Systematic Factors in the Case, Essay Example

The change process in Dyna Corporation has been less effective because of problems that have limited the organization’s efficacy to the strategies adopted. One strategy that limits the effectiveness of the change process in Dyna Corporation is the organization’s functional structure has not been working. Furthermore, the alternative structures have their benefits and limitations that make them impossible to utilize. The second strategic problem that faced Dynacorp is a lack of liaison due to the organization’s expansion in the USA and Europe. The business units that resulted from the expansion were not interconnected hence did not collectively contribute to the organization’s success. The third strategic problem that faced Dynacorp was a weak organizational alignment that prompted the employees to be reluctant to work hard to achieve their expectations. Lastly, the organization’s high pooled interdependence has made the organization so much dependent on the engineers, consequently resulting in the problems the organization is facing.

Systematic Design Lens

The systematic design is based on the assumption that organizations are goal-achieving and deliberate entities. According to the systematic lens, organizational leaders can achieve goals by comprehending the fundamentals of design and aligning the design to strategy and the organizational environment.  In the case of Dynacorp, the systematic design lens focuses on strategic linking, strategic grouping, strategic alignment, and strategic intent. Dynacorp is a company that grew and expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s because it was known for its high quality and innovative products. During this period, Dynacorp had an excellent fit with its external environment. Customers’ loyalty to the organization was illustrated by their willingness to wait for the organization’s products for a year. However, Dynacorp failed to adapt to the market and industry changes, hence the problems it faced in the 1990s. In the 1990s, the use of technology was on the rise, and its competitors had been able to close the large technological gap that had previously given the organization an edge in the industry. The strategic design issues that faced the organization lie in its organizational structure. The organization had designed a functional structure during its foundation. Dynacorp’s functional structure consisted of the three divisions; marketing, engineering, and manufacturing. The issue within the organization is that the three divisions had difficulties depicting changes within the organization. Dynacorp’s existing functional structures were inhibiting it from establishing efficacious functional responses to the external environment.

Lack of liaison in the organization resulted in the frustrations the business unit’s presidents faced with their group’s performance. The US Customer Operation Group, Executive Vice president, Carl Greystone, admitted that his group had been continuously behind the profit and revenue for the previous accounting period. In Greystone’s division, the Branch Manager, Martha Pauley, was disillusioned with the cross-functional relations between business units and sales. Pauley had difficulties completing assignments because she was not assigned a specific role. Pauley had complaints such as slow technical support services and high prices. Despite the complaints, the organization’s team members did nothing to manage the situation. The new factory plant the organization set in Indonesia was meant to lower prices but had operational problems because of teamwork problems. Pauley had no control over technical support availability, and unit manufacturing costs meant that she could not help enhance the team’s effectiveness in such aspects. Although Pauley had no functional control over the sectors, it would have been easier for her to influence change within those aspects of the organization’s embodied liaison. The high pooled interdependence within Dynacorp made the organization highly interconnected, meaning that one process could not occur in place of the other. For example, it is unclear which employee will handle sales. The high interdependence within the organization also results in dissatisfaction with the manner of resource allocation practices. Such dissatisfaction arises from the problems with the technical support and the high manufacturing costs. Even though the accounting team is having issues competing on price, the competitor’s price is high, signifying an ineffective department’s presence within the organization.

Dynacorp’s organizational alignment did not conform to the group’s functions. The group’s functions include customers, matrix, business process, and users. Dynacorp decided to move away from the grouping activities, hence the problems the organization was facing. The organization’s marketing, manufacturing, and development functions were combined to become end-to-end business units and output-oriented. The organization’s turnaround to profitability was affected by its failure to accord proper support to the human resource development team. For example, Ben Walker asserted that too many employees were knowledgeable about selling products but had no solutions to the internal problems that faced the organization. After the organizations adopted new processes, several employees were working operating with old attitudes. Besides, several employees were also working with outdated and inefficient equipment. The idea that the organization could help customers was slow in implementation because it was alien to many customers. Pauley understood that her team members did not have the merits necessary to drive the organization’s changes. Pauley noted that change in the organizational activities changed the role of a product salesperson to solution providers. The employees had little knowledge of the industry, the concept of systems integration, and software applications.

Recommendations

Dynacorp should remove layers from its hierarchy to give all the employees the privilege of contributing their views on the organization’s issues. Dynacorp, as it is presently constructed, does not allow input from all tiers of employees. The organization has focused on the input from engineers and sales representatives, thereby neglecting other employees’ role within the organization. Dynacorp should train Martha Pauley’s workforce because she is presently working with employees who lack the necessary knowledge and zeal to drive the organization’s processes. Dynacorp should empower its employees with the view of fulfilling customer’s demands. Dynacorp’s organizational structure is problematic because there is no clear structure of the way communication and customer demands should be managed. This issue has to be fixed by adopting a product division structure. The product division structure will solve the three problems identified to be affecting the organization. The organization’s three problems include the slow pace of market penetration, high cost, and the generation of value-added customer services. Dynacorp will become more transparent in costs and performance if it adopts the main organizational strategy’s product division structure. A major problem within the organization is the misunderstanding among different departments. The product division structure will solve this issue by having different group members undertaking different tasks such as manufacturing. Lastly, Dynacorp should focus on creating products that accord them a competitive advantage. Dynacorp can gain a higher status relative to its contemporaries if it offers a product that embodies aspects such as intelligent, deep, empowering, elegant, and complete.