MGMT222 Management Principles - Free Samples to Students

Introduction 

Innovation is the key factor for the contemporary business organizations in gaining competitive advantages. Majority of the new organizations and the startups are leveraging more on their innovative approach in order to compete with the existing and established players (Volberda, Van Den Bosch & Heij, 2013). Nuraphones was founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. They came up with innovative headphones that can detect the hearing sense of the person (Nuraphone.com, 2018). According to the information available in their official website, Nuraphones play songs on the basis of the hearing sensation of the individuals and thus it creates the most favorable and pleasing hearing experiences. They consider it as smart headphone that can detect the mood of the individual and play the song accordingly.

This is an innovative product in the market considering the fact that no other headphones are having this feature of detecting the hearing sensation. However, it should also be noted that offering only innovative products will not enhance the organizational performance and effectiveness but also the way by which the organization is being structured. Effectiveness of the organizational structure determines the performance in the market (Bustinza et al., 2015). This report will discuss about the organizational structure being followed by Nuraphones and how this structure is helping them in achieving their purpose and objectives. In addition, this report will also discuss about some of the recommended steps that can help Nuraphones to further enhance their business performance. The gap areas will also be identified from their existing organizational structure.

Existing organizational structure 

According to the available information on their official website, Nuraphones are having relatively flat organizational structure. The major reason behind having flat or horizontal organizational structures is their limited operation. Nuraphones are still in the nascent stage with having the operation mainly in the Australian region. Thus, the organizational requirement and resources are also lower that lead to flat and less hierarchical organizational structure (Yinan, Tang & Zhang, 2014). It is identified that the organizational structure of Nuraphones starts from their founder and CEO and comes down through Chief Commercial Officer. Then comes the lead engineer, data scientist and social media coordinator. Under this level, there are number of posts that work by supervision. The major advantage that is being gained by Nuraphones from having this structure is effective communication process. This is due to the reason that Nuraphones leverage more on the expertise of their internal stakeholders in order to generate innovative ideas from them (O’Neill, Beauvais & Scholl, 2016). Thus, having relatively small and flat organizational structure is helping them to manage the stakeholders effectively and directly from the upper level management.

Nuraphones operate among the niche group of target customers and thus they are oriented more towards maintaining the quality and premium tag over increasing the sales volume. In this case also, flat organizational structure is helping Nuraphones to focus more quality over the quantity. Nuraphones are also having the objective of offering their customers with more innovative and one of the kind products and they markets their products accordingly (Chen & Miller, 2015). Thus, in this case, it is important for them to have the effective coordination among all the areas ranging from product development to marketing and customer support in order to properly position the product in the market. Having the small and flat organizational structure is helping the upper level management including the CEO to initiate the future strategies and coordinating directly with other internal stakeholders about how to go ahead with the initiated strategies. The integration among the stakeholders is more and benefitting Nuraphones in achieving their purpose and objectives.

Identification of the gap

There are number of gap areas being identified on the existing organizational structure of Nuraphones. One of the major gap areas is lack of having proper departments in the organization. It is identified that all the internal stakeholders are working without having any departments. Thus the hierarchical structure is not uniform in nature (Felin & Powell, 2016). Another gap area identified is more extension of flat structure. For instance, they are having more posts across same level rather than having in vertical manner. Thus, use of power is not effective in the organization, which is useful and beneficial in the majority of the cases.

Recommendations 

• It is recommended that Nuraphones should classify their organizational structure among different departments such as finance department, human resources department and marketing department. This will help the upper level management to coordinate with the stakeholders in more collective manner. In addition, it will also help the internal stakeholders to follow a singular approach and this will enhance the productivity of the stakeholders.
• It is also recommended that the Nuraphones should have more vertical approach for their organizational structure. This will help the management to better control their subordinates and this will also help the organization in driving through rough phase. The more vertical approach will be followed, the more will be the effectiveness of manager and their leadership qualities. This will also contribute in increasing the productivity of the stakeholders.
• Having classification on the basis of department will also help Nuraphones to be a more marketing oriented organization. This is due to the reason that departmentalization will lead to have a separate department for the sales and marketing and this will help in effectively determining the market trend and offering products accordingly. Though they cater to the niche market segments but sales volume is important for survival in the market.

Conclusion 

Thus, it can be concluded that the existing organizational structure of Nuraphones is effective and efficient enough in achieving their purposes and objectives. In addition, they are also gaining the advantages of having flat and horizontal organizational structure. However, this report has identified a number of gap areas in their present organizational structure design and the impact of these gaps areas is also discussed in this report. In accordance to these gap areas, this report concluded with a few recommended steps that can further help Nuraphones in having more favorable organizational productivity and practices.

Reference 

Bustinza, O. F., Bigdeli, A. Z., Baines, T., & Elliot, C. (2015). Servitization and competitive advantage: the importance of organizational structure and value chain position. Research-Technology Management, 58(5), 53-60.

Chen, M. J., & Miller, D. (2015). Reconceptualizing competitive dynamics: A multidimensional framework. Strategic Management Journal, 36(5), 758-775.

Felin, T., & Powell, T. C. (2016). Designing organizations for dynamic capabilities. California Management Review, 58(4), 78-96.

Nuraphone.com. (2018). How It Works. Retrieved from https://www.nuraphone.com/pages/how-it-works

O'Neill, J. W., Beauvais, L. L., & Scholl, R. W. (2016). The use of organizational culture and structure to guide strategic behavior: An information processing perspective. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 2(2), 816.

Volberda, H. W., Van Den Bosch, F. A., & Heij, C. V. (2013). Management innovation: Management as fertile ground for innovation. European Management Review, 10(1), 1-15.

Yinan, Q., Tang, M., & Zhang, M. (2014). Mass customization in flat organization: The mediating role of supply chain planning and corporation coordination. Journal of applied research and technology, 12(2), 171-181.