P3 includes investigating how businesses are organised. P3 is about exploring the organisation structures, aims and objectives of two contrasting businesses. In this coursework, I explained the organisation structure of Asda and the Curious Comb with a hierarchy diagram to represent the structure, ...
Next in this assignment, I will be exploring the organisation structures, aims and
objectives of two contrasting businesses- Asda and The Curious Comb. The
organisational structure of a business is a key element to build an organisation
because they have the authority and responsibility, individual job roles and titles and
to ensure span of control and chain of command. 1 The organisational structure of
Asda is a hierarchical functional structure that is convenient to improve the chains of
commands, span of control and work specialization. The levels of hierarchy are the
numbers of layers within an organisation. The span of control is the number of
subordinates for whom a manager is directly responsible. The chain or command or
communication flow means the order of authority and delegation within the business
or movement of information from one level of hierarchy to another.
This image on the left shows the organisational structure of Asda 2 from the top to
the bottom of people/employees or workers that have their role for particular
departments. This chart shows that the further up you are on the hierarchy chart in
the company, the fewer people there will be. This allows the manager and deputy
directors make the big decisions about how the business should be taken to the next
step and in the future. Managers have a broad scheme of planning and thinking to
do because they have to look at the long-term effects of supermarkets e.g. Asda and
how they should run it especially when there are events coming up like Halloween,
Christmas and Easter. These choices are important and should be made by the top
administrators/ managers because they have the experience and intelligence in this
type of involvement.3 An Asda Superstore/ supermarket from this graph shows that
74 people works in Asda which includes 38 checkout operators, 16
cleaners, 12 shelf stackers, 3 supervisors, 3 managers, a deputy manager and
manager. In the diagram above, there is 5 levels of hierarchy but normally an Asda’s
structure consists of seven layers and each of them are linked with a chain of
command of six.4
For example, in this graph that I have taken from the website called “locus
assignments”5, it shows the Asda’s structure in 2013. As we can see from the picture
on the left, we see four levels of hierarchy with Philip Davies at the top as an area
manager and supervisors and assistant at the bottom. There is close relationship
between the organization structure and the organization culture. This relationship
has a massive impact in the performance of the organization. For example, Gary
Hall, the store manager, he only needs to report/communicate to Philip Davies about
the sales of the store and any other important information he needs to deliver. This is
because in the picture located on the left, Gary Hall works for Philip Davies and there
is only one arrow/line that joins Gary Hall to and the chain of command or
communication flow for Gary Hall has only one level. However, Gary Hall have the
span control of six subordinates/employees that work for him: Sue Williams (finance
manager), Ben Adams (customer services), Ian Roberts (market research manager),
James Davis (duty manager), Sue Williams (I.T. and administration manager) and
Stuart Thatcher (human resources manager). This denotes that if any of the six
subordinates wants to get a message to the top of the hierarchy, they would have to
communicate to Gary Hall, and he would deliver the message to Philip Davies. The
further in are down the organisational structure, the less span of control you have,
and the communication flow will be slower.
Asda’s aim is to save money for customers so that their customers are offered the
best valued and affordable products/goods. 6 The purpose of the organisation is to
always make sure that it produces and sells goods that consumers really want. The
aims and objectives are to provide goods and services that are at a reasonable price
to the public. Asda’s key objectives are to reduce packaging which leads to profit
maximisation- helps keep investors happy as well as fund growth. 7 They also want to
5
https://www.locusassignments.com/solution/unit-3-organisations-and-behaviour-
assignment-solution
6
http://btecbusinessstudies.blogspot.com/2013/03/asdas-aim-and-objective.html#:~:text=Aims
%20%26%20Objectives%3A,and%20affordable%20to%20the%20public.&text=It%20intends%20to%20increase
%20the,the%20country%20is%20key%20objective.
7
https://www.google.com/search?
q=hair+salon+organizational+structure&safe=strict&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB920GB920&source=lnms&tbm=isch&s
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