Starbucks's Structure

STARBUCKS'S STRUCTURE: DEPARTMENTALIZATION, ORGANIZATIONAL CONFIGURATION AND AUTHORITY Name of student Institution Instructor Date Starbucks's Structure: Departmentalization, Organizational Configuration and Authority The success of an organization highly depends on the macro and micro-factors. Macro-environmental factors are those that are within the periphery within which the business in located. For instance, the location of a business unit would determine the success or failure of the business. The geographical factors dictate the profitability and economic prospects of the enterprise. Such external factors include competition, economic variables (inflation), socio-economic and political factors. These factors are however externally driven and hence the firm has little control over them (Reilly, Minnick & Baack, 2011). On the other, given the limited ability of a firm to regulate external factors within the jurisdiction of its operation, firm managers have the ability to regulate and exert authority over the internal affairs of the firm. It is these internal factors that constitute the micro-factors in a firm. Micro-environmental factors (such as resources, management, leadership, products) are those elements that the enterprise has control over and can manipulate to achieve the desired goals. Internal and external factors play a very fundamental role in determining the marketability, productivity and growth rate of the firm (Starbuck). Starbuck’s Departmentalization After a firm has been established, the first step towards success or failure is departmentalization; which is defined as the process of resource classification into manageable units. As the firm seeks to organize and mobilize resources at its disposal to achieve market leadership (as was the case of Starbuck), managers are charged with the responsibility of classifying the available resources with the sole objective of breaking-even. However, when the need for expansion arise (citing the example of Starbuck coffee cafeteria), it is paramount for directors and corporate marketing experts to consider alternative approach to departmentalization. Traditionally, there are five common methods of work division which are feasible for any firm (Starbuck included). These methods of job classification include; functional, product, process, geographical, and customer departmentalization. Under functional departmentalization strategy, departments are segregated based on the tasks performed by each unit. As was the case in the Starbuck, functionalism classification entails dividing different departments in a firm to cover from production, finance, marketing, human resource, among other units. By adopting this classification, a firm (Starbuck) assorts activities and responsibilities which are either directly or indirectly linked with an identified department and then assigning such chores to the department. Starbuck preferred processing form of departmentalization in their operations (Mintzberg, 2004). This method separates firm’s units based on their obligations and responsibilities in relation to production. For instance, Starbuck’s coffee restaurant grouped workers based on their roles in the production process. The third and most common form of classification is the product departmentalization. While referring to the case of Starbuck coffee firm, the company advanced from a simp...