When to Trust Your Gut, Essay Example

Organization Corp is a consultancy firm focused on providing corporations with strategic and financial analysis of corporate positioning within markets.  The company specializes in marketing, PR campaigns, financial auditing, but most importantly Organization Corp provides intelligent business information management data to provide executives with more knowledge when making critical decisions. The following goes in greater detail about the methods and strategies utilized by Organization Corp to deliver value to its clients.

Develop an organizational chart for the proposed organization. Include the title of positions and a brief description of the positions’ duties and responsibilities.

Below is the Organizational chart for Organization Corp. CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer, CFO refers to the Chief Financial Officer who is in charge of most financial data. HR stands for Human Resources and M refers to management; both of these positions report to the CFO, but the Management department also maintains direct correspondence with the Vice President (VP). The CIO stands for Chief Information Officer. As Organization Corps main product is information, the Information department is the most important department of the organization. The responsibility of the information department is to make sure all sensitive information acquired by the company or exchanged between departments is kept secure. The Chief Information Officer oversees both the Information Technology (IT) department, and the Research and Development Department (R&D). Both the HR department and the IT Department have staffers that answer to HR, M, IT, and R&D respectively. For more detail please see the organizational chart below.

Organization Corp is a consultancy firm that largely relies on providing information to corporations through Business to Business contracts. This is why the architectural structure of the organization as a whole focuses predominantly on the ability to provide information to its clients . As stated by Morris and Pinto,  “an architectural style, also known as an architectural pattern, is a set of staple factors coarse grained pattern that establish an abstract design base for a collective group of systems. It  improves partitioning and promotes architectural style reuse by providing solutions to frequently recurring problems” (Morris & Pinto, 2012). The organizational chart follows and architectural structure designed to acquire information both for clients as well as the company’s own strategic success while maintaining a level of security. Human capital is allocated to the four main departments that most need it, specifically HR, M, IT, and R&D. As information is the prime product produced by the company, and it caters to top tier corporations through a word of mouth infrastructure system,  marketing is not a major concern for the firm.

Define the organization’s vision, mission, and values.

Vision: Organization Corp seeks to be the most valued and trusted source of information in the corporate arena.

Mission: The mission of Organization Corp is to build transparent, honest, and fare relationships with all of its clients, that exemplify integrity and professionalism on all levels.

Values: The core values which Organization Corp seeks to embody are honesty, integrity, trust.
The basic planning process for Organization Corp is a top to bottom strategy that starts from the executive level and works it’s way down to the entry level staffer positions, and describes how the three levels of management influence this process.

Organization Corp relies on its executives departments of CEO, VP, CIO, and CFO, to handle the long term strategies. These positions entail the bulk of the responsibilities in regarding with interacting with external stakeholders, such as investors, clients, and industry regulators. As Organization Corp is a consultancy firm, the clientele is predominantly other executives (ie fellow CEOs, CIO, CFO etc…). This makes it most reasonable for members of Organization Corp’s executive branch to engage clients directly instead of relying on lower level staffers to handle the responsibility.  It also makes sense for the Executive branch of the company to handle all strategic and long-term decisions because lower level staffers tend to have a shorter duration in their positions either due to succession, transfer, or dismissal. As information is the main product and service the company provides to its clients, it would also be assumed that lower level staffers would be privy to a reduced level of security clearance and business information accessibility. Below is a diagram demonstrating the levels of management within the company. The pyramid reveals the lowest level as the operational level, which is composed of the entry level employees that deal with the day to day activities of the company but engage in no real long term strategic management.

The most essential aspect of a company’s management infrastructure that management levels plays is the aspect of succession management. Succession is entails the process through which managers, or executives are hired internally from departments within the company.

Explain why the quality, productivity, and profitability are important elements in the planning process.

The brand is synonymous with quality view the brand as a symbol of quality and it’s identified as a source of valued content within the industry and a credible resource tool for the business community.  The quality of productivity and profitability are important aspects of the planning process for the company because they dictate  how the company with be structured in regards to fund and resource allocation. The importance of quality is pivotal in how well an organization can perform. In a study on the influence total quality management has on practice and operational performance, Samson  and Terziovski note that, “our study showed that the relationship between TQM practice and organisational performance is significant in a cross-sectional sense, in that TQM practice intensity explains a significant proportion of variance in performance. Some but not all of the categories of TQM practice were particularly strong predictors of performance” (Samson & Terziovski, 1999).  For example, the cost of productivity and the value which that production can achieve directly effects the profitability which in turn directly effect the amount of revenue that can be reinvest back into production. Organization Corp is a consultancy firm so its product is information, and the quality of its product is dependent on how private or valuable the information is viewed by potential consumers. Quality plays a significant role in performance and how effective corporations are at achieving their intended results.

Evaluate the relationship between the human resource planning activities and the overall organizational strategy.

Human resource management entails salary, allocation and work scheduling. It also entails health benefits, succession management, training programs and performance assessments. The Human resource department is also in charge of recruiting, hiring and maintaining ethical standards within daily operations.  These activities play a major role in the overall strategy of Organization Corp because they supplement the effectiveness and quality of company actions. Ultimately the company will only be as effective in providing consultancy services as its team members, and this relies heavily on their skillet. There are also issue in regards to performance management, such as employees working in positions that don’t take advantage of their abilities or harboring employees with lackluster performance that need more training or should be let go. This represents an improper utilization of resources. It is essential that some part of the company accounts for the difference between estimated utilization of resources, cost, and time, if these aspects of business are not accounted for, they could easily be mis-managed and result in inefficiency overall throughout the company. Resources is the term that is used by every organization in the completion of every activity. Through the utilization of resources, a project can be succeeding or misplaced from right path. An organization can successfully do a task, when it utilizes resources optimally. On the other hand, if resources are not utilized effectively, the estimation of overall activity fails and that activity needs another planning phase. The information regarding cost, work and time reflects the utilization of resources (Demeulemeester & Herroelen, 2002). Computing Support also represents a substantial resource of the company as it supplements the information office, all marketing initiatives, day to day communications with clients, the research and development department, and computing support represents a substantial part of the communication exchange between members of the company and security infrastructure. In this regard computing is a valued resource that represents as much a part of the IT department as it does the Human resource department. Human Resource Departments are also responsible for monitoring employee performance, and the functions provided by computing support systems allow for tools designed to measure employee performance as well as monitoring for any potential employees eligible for promotion to higher positions. A through keeping track of company resources, such as time, money, and human capital, Organization Corp can better progress and meet milestones for future success. In this respect HR assists with projects both short term and long-term.  As Amekudzi and Meyer note,” through support system, an activity’s performance can be measured in such a way that indicated the progress in the process. If a project’s progress in right way in term of cost, time, and resources then the support system denotes towards the correct assessment” (Amekudzi & Meyer, 2005). This is demonstrating how HR and computer support are undeniably connected in the pursuit of organizational success as a whole.

Discuss the philosophy of management that will be applied to the management of the organization and how the structure of the organization will foster a positive work environment where employees will be motivated and productive.

The management method utilized in this organization is an intuitive approach that relies on the relationships established between the companies’ executives and those of the company’s clients, but Organization Corp also relies on the gut instincts of its management and executives. In “When to Trust Your Gut,” Hayashi talks about this form of management stating, “many top executives say they routinely make big decisions without relying on any logical analysis. Instead, they call upon their ‘intuition,’ ‘gut instinct,’ ‘hunches,” or “inner voice”—but they can’t describe the process much more than that” (Hayashi, 2001). Building relations is a key aspect to consultancy, as well as making tough decisions. This management philosophy places trust in its experienced executives to make tough decisions.

Compose the steps of control and types of controls included in the control process for the organization.

An essential aspect of success in business can be found in the measures of control as they have a significant impact on the success of the business strategy.  Management of control largely relies on control systems. For example, from a technical perspective Organization Corp can put certain web infrastructure in place that enhanced communication between staff, management, and even between the company and the consumer. The control measure would be the type of software of network architecture setup for a manager to regulate the interactions, monitor systems use and facilitate productivity through providing technical support. The risk or threat being averted would be a system crash, or a security breach from an external or internal source that could potentially put the company out of commission for an extended period of time without this control measure put in place.  As Iannuzzi (2013) notes, some of the factors that play a major role in how control measures are established entails advanced decision making. The company’s strategic directions are directly related to control measures as the lack of control over variance and the unexpected risks that can occur and move a company off its path. He notes these external influences can have a dramatic impact on the level of control system utilized. He further states that there are internal factors that can influence the type of control system used, stating that “along with internal factors like planning and control system, the external factors like environmental conditions, changes in the existing business atmosphere, increasing competition, customers changing attitude, the urge to break geographical barriers etc. plays a vital part in the growth of a business” (Iannuzzi, 2013). His basic assessment is that business strategies need to be designed keeping both external factors and internal factors in mind. In short, business strategies should be designed considering both external and internal factors.

Organization Corp’s steps towards control entail achieving milestones through a strict schedule of objectives. This way the company can always be aware of how far offtrack it is at any given moment. Currently the milestones that Organization Corp has are standard strategy outlined for any growing business. The main objective of this milestones is to ensure the company is on track to meet its target positions, maintaining sustainable growth, and on par with long-term goals. One of the key Goals Organization Corp seeks to achieve, is to integrate the middle to upper class tax bracket, specifically small business owners and meet their needs.

Organization Corp’s steps of control are as follows: 1) incorporate, 2) Establish an efficient communication infrastructure, 3) Develop company website, 4) Employ first employees, 5) Acquire first clients, 6) Acquire services for expansion, and 7) Engage in geographic expansion planning.  The key aspect of these steps of control is that they mitigate risk through being priority based. Within each step there are secondary or supplementary steps but the main concept is that if one step is completed out of order Organization Corp will be at risk of losing control of its strategic path.

Conclusion

In sum, Organization Corp, through being a consultancy firm, relies on its business relationships and the information ti acquires to sustain these relationships. In order to establish a successful method of acquiring and securing information all facets of the organization must function collectively. Control measures must be set, the human resource department must be intact and engaged with the strategic objective of the company.

References

Ambriz, R. (2008). Dynamic Scheduling with Microsoft Office Project 2007. USA: J. Ross Publishing.

Demeulemeester, E.L & Herroelen, W. (2002). Project scheduling: a research handbook. USA: Springer.

Hayashi, Alden M. “When to Trust Your Gut.” The Harvard Business Review (2001): 169-87. Print.

Iannuzzi. A. (2013) Business Strategy And Management Control Measures For Succes. M&B Company

Samson, D., & Terziovski, M. (1999). The relationship between total quality management practices and operational performance. Journal of operations management, 17(4), 393-409.