Apex Corporation

Submitted By:
Manisha Chororia (317)
Praveen Pillai (326)
Rohit (334)
Shiba Majhi (343)
Ujjwal Aggarwal (355)

Challenges that Shikhar Ghosh faced when he joined Appex

Appex corporation was spending cash quickly and too haphazardly without monitoring its
expenses
The atmosphere was changing from entrepreneurial to chaotic. The employees came
when they felt like coming. For instance the customer service people turned up at 10:00
am while they were supposed to be present by 8:00 am
There was no development or future planning. There was only fire-fighting with
employees reacting to only the crisis that happened on a day to day basis
Appex had started to fall behind schedule and to miss installation dates. The company
also experienced failures in product development
There was no financial planning and all planning seemed useless. Many customers had
complained of not receiving technical assistance
Now the major challenge was to create control and structure that would help resolve the
above challenges.

Evaluate the importance of each of the structural changes Shikhar Ghosh implemented. How
important were they? What problems did each ne w structure address? What problems, in
turn, did it create?

What would you have done in Shikhars place? Were all the
changes in structure necessary?
The divisional structure has presented some advantages to Appex, for instance this structure
improved accountability, budgeting, and planning. However Shikhar should go for Matrix structure.

Implement a matrix structure : Similar in some ways to the divisional structure, a matrix
structure can benefit from the functional divisions formed in the divisional structure but also
supplement these divisions with divisions based on products as well.
Employees are grouped by both function and product in a matrix and frequently teams of
employees will be assigned to a project to accomplish a specific goal.

This form of a matrix structure is one in which a project managers are assigned to oversee
projects and these project managers must share power with the functional managers who are the
normal chain of command.
Institutional environment should be implemented in the organization that govern the behavior of
the employees of organization.

How would you address the challenges that the company is facing at the end of
the case?
Since Ghosh had followed an organizational isomorphism, i.e. regular periodic changes in the structure of Appex
Corporation(Greiners model as it passed through several stages of growth strategies) to suit the need of a growing
entrepreneurial organization, but now once acquired by EDS, Appex has to realign its structure. This is so because it
was no longer an independent company but was rather a division of a huge hierarchical bureaucratic organization. So
the challenges faced by Appex can be addressed by:
Clarity of Direction and Delegation : Appex employees may clearly understand what is line of hierarchy and what
are their roles and responsibilities under the new takeover.
Coordination and Synergy Achievement: Appex needs time to reshuffle its vision and structure slowly and steadily
in a way that it can adapt the best practices of EDS but yet retain its core competencies.
Representation of EDS in divisions of Appex: Executive senior management of EDS should become a part of the
divisional teams of Appex so that they can understand the working of Appex and accordingly mold Appex towards
the practices of EDS.
Morale Boosting by Increased Compensation: As so far, Appex employees have enjoyed independence in decision
making (to certain extent). Hence in order to sustain innovation and product development capability of the
employees of Appex, Ghosh must negotiate with EDS to increase compensation for Appex employees and organize
regular interactive meetings to build a strong communication pathway between EDS and Appex.
Subsidiary to Integration: Ghosh has to look into every divisions operation once again to ensure that Appex as a
whole continues its growth rate and does not just remain a subsidiary but becomes an integral part of EDS.