What are the critical business issues facing P&G that an organizational re-design is attempting to solve? What are the overriding issues as to why performance is lagging? Are there components of the 1998 structure that might be negatively affecting the business?
Assignment Question
Procter & Gamble cases A and B outline the journey a major publicly traded company went through redesigning their organization to improve performance results and better align organizational design with organizational strategy. Although the case is somewhat dated, the organizational design considerations, complexity of organizational design, and the organizational re-design process and implications stand the test of time. After reading both cases, put yourself in the position of the CHRO of P&G in 1998. Create a proposal targeted to the CEO and Board of Directors relative to an organizational re-design. Be sure to comprehensively answer the following questions. What are the critical business issues facing P&G that an organizational re-design is attempting to solve? What are the overriding issues as to why performance is lagging? Are there components of the 1998 structure that might be negatively affecting the business? You may find it helpful to research US/world events and conditions during the 1990’s to understand key environmental trends and their impact on performance Make the case that an organizational re-design is needed What organizational structure would you recommend and why?
This is your opportunity to determine what you would have done in 1998, regardless of the structure that P&G ended up putting in place. You may agree with the approach they took, or dramatically differ from it. (with the benefit of hindsight in seeing the re-design P&G undertook, you may choose to modify your design to guard against some of the issues their design created) Be sure to talk about both the mechanics of the design as well as the implications, benefits, and challenges of the design How will you mitigate the possible risks? What could be the unintended consequences and how will you guard against them? Show me that you understand how the organizational design is intended to function (not simply the boxes and lines on a page). I would like you to connect the organizational structure to the organizational strategy and show me you understand the mechanics of the new structure as well as how organizational design impacts organizational strategy. How will the design contribute to business results and what type of strategies could now be pursued with the new structure? Be sure to pull in all of the components of organizational design we learned about during the course that are relevant to the discussion, not simply the organizational structure. Previous
