1 How does this company structure differ from a matrix approach to organisational design?
2 What do the remaining employees of Semco do now? How is their role likely to change as this process continues?
3 Compare this approach to general business outsourcing (bringing in other companies to do particular tasks, catering, cleaning, security, etc.). What are the benefits of each approach?

Semco is an unusual company. Based in Brazil, it has gone through the worst of Brazil’s economic mayhem, survived (800 per cent-plus inflation, the government seizing large proportions of available cash, and at times an almost non-existent home market for its goods) and still grown. It has done this through the evolution of a new management structure – known as the satellite or networked organisation. The case is an example of taking the project management organisation to an extreme.