Customer Service for the Superior Widget Corporation (SWC)

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This definitely would be a huge task to take on. Before anything though, let's look at what our major problems are to see how we can help them and eventually correct them.

1. The CEO made all of the decisions by him/herself! Sounds more like a dictator than leader to me. What does the CEO know about the individual departments anyway let alone the individual employees who run them. Guess he/she didn't take into consideration that those people/employees are the foundation of his company that he has a title of CEO to.

2. This change the CEO made happened quickly and without feedback from the departments. Never a good idea!

3. Cutting jobs when the company is growing??? The employee moral is going to take a nose dive.

*** Then the words matrix style business comes up ***

Always have a dictionary close by or go to an online dictionary to look up important words. Even though you may already know what it means - getting the proper definitions could potentially make or break you. At answers.com it has several definitions that also break it down under sub-titles. I really like the way that is set up because it can be very useful to you now and down the road. Therefore, let's define a matrix style business.

http://www.answers.com/topic/matrix-organization -
Superimposing a group or interdisciplinary team of project specialists, such as scientific and engineering personnel, on a functional organizational design; in matrix organization members have dual allegiance, to a particular assignment or project and to their organizational department.

In short a lot of multi-tasking!

Many trends in business can be attributed to marketing communication; for example: the transition from customer service to customer relations, and the transition from human resources to human solutions.

Create a Responsibility Matrix - (RAM) is typically used to link activities to resources to ensure that the scope's components are each assigned to an individual or team (Source: "Project Management Institute"). One type of RAM is based on the RACI format (Responsible, Accountable, Consult and Inform). This type of RAM is called a RACI chart, because it assigns the role that the resource is to play for each given activity. These charts can be constructed at a high level (general areas) or at a detailed level (low level tasks). A table is drawn, usually with Activities on the vertical edge (Work Breakdown Structure or WBS) and Resources on the horizontal edge (Organization Breakdown Structure). Not every resource will have an entry for every activity.

Visit this site http://www.pmi.org/info/default.asp for more information.

A responsibility matrix can also be known as a linear responsibility chart and can be used to show that is responsible and at what level. For example each row could represent a task and each column a person, the boxes could then be completed with the letters P (Prime support), S (Support) and N (notify). See an example here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RACI_diagram

Who Does what.... http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878-6041420.html

Flat Organizations Work Better Than Vertical Organizations

Integrated jobs--highly trained personnel

Few pure supervisors

Employees are empowered to solve problems and serve customers

Problem solving is participative and staff records and helps institutionalize and implement improvements.

The perfect size for an organization is about 50. Provides depth, optimum relationship between overhead and work, allows nimbleness, etc. As you get smaller, you become more vulnerable to being swamped by surges, torpedoed by personnel turnover, etc. At about 100 persons, organizations begin to stiffen due to the tendency to begin to add another layer of management.

Matrix Management is a Money Maker However, You Have to Be Careful

Matrix management usually involves a core of expertise which is augmented from various sources from within an organization, outside the organization, or even contracted. Conceptually BMM can be reviewed as a form of Matrix Management.

Matrix Management works best for:

Long term projects which have an end point
Staffing workload which is highly volatile and/or unstable

It's a natural for:

Research and Development
Project Management
Studies

Risks are:

Long term employee development
Career paths for employees

However, to a certain extent all functions should be matrix managed on the margin (i.e., at the edges an organization should rely on overtime, contracts, temporaries, borrowed labor, etc.).

Community relations and cultural diversity are complex issues requiring a variety of responses and approaches. Community relations and cultural diversity are based on three key principles which are inextricably linked to each other. These principles are diversity, interdependence and equity.

Consumer Relations The term consumer generally refers to the "end-user" of a company's product or service, that is, the person who pays for and "consumes" that product or service. In a not-for profit context, a consumer may be a "client" of a public organization, benefiting from the services that organization has been created and funded to offer. In a political context, a consumer may be a "voter." Consumers are a critical stakeholder group vital to an organization's success. Organizations that embrace consumers, as true stakeholders in their success will benefit from the long-term asset value those consumers represent. If organizations are to survive and thrive in ...