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Corporate (Group) Horizontal
Strategies
A lot of time can be wasted in corporations switching back and forth from
a centralized organization to a decentralized structure. Industry changes or a
shift in strategy could well justify some of these organizational flip-flops.
But unfortunately the changes are often made to give the appearance that
management is doing something to correct past mistakes, even if the political
reshuffling has nothing to do with the past failures of the company or its
future needs.
Organizational discussions need to evolve into a more objective and
structured approach that weighs the relative costs and benefits of
centralization versus decentralization for each strategically relevant activity.
For example, in many large companies one of the biggest issues is whether or not
to centralize the information systems department. The answer may well be that
mainframe support and telecommunications activities should be totally
centralized; that traditional applications development be totally decentralized
within each business unit; and that image processing, expert systems
development, and local area network support functions be partially
decentralized. Different companies with different strategies can have different
results. But the discussion needs to be more systematic and structured than
simply asking, "Do we anoint a chief information officer, or shall we blow
it up and outsource the whole thing?"
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