Which kind of organizational design can serve you better will very much depend on your company’s Purpose, Leadership and People. But even if you have chosen the right one, when your organization is growing you must rethink your organizational design

a)      For a Horizontal organization with teams – Think how to make it efficient besides customer-centric and innovative.

a)      For a Hierarchical Vertical organization – Think how to make it transdisciplinary and customer-centric besides efficient.

b)      For a Matrix organization – Think how to solve the problems that plague its real-life application.

Not easy questions but failed to face the problem of bridging what your growth demands with the organizational design you have, may prove for many companies detrimental.

For vertical organizations which is the organizational design most prevalent before major growth, the company problems become apparent when its functions start to develop self-importance and place own interests above that of the organization; silos and feuds follow. The problems are first seen in the lower level operations where value-to-customer is developed and delivered through cross-functional processes. If high walls separate departments, the process is inhibited, service to customer deteriorates and ultimately customers are lost.

What can we do to remedy these drawbacks? To solve the problems that arise from an existing organizational design, it is only logical to look at the other known alternative designs and choose from them a different one to adopt; that is for the case of an existing vertical design:

a)      Go from a vertical to a horizontal structure or some kind of hybrid or

b)      Go from a vertical to a matrix structure that incorporates both the vertical and horizontal structures

The problem:

a)      The Horizontal design is not for everyone, and even its hybrid version puts the organization [...]