Aquarius matrix organization

Analyze Aquarius with respect to the five contextual variables. How would you describe the environment, goals, culture, size, and technology for Aquarius?

Aquarius Advertising Agency operates in an environment that involves a lot of specialist involvement and engagement. It serves various clients with different preferences and ideas on how best to advertise their products. However, the firm is facing high turnover rates, where it has been unable to keep its valuable employees. The challenge calls for organizational change to promote satisfying and healthy workplaces as well as cope with the dynamism in the industry. The firm’s goals are to offer customized plans for the content of an advertising campaign and complete plans for media. The goals can form a strong point of reference for the firm in customer satisfaction.

The corporation is founded on a culture of value-driven products, where it not only focuses on returns but also improving the status of their stakeholders. The tradition, therefore, pushes the clients into wanting to deal directly with the specialists, as it will enable them to offer their request. The aspect is underlying in the bypassing of the account executives. Aquarius is a middle-sized firm that explains the simple organizational structure. The range of products it offers is not assorted as are mainly just two categories. The organization’s technological level ranks low, as the only two advances are the use of telephone and email. With technology becoming integral in managerial and governance aspects, Aquarius should consider data-driven resources among other aspects of digitalization.

Design a new organization structure that takes into consideration the contextual variables in the case and the information flows.

To correct the concerns in the chain of command, especially on the mandate of account executives, Aquarius ought to restructure the hierarchical organizational chart. The matrix organizational structure is the best proposal, where the specialists will be required to work and report directly to the account executive. The move would ensure that the executive gives direction to the specialists and always gets contacted before making crucial decisions. Such an arrangement will bestow the powers to delegate and get reports from specialists on the account executives, which will in return imply that they set the standards and goals to be adhered to by the specialists. In the arrangement, the client will approach the account executive to be linked up to a specialist. However, the specialists will also be allowed to directly deal with clients but update their seniors.Nevertheless, the specialists will be under a matrix system and will be reporting both to their departmental heads and to the accounts executives (Qu & Yang, 2012).

Fig 1.1: Recommended organizational structure for Aquarius Advertising Agency

Would a matrix structure be feasible for Aquarius? Why or why not?

A matrix organizational structure involves having the juniors reporting to both a functional manager and a product line manager. With clients bypassing the accounts executives to deal directly with the specialist, the matrix system will make the specialists report to the account executives. The move will help in creating harmony among the different departments in the agency. The products and projects to clients will formally coordinate across functional departments. The system will also ease the information sharing as it will flow both vertically and horizontally. With different employee having contact will various clientele, sharing of information will help speed up decision making and coping with the changing times and trends in the market. The matrix organizational system will, therefore, help correct the current disparity and solve the survival problems (Gottlieb, 2007).

References

Gottlieb, M. (2007). The matrix organization reloaded. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers.

Qu, X., & Yang, Y. (2012). Information and Business Intelligence. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.