Organizational Structure of Microsoft Australia †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Organizational Structure of Microsoft Australia. Answer: Organizational structure Microsoft Australia is the Microsoft corporation subsidiary situated in Australia. The company was founded in the year 1985. This company is leading company in software, devices, service, and solutions. Company headquarter is situated in Sydney, Australia. Currently, the company consists of 7 regional offices across the country. A company formed good bonding and relationship with the Australian partners by providing them innovative ways of doing business. Microsoft is supporting Australian community from past 30 years. Every year in Australia, the company donates more than $50m of services and software to the NPO (Microsoft, 2017). This helps the NPO to work effectively and efficiently. Microsoft is the leading company and as per the revenue of the company, Microsoft is the world's largest software maker. Organizational structure refers to the process that includes the implicit and explicit institutional policies and rules. In other words, organizational structure defines a hierarchy followed by the organization for achieving goals and objectives (Investopedia, 2017). There is 3 common organization structure followed by the companies. Functional structure This structure consists of the different departments based on the specialization such as marketing, accounting, finance, IT, etc. Basically, the working of the company is divided into the separate units (Hill, Jones, Schilling, 2014). The functional structure is followed by the Starbucks Australia and Costco Wholesale's organization. Strength The efficiency and productivity of the employees will enhance in this structure. The employees will get future opportunities in the same field. Employees will get specialization in the particular field. The department in the structure is formed on the basis of specialized knowledge. Weakness Lack of teamwork is a major weakness of this structure. If employees work in their units separately, then they are not going to talk to other members of the team. It is difficult for the topmanagement to manage several units altogether. Hence, this might force the topmanagement to delegate the authority and responsibility to the other person. Divisional structure This structure consists of numerous parallel teams who generally focus on the solitary product line or service line. Each one team has one separate top executive who takes care of their team (Zaki, Hussien, Sanad, Sara, 2015). This structure is used by the large budgeted businesses. The companies who follow this kind of structures include General Motors or Microsoft or Bank of America's retail. The given diagram shows the divisional structure of the Microsoft Company. This shows that there are 2 parallel teams; one is engineering group and another is business functions. Strength Divisional structure enhances the focus on the single product and service. The team is having its own top executive so decision making can be done easily. There will be a common culture and esprit de corps, which enhances the moral and knowledge of the employees. Weakness The divisional structure has weakness such as; it brings compartmentalization that may lead to incompatibilities. There might be the occurrence of the office politics which not ethical from the business point of view. Matrix structure This structure is one of the complex structures followed by the companies. In this structure, both managers and employees from different departments or units work together for accomplishing goals and objectives of the company (Rothaermel, 2015). Basically, this structure is the combination of both functional and divisional structure. The matrix structure is followed by the Qualcomm Company. Strength Separate departments work together this lead to the sharing of the effective information. There is no communication gap between the departments. This structure enhances the motivation; in the matrix structure democratic leadership style is implemented in which managers take step after taking inputs from the employees, this motivates the employees. Weakness It is a very complex process this may lead to the confusion of work for the employees, because employees may get an order from different superiors at the same time. This may lead to demotivation of employees. The overhead cost of the companies increases due to doublemanagement in the organization. Organization culture plays an essential role in each and every company. Organizational culture refers to as a corporate culture includes traditions, values, and behavioral expectations among employees. Microsoft follows the organizational culture which helps the company to bring innovation and customer satisfaction. The main elements of the Microsoft cultures are Accountability, quality and innovation, diversity and inclusion, responsiveness to customers, and growth mindset (Lombardo, 2017). Values of Microsoft- Values followed by the company include innovation, diversity and inclusion, corporate social responsibility, environment, trustworthy computing, and philanthropies. These values of the Microsoft help the company to go head to the completion of the goals (Microsoft, 2017). Symbol- The symbol of Microsoft is consisting of 4 colors- red, green, blue and yellow. Red means business which shows the busy and hot life of the company. Yellow stands for signifying, simplicity, strength. Blue color stands for the cool and easy to use. The green color is used for showing the fun and GO symbol. Rituals- Company believes in forming team altogether. They want the employees of the company work as a team for achieving the single goals and objectives (Microsoft, 2017). Stories- Satya Nadella, CEO of the Microsoft Company said that they are learning from the past stories. These stories are helping the manager to take the right step for the company. These stories also help the company to form a correct shape of the organizational culture. Organization culture and organization structure are related terms, both organizational culture and structure are depended on each other in a company. Organization culture is related to the organization structure as if there is a change in the culture then it may impact the organization structure of the company. Though, culture gets affected with many external factors which forced the company to bring a change in the culture of the organization. Microsoft company culture says that they react quickly towards the technology change. The technology is used for the software and application industry. The structure may have an orientation towards the other departments. If organization structure and culture is not working according to then this may hamper the performance of the organization (Brighton School of Business and Management, 2017). Organization structure and culture plays an important role in the performance of the Microsoft. Employees are the assets of the organization, each and every organization have employees who are working on the different level in the organizational structure. Team leader guides the employees to perform the role, in each and every level there is a presence of the number of employees which are required. Employees role is organized in the companys organizational structure (Anitha, Begum, 2016). Organization structure of Microsoft shows that they have organized employees in such a way that they will not face any problem in their working. In this employees of the company need to report to the leader. In each team of the company, there are a number of departments under which a number of specialized employee's work according to their skills. Employees are structured in a way that company can use the skills and capabilities of the employees for achieving the goals and objectives. Under the organizational structure, the manager of the company needs to perform the function of the planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Heizer, 2016). Planning- The manager of the Microsoft company need to take the steps related to the goals and objectives of the company. The future estimation is done by the manager by building a pipeline for the upcoming leaders, creating a good working environment, and bringing innovation in the work. Organizing- The manager in the divisional structure need to manage or organize an effective way of communication. Communication is required for interacting and sharing the knowledge within the company. This will increase team work of the employees and create a nature of being supportive with other employees. Leading- The manager needs to lead the team in an effective way. The manager should have the leading capabilities and skills which help in leading a team. Microsoft managers know very well how to handle the employees and how to take the corrective steps for achieving the goal of the company. The manager can lead by solving the problems and issues in the project. Controlling- Apart from planning, organizing, and leading company also focuses on controlling. In the controlling activity, the manager needs to take steps to ensure the activities are performed in the correct way. The processes include monitoring, corrective work, and comparing the performance of the company with the other companies. Organizational structure enhances the growth of the company. Organizational structure is an internal blue print of the company. This structure helps the company in different ways which lead to the growth of the company (Borse, 2016). Clear direction- Organizational structure improves an efficiency of the team members by providing them clear direction related to the command. Clear directions will help the Microsoft employees for achieving the goals and targets; this leads to the growth of the company. Employee performance can be evaluated- an organizational structure of the Microsoft Company helps the company to evaluate and manage the performance of the employees. If there are lacking then the managers of that particular department can try to bring improvement in the employee's performance; which helps the company in growing in the market. Proper Communication- Effective and proper communication in the organizational structure will help the managers to take right decisions on right time. This will enhance the growth of the Microsoft. Three external factors that affect the working of the Microsoft Company include technological factors, legal factors, and economic factors. Though, organizational structure supports the uncertainty of external factors. The impact of technology on the Microsoft includes with the introduction of the advanced technology. Microsoft needs to adapt the technology to bring innovation in the products. Technology helps the company Microsoft in producing more innovative products which help the online transaction processing. If any of such changes occur, then the organization working get an effect and it affects the sales and performance of the company (Hall, Antonopoulos, 2016). Though, organization structure of the Microsoft is set in such a way that this will help the company in any kind of uncertainty in the technology factors. Legal challenges might be faced by the company anytime this may create an impact on the working of the company. These challenges might be related to the patent laws, energy consumption regulation or can be waste disposal regulations. If any such uncertainty occurs related to the legal factors than the organizational structure support by implementing slightly change or bring innovative ways in the working, by using the disposable programs, by improving the patent laws of the company (Ferguson, 2017). The economy of the country can also affect the working of the company. Hence, economic factors need to be considered by the company. In the developing countries, the sales revenue of the Microsoft products is high. The middle-class customer also likes to prefer the products of the Microsoft. Over here Microsoft can fetch more of the opportunities where the people can easily buy the products of the Microsoft. The organizational structure of the Microsoft includes Research and technological department (Machado-Alba, et.al., 2014). With the help of which company can research on the customer preference; so that company can try to introduce new products in the market. Organizational structure always supports any kind of uncertainty occurs due to external factors. Organizational structure includes both strength and weakness; similarly, Microsoft organizational structure also contains some advantages and disadvantage. The strength of the divisional organizational structure for the Microsoft Company is the department focus on the product development. The company can use the intelligent cloud computing division which helps the company for offering the cutting-edge cloud computing services. This corporate structure helps in the contribution of the competitiveness of the Microsoft products. One of the weaknesses of the Microsoft organization structure is that the structure is least considered for the regional market differences. Different regions have a different demand of the Microsofts computer software and hardware features, same like the smartphones. Business need structure to perform the strategies in the right manner and to earn a profit. Different companies part of different industries need employees having talent and skills. Similarly, Microsoft needs a team of the development staff who knows how to use IT. This structure helps in developing the relationship between the team so that creativity and productivity of the employees can be maximized which lead to the success of the company. A well-designed organization structure helps the company in completion of the task or projects. Each manager involved in the organizational structure has different projects for that they have to follow the set structure which helps them in achieving the goals and lead to the success of the organization. In the organization structure, each employee or member needs to be aware of their responsibility that they need to fulfill (Drucker, 2017). This helps the managers to give orders to the lower management and get the work done for achieving the success. Ultimately, organizational structure helps the company in getting the success. The structure is essential in each and every company, a majority of the big companies follow divisional structure. Similarly, Microsoft follows divisional structure. These companies know how to build the structure and which structure works best for them, this is the reason these companies are growing in the market. But there are organizations that get fail in the few years of the set up the reason being the structure of the company (Jackson, 2017). Recent settle companies need to analyses how to use the capabilities and skills of the employees. Employees play an important role in the organizational structure. There is also a need for the leader who can actually show the guidelines to the employees and lead the team for achieving the goals and target. Guidelines provided to the employees should be clear so that this may not create any such confusion. If any of such things are going to be missed by the organization, then there might be a chance of failure of the organization (Sinek, 2010). If the top management of the company is not effective in making the decision regarding the organizational structure; this may lead to the failure of the company. The procedure follows by the company may also affect the productivity and performance which may create a problem for the business. The above paper talks about the organizational structure followed by the Microsoft Company are appropriate. Divisional structure helps the company in smooth working and helps the company in achieving the success and growth of the company. Australia is having the internationally competitive in technologies which help the Microsoft Company in growing in the market. There is no need to bring change in the organizational structure of the Microsoft Company. The company is leading in the market and considering the economics of the Australia. The GDP of the Australia is $1.1 trillion, with the 2.5% growth in the GDP of Australia (Economic Freedom, 2017). Microsoft performing really well in Australia, now a company can try to communicate well in the structure which helps the company. The Economic climate of the Australia is appropriate for the large companies like Microsoft. The analysis of the above paper shows that the employees of the Microsoft are performing their jobs nicely as they are organized in the organizational structure. References Anitha, J., Begum, F. N. (2016). Role of organisational culture and employee commitment in employee retention. ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1), 17. Borse, F.A., (2016). 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