Thankyou Latika,

As Latika pointed out the very 1st issue that the store chain is facing is “The whole chain was slow to
adapt change” and to make changes at the store level, information had to be passed by the meat,
produce, and grocery managers up to three to four vertical linkages before a centralized decision
could be made at the district director level. Also, stores lacked the ability to add more specialized
departments like pharmacies or gourmet departments. so going into how they are going to fix this
issue the consultants proposed to restructure the organisation into a divisional structure. The old
organisational structure of C & C Grocery is highly centralized, concentrating almost all store’s
decision making to the District Director whereas the store manager is just responsible for the
financial performance of their respective branch.

Divisional Structure solves this issue. It transferred more control to the store manager which is very
crucial considering the kind of competition they are facing, more decision-making authority on the
store level would allow C & C Grocery to react to changes in its environment more effectively and
efficiently.

Let me now try to explain what is the concept of Divisional Structure.

When the organisation is large in size and is producing more than one type of product and have
operations in wide geographical area than activities related to one product are grouped under one
department. So, Divisional organizational structure is the name given to the way a business
separates its activities. Often operating in parallel, each division has complete control of the business
functions from sales and marketing, research, engineering, HR and accounting.

For example, if an organisation is producing soap, textile, medicine, cosmetics etc than activities
related to medicine will be grouped under medicine department, all activities of textiles will be
grouped under textile department and so on.

The reason why this kind of restructuring makes sense in reference to our case are:

First, Product Specialization- All the activities related to one type of product grouped under one
dedicated department will bring integration and coordination in the activities which eventually will
help in catering the end customers with the best quality products.

Second, Fast Decision making- The decisions can be taken much faster because the structure is
leaner and the levels are less hence less approvals will be required to take a quick decision.

Third, Accountability: In this type of structure the performance of individual departments can easily
be assessed and you can hold the department accountable for non- accomplishment of the
objectives and above this because of the transparency in the productivity scope of improvement
increases.

Fourth is Flexibility: Fast decision-making leads to flexibility and the Fifth point is Expansion and
growth: new departments can be added without disturbing the existing department and this feature
of the restructure leads to a lot of potential growth.

If we move to the next slide you can see it clearly how Divisional structure works, here if you see
CEO is the Executive officer and then there are various department depending on the products
company deals with and then the each products have their own individual departments as per the
business needs.
POS

Coming back to our Recommendation slide, next one is POS.

As in the issue its clearly mentioned that the grocery store tried using a new computerised supply
chain management system for ordering and stocking but due to the lack of technical knowledge the
implementation of the system was a failure. As per our understanding of the case, we recommend
the use of POS system for the operations. POS system will majorly help in improving the operations
the store’s customers. This includes reducing waiting time, faster scanning of items, quicker
payments, etc.

Let me try to explain what is POS system.

Operating a retail store calls for a range of administrative, management and marketing skills. From
ensuring that there’s enough inventory to putting together monthly sales reports, these skills are
necessary for your store to run smoothly. And hence Having an efficient point of sale (POS) system
can go a long way in making sure that all your operations are working in unison, and retailers that
spend the time and resources to implement such a system before they need it will reap the benefits.

A point-of-sale system, or POS, is the place where your customer makes a payment for products or
services at your store. Simply put, every time a customer makes a purchase, they’re completing a
point-of-sale transaction.

The latest point of sale software goes beyond credit card processing to help retailers and restaurants
incorporate mobile POS features and contactless payment options, ecommerce integration
capabilities, and more. Therefor using a suitable POS software at C&C store can help the store to
improve their Sales reporting, inventory management, customer management and Employee
management.

Next recommendation in the list is Proper inventory management:

Beyond having too little or too much inventory, poor inventory management causes inefficiencies
because you don’t have accurate real-time information on how much inventory you have. This
increases the risk of mistakes in reordering inventory from suppliers or of selling non-existent
inventory. Making the whole system handicap, as discussed above making use of technology in the
form of POS system can resolve this issue. One of the most important functions of a POS system,
inventory management, at its very essence, keeps track of all products so you know when it’s time to
order/or not order specific products.

The next three recommendation are interrelated to each other:

One of the main reason the store is going through crisis is competition they are facing with large
discount retailer such as Walmart, Target and Costco Wholesale adopting a good advertising and
marketing strategy at this point in time can help the store boom their sales, having a dedicated
marketing and advertising team can help the chain to a great extent.

I would now, like to call upon Latika, to address the next major issue that the consultants pointed
out………
As to what Latika addressed the 2nd major issue is the dissatisfaction caused by the store supervisor
and the store manager:

The overall managerial structure of the company prohibited communication and cross training for its
managers. The lack of communication between functional teams kept the cooperation down and
thus lead to poor performance. The inability to be cross trained in multiple functional areas
restricted store managers ability for promotion. The store managers did not have control of their
entire stores, and lacked training and development for higher level management positions. All in all,
the problem of restricted cross function learning opportunities, emphasis on operational
management rather than development training and coordination can be solved if the chain decides
to get flat or Horizontal in organisation structure.

As workplace culture evolves and employees are asking more than ever before for mentoring,
learning opportunities, and cross-functional roles; Instead of the traditional top-down leadership, we
are seeing a shift where teams are becoming smaller, flatter and more empowered regardless of
your level within the company. A flatter structure increases an employee’s level of responsibility and
removes excess layers of management, which can allow for improved efficiency, easier decision-
making and improved communication between employees.

A horizontal organizational structure – sometimes referred to as a flat organizational structure – has

fewer vertical hierarchical layers. According to Org Chart, a horizontal structure has only two or
three chains of command. For example, a horizontal company may include the business owner at the
top of the hierarchy, followed by one layer of managers or team leaders with the rest of the
company below them at the same hierarchical level.

I would like to invite Utsavi, to take over and explain the difference between Horizontal and Vertical
Organisational Structure