The emergence of matrix structure is a leap in the management level of enterprises. When the environment needs professional technical knowledge on the one hand, and the product lines can change rapidly on the other, the management of matrix structure is needed. As we said before, the functional structure emphasizes vertical information communication, while the business department structure emphasizes horizontal information flow, and the matrix is to realize these two information flows at the same time within the enterprise.
In practice, it is difficult to establish and maintain this dual management structure, because the powerful party often occupies the dominant position. Therefore, the mature matrix management mode is a functional organization with the nature of project/product team. Functional departments exercise management functions as usual, but the company's business activities exist in the form of projects. The project manager is fully responsible for the project, and he asks the functional manager for appropriate human resources. During the project, these employees are managed by the project manager. The function manager's duty is to ensure the rational and effective use of human resources.
Different from the first two structures, the matrix structure can rarely be judged from the organization chart, and it needs to be judged according to the specific management behavior of the enterprise. Whether enterprises should implement matrix management should be judged according to the following three conditions:
Condition 1: there is pressure between product lines, enjoying hope and lacking resources. Organizations are usually medium-sized and have a moderate number of product lines. There is great pressure for organizations to use personnel and equipment flexibly in different products. For example, the organization is not large enough to arrange enough engineers for each product line, so engineers are assigned to undertake product services in the form of part-time project services.
Condition 2: The environment needs two or more important products. For example, the requirements for technical quality and rapid product update. This double pressure means the need to maintain a balance of power between the functions and products of the organization. In order to maintain this balance, a structure with dual functions and powers is needed.
Condition 3: The environmental conditions of the organization are complex and uncertain. Frequent external changes and high interdepartmental dependence require a lot of vertical and horizontal coordination and information processing.
According to the above conditions, it can be seen that the company providing consulting services is most suitable to adopt the matrix structure. For example, a medium-sized consulting company has dozens to hundreds of people, and consultants can be divided into different functional teams according to their professional expertise, such as financial consulting, production, engineering consulting and management consulting groups. Due to the high cost of consultants and the relative scarcity of excellent consulting resources, consulting companies have no unified products and need to carry out secondary design according to the specific conditions of customers. Every project is a brand-new product, which cannot be completed by assembly line operation. In addition, the quality of products needs to be jointly controlled by the project manager and the functional manager. Matrix structure can best meet the above conditions.
The advantage of matrix structure lies in the flexible allocation of manpower, equipment and other resources among different products/services, and the organization can adapt to changing external requirements. This structure also provides employees with skills to acquire functions and general management. In a matrix organization, the role orientation of key organization members is very important. These key organizational members include: senior leaders, matrix directors and employees.
The main responsibility of senior leaders is to maintain the balance of power between functional managers and product managers. Senior leaders must also be willing to make decisions and encourage functional managers and product managers to contact directly to solve problems together, which will help information sharing and coordination.
The problem of matrix directors is how to control subordinates. Because subordinates accept the leadership of two supervisors at the same time, unconscious employees will take advantage of this opportunity to take advantage of the loopholes and create a vacuum in the management of supervisors. Therefore, functional departments and product supervisors must work together to solve the problem. The functional supervisor mainly solves the technical problems of subordinates, and the project supervisor specifically manages the behaviors, work results and performance of subordinates on this project. These activities require a lot of time, communication, patience and cooperation skills with others, which are all part of matrix management.
Employees who accept dual leadership often feel anxious and stressed. The orders of his two direct managers often conflict. At this time, dual-supervisor employees must be able to face the instructions of product managers and functional managers, form a comprehensive decision, and decide how to allocate their time. An employee must maintain a good relationship with his two supervisors and show double loyalty to them.
Matrix structure was first used in aircraft manufacturing and aerospace equipment production projects. Functional departments include R&D, engineering, installation and testing. Every project needs brand-new products, such as new planes and space rockets. Now, matrix structure has been widely used in multinational companies, and the most representative company is "the world's electrical giant?" ABB Company ABB has 250,000 employees all over the world, and adopts a matrix structure in every country to divide the company into regions and business dimensions. This is done to ensure the localization characteristics of the company's products, as well as the scale effect and technological leadership. ABB local managers are responsible for developing new products, developing markets and solving key problems with the government, while business managers are responsible for global product strategy decisions. According to this structure, ABB has established joint ventures all over the world, and each joint venture is very small (ABB has 65,438+0,200 joint ventures worldwide), but the general managers of about 65,438+0,654,38+0,000 joint ventures report to regional managers and global business managers. Through such management, ABB is still a company with overall strategy and has become a world electrical giant. Through the matrix structure, ABB effectively combines globalization strategy with localized products, and combines the scale advantage of multinational companies with the flexibility and low cost advantage of small companies. However, the communication difficulty required for dual management can be imagined. Most of ABB's management documents describe the responsibilities and relationship between regional managers and business managers, and make managers understand their roles through continuous training. At the same time, they also developed a new information management system to strengthen information sharing. Even so, communication is still the most urgent problem for ABB.
The advantages of matrix organizational structure are: it can promote the cooperation and coordination of managers at all levels, and strengthen contact and communication while maintaining professional division of labor; It is conducive to the overall consideration of management functions, product production and marketing and regional market factors, so as to achieve the same profit target and rationally allocate resources.
However, the disadvantages of this model are: multiple leaders are easy to lead to inefficiency; Improper coordination can easily lead to conflicts between managers. This organizational structure is more suitable for construction engineering, aerospace, marketing and management consulting companies, which have many experts engaged in the same project.