Read "Structuring$\_$your$\_$organization$\_$to$\_$meet$\_$global$\_$aspirations"

he way a company organizes itself$$how

it allocates responsibilities, how it organizes

support services, and how it groups products,

brands, or services$$can have a substantial

impact on its effectiveness. Global companies,

however, find structure difficult:

Global companies find structure difficult because

there are no simple solutions$$most global

structural options create challenges as well as

benefits. For example, many companies have

focused for years on standardizing structures;

easily understood and navigated structures simplify

costs and make sharing of risk and information

easier and therefore support many of the benefits

of being global. However, global companies are

now often finding that they are reaching the limits of

this benefit$$their standardization has become so

thorough that they find it hard to achieve the flexibility

needed to respond to local market requirements.

Many are therefore starting to revisit the trade$-$off

between standardization and local flexibility.

Another structural challenge faced by global

companies is creating the right balance between

minimizing complexity $($making it easy to get things

done and get decisions made$)$ and capturing

knowledge and innovation. It is often hard to get

things done in a global organization due to its size

and the multiple time zones that it encompasses.

In addition, the inevitable duplication of some

activities across businesses, regions, and

functions creates uncertainty about where to go

to get a task completed or a question answered.

One way to solve this is to create self$-$contained,

vertically integrated, global businesses within

which decisions can be made quickly and

complexity is minimized. However, such silos

make it much harder to find, share, and benefit

from knowledge across businesses. In our survey,

for example, only $46$ percent of senior executives

felt that ideas and knowledge were freely shared

across divisions, functions, and geographies

within their companies.

For most global organizations, these trade$-$offs

are greatly influenced by their archetype. $($See

$$Next$-$generation global organizations$$ on page $1$

for a description of these.$)$ For example, the right

answer to the trade$-$off between complexity and

knowledge sharing for a customizer company,

which tailors its products and services to each

market and which therefore needs to create a lot

of local innovation wherever it operates, is likely to

be very different than it is for a global offerer, which

offers standardized products.

Other issues may also affect these trade$-$offs.

For example, the correct answer to the trade$-$off

between standardization and local flexibility may

vary across markets even for the same business;

there may be a need for greater delegation in

dynamic high$-$growth markets, where decisions

need to be taken more quickly, than in established

developed markets. Likewise, the way in which a

company has grown can also be important. If$,$ for

example, a company has grown organically, it may

have a high degree of structural standardization;

its biggest challenge may be deciding how to

flex the model to allow more local tailoring. If a

company has grown inorganically, it may have the

opposite problem: country or business silos may

operate relatively independently and be difficult

to standardize globally.

Given the complexity of these issues, it is not

surprising that many global companies end up

creating highly complex structures that incorporate

multiple businesses within a matrix of business,

functional, and geographic structures. As one

execut

Come up with your own headings and subheadings $($where needed$)$ to capture the main sections of the article.

Under each heading$/$subheading$,$ provide a summary of the main points.