organization structures its work and motivates its people to achieve clearly articulated strategic objectives.

These capabilities combine an organization’s core competencies, technological innovation and customer focus with the ability to sustain and adapt these competencies to meet the long-term objectives.

To succeed in their respective market places, companies need to understand the concepts and learn the skills involved in designing their organizations in ways that will unleash and maximize core capabilities. They must also recognize that truly effective organization design is a never ending process.

The dynamic competitive global environment requires constant shifts in strategy and appropriate revisions or organization designs and business models.

The underlying theme is that organization design can be an invaluable tool for shaping the overall look and feel of an organization, including both the formal and informal ways in which internal processes are implemented. This is called "organizational architecture."

The broad dimensions of structure, capacity and performance form the general outline of organizational architecture; strategic organization design fills in the specific features of how internal work processes are organized and coordinated.

Organizational Design As A Management Tool

The concept of organizational architecture involves a fairly global perspective. There are several reasons why redesign is so appealing and why so many companies engage in successive and often, unsuccessful reorganizations.

• Redesign is one of the few levers for change that can be done at various levels and implemented with relatively few disruptions
• Redesign makes it possible to change performance patterns in significant ways by shifting resources and managerial focus to new areas that offer increased potential for growth
• Redesign can grab an organization’s attention and focus it squarely on particular issues
• Redesign offers a concrete way to signal a break with the past and a move to a new structure that will be closely associated with the company’s future plans
• Redesign can play an important role in changing an organization’s culture or operating environment, helping shape it’s values and beliefs

Consequently, design and redesign have become central to organizational life. Design decisions define where an organization will channel its resources. They define jobs, shape work processes, motivate performance and mold the patterns of informal interactions and relationships that develop over time.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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