Management Project

Speeding Up Website Design

You have been hired by a website design, production, and hosting company whose new animated website designs are attracting a lot of attention and a lot of customers. Currently, employees are organized into different functions such as hardware, software design, graphic art, and website hosting, as well as functions such as marketing and human resources. Each function takes its turn to work on a new project from initial customer request to final online website hosting.

The problem the company is experiencing is that it typically takes a  year from the initial idea stage to the time that the website is up and running; the company wants to shorten this time by half the development time in order to protect and expand its market niche. In talking to other managers, you discover that they believe the company's current functional structure is the source of the problem -- it is not allowing employees to develop websites fast enough to satisfy customers' demands. They want you to design structure that will reduce the development time.

In a Word document, please complete the below actions:

• Create a visual representation of the current structure. You can use the tools in Word or create it in an Excel spreadsheet. Please use level-headings to clearly identify each step.


• Discuss ways in which you can improve the current functional structure so that it speeds up website development. Create a visual representation of the new organizational structure. Please demonstrate how this improvement has increased operational efficiency by reducing processing time.


• Discuss the pros and cons of moving to (a) multi-divisional, (b) matrix, or (c) product team structure to reduce website development time.


• Identify the structure you think is most appropriate and discuss the reasons for your decision.