As the above Roy Ash quotation says, every organization is trying to define the best structure to stay competitive. Also what works one day may change the next. And, that’s been the basic lesson of the Internet. It has forced all organizations to ask ‘what’s the best way to do business?’
Functional hierarchies, fragmentation of work, specialization of work, lost value, and the Internet have all created new organizational shapes. Hierarchies can create political and resource bottlenecks as people protect their turf. Fragmentation of work sequences work in linear packets instead of parallel, continuous, or other value adding flows. Specialization of work also results in individual or even team goals displacing organizational or customer focused goals.
Finally, a typical business process may have 30 steps and multiple handoffs of the same piece of work whether it’s a document or product. Each handoff may involve inspection, approval, or cross checking, which does not add value. And, the Internet has simplified all this by ensuring seamless communications between companies and customers.