Organizational Structure

Our structure analysis or audit focuses on determining how structure and strategy can best work together to increase your company's efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability. We work with you to develop organizational designs for the future that will:

• Focus people on the key aspects of their roles
• Reduce nonessential activities
• Eliminate overlap or duplication
• Decrease the number of management levels
• Increase productivity

What is the Management Systems Structure Audit?

The structure audit is a systematic assessment of the way a company is organized, and the extent to which the company's structure meets current and future needs. The output of Management Systems' structure audit process is typically a written report (or series of written reports) and/or workshops in which we present:

• an evaluation of the strengths and limitations of the firm's current structure (with respect to meeting its long-term strategic needs)
• a description and evaluation of alternative future structures that will meet the firm's long-term needs
• recommendations for improving the systems needed to effectively support the implementation of whatever structure the firm adopts
• suggested steps in developing a structure management and transition plan

The structure audit is intended to address the following key question:

What kind of structure is needed to support the effective/efficient achievement of the company's long-term strategic goals?

How is the Structure Audit Conducted?

We believe that you must examine structure at three levels:

1. Macro structure: the roles or "boxes" that appear on an organization chart and how these boxes are connected.

2. Micro structure: how the roles, responsibilities and decision-making authority of the units/positions included in the macro structure are defined.

3. Supporting Systems: how the operational and management systems are designed to support the effective implementation of the macro and micro structure.

The basic steps in the Structural Audit are described below:

Step 1: Examine the company's strategic objectives, the work being done, and resources allocated.

Step 2: Define the structural requirements for achievement of the company's strategic objectives.

Step 3: Recommend organizational structure alternatives and evaluate them against structural requirements to determine strengths and limitations, as well as the overall "costs" and "benefits" of each structure.

Step 4: Working with company management, select the optimal future structure after analysis of the alternatives,

Step 5: Develop a transition plan to help the company move from its current structure to the future structure that will best support the achievement of its strategic objectives.

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