Business Structures of the 21st Century: Grapple Mobile - Assignment Example

?21st Century Business Structures: Grapple Mobile Grapple Mobile is well known for its excellence in cross-platform mobile application development. The company’s patented operations make its production fast and cost effective (Home). The Grapple always tends to meet the increasing needs for mobile applications building by investing heavily in R&D sector (Figaro Digital). The organisation holds the latest mobile technology so as to gain market attention effectively. While analysing the internal market environment of the Grapple, it seems that the company faces high degree competition from a number of huge market players including Apple and Android. The company’s proprietary technology can translate simple web languages to native code so as to support multiple mobile platforms. Many of the applications developed by the Grapple Mobile works on hundreds of different handsets and the company charges relatively lower prices for its products. As Heatley reports, the Grapple has established a development team to design applications for companies like Nokia, BlackBerry, and HP; and this business segment offers significant growth and profits for the company. Inflow of Information The Grapple Mobile was founded by Jamie True. While analysing the organisational structure of the Grapple Mobile, it is clear that the Chief Executive Officer Alistair Crane regulates the management affairs of the company whereas the Chief Technology Officer Ed Lea oversees the project development activities of the organisation (Grapple). There are a large number of senior and junior application developers working in the company. It is observed that Ed Lea is the only person responsible for making sure that every project reaches its higher standard where client satisfaction can be adequately met (appsworld). From the company websites, it is clear that Grapple Mobile emphasises more on product features rather than managerial operations. More evidently, the company has not yet developed an effective system for maintaining proper inflow of information. Currently, the organisation collects market information from industry news and other common sources like internet and television. The company does not possess a managerial framework to effectively process the gathered market information, and this situation adversely affects the operational efficiency of the Grapple Mobile. Every operational strategy of the firm is developed under the supervision of Adam Levene, the Chief Strategy Officer. The organisational practices indicate that Grapple has not established an efficient system to integrate external and internal management information. In addition, the company fails to effectively link its project development team’s requirements with managerial strategies. Since the company does not have a market research team or any other effective facility to observe market trends, the responsibility of market information collection is completely left to the function of the CEO and the Chief Strategy Officer. On the basis of information gathered from direct sources, they plan the company’s future marketing strategy. The Grapple’s management does not generally seek feedback from its technical departments; hence, the company’s strategies are not often adequate enough to provide competitive advantages to its project development team. Outflow of Information The organisational structure of the company reflects that its information distribution system is also ineffective as compared to its major competitors like Apple. The ineffectiveness of Grapple’s information distribution process across various organisational levels is mainly attributable to lack of a well structured Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The absence of a well ERP software application raises potential challenges to the long term sustainability of the company. From the current practices, the company mainly makes use of internet technology to distribute its various types of information. Although, internet is an effective media for the information distribution process, lack of coordination in the information outflow raises serious challenges to the managerial operations of the company. According to Stewart, Tittel, and Chapple (2011, p. 494), a company cannot perform well unless right information is distributed across its various organisational segments on time. The Grapple’s application developers’ find difficulty in obtaining adequate information as the company lacks a well structured information outflow system. Similarly, the Grapple Mobile fails to distribute its financial operational outcomes to its stakeholders effectively. Often, the information distributed seems vague and illogical. For instance, the company management argues that “it has exceeded its revenue expectation by 550% from original company forecasts” (Technology in our hand). This statement is meaningless since the Grapple has not communicated its original company forecasts to its stakeholders. Media interview is another mode of information outflow strategy developed by the company. However, such an information outflow policy may not always ensure reliable and authentic distribution of information. In addition, lack of a well integrated organisational structure prevents the company from delivering proper information even to its shareholders. In total, the company still struggles with an ineffective information outflow mechanism and this worse condition causes troubles to the firm. Boundary Spanning Activities In the opinion of Dollinger (1984), boundary spanning has a significant role in the networking process, and small and medium sized enterprises which focus on the foreign market require sound boundary spanning activities. According to Ekkerink (2008), forming a business network with various collaborators will force a synergetic effect on the organization, enabling it to grow into foreign markets and to hurdle the barriers confronted there with. Here, on analyzing the boundary spanning activities of Grapple Mobile, we find that the administrative board stands as the central boundary spanner who controls all internal and external networks of the organization. Grapple gives importance to the effectiveness of external communication process as it enables the firm to collect up-to-date information needed for new innovations within the company. While analyzing the current market landscape of the company, it is evident that the company has been trying to keep in touch with its competitors. However, due to lack of industrial experience, it could not take advantages of joint operation. Moreover, the Grapple Mobile follows boundary spanning at a macro-level, focusing on the interrelationship between the organisation and the environment where it functions. Within the Grapple Mobile, in function, boundary spanning takes two meanings; firstly, facilitating information coming from the external environment and processing it, and secondly, reducing the degree of uncertainty while acting as a representative of the organisation. Challenges According to Alistair Crane, the CEO of the Grapple Mobile, scarcity of right people is the biggest challenge faced by the company. He adds that the company needs “people who are switched on, not just in tech savvy but commercially, and they are few and far between” (Crane). While analysing the corporate history of the company, it is clear that the firm became profitable within just 18 months after market launch. Since the company needs to confront with heavily established and huge industry players, the Grapple Mobile has to be highly competitive. In other words, the company has to ensure the service of technically skilled and experienced personnel in order to maintain its competitiveness in the market. In addition, the increasingly changing trends in mobile applications become a potential threat to the competitiveness of the company. The lack of a well structured information flow system has worsened this situation. However, the company faces fewer challenges technologically as compared to its competitors. As discussed earlier, the company has developed its own technological specifications to dominate various market segments. Obviously, it is not difficult for a new competitor to enter the mobile application development sector as this industry does not require a huge investment. Likewise, people tend to switch their demand to a new application provider if it offers better facilities and features than the existing ones. Such an adverse situation may force the company to sell the stock of its existing models at a price less than the actual production cost. Latest mobile applications including GPS are being misused by hackers and terrorists. Since this situation ultimately threatens the national safety, the UK government is planning regulations on mobile application development. Such a new legal environment may impede the technological advancement of Grapple in future. Recommendations Grapple Mobile should be well organised in order to efficiently manage inflows and outflows of information from its very organisational structure. It should include plans for constructing new information networks that can administer and control both inflow and outflow of information, because, a proper flow of information is highly necessary for implementing new innovations within the organisation. For the process of adequate flow of information, it is advisable for the organisation to focus on its boundary spanning process, as it enhances the exchange of information between the organisation and its environment. It also filters the information inflow from the external sources. The necessity for filtering the flow of information is vital when it opts for adequately corresponding to the internal needs. Moreover, as according to Ginat et al (2002, p.53-56), collecting relevant information and processing it through inter-organisational communication can cut down the level of uncertainty identified with the organisation. As the twenty-first century is centered upon electronic media, the organisation needs to rely on modern technologies to guide the inflows and outflows of information. In the same way, deficiency of adequate information about environmental events and movements would impede the ability to anticipate external changes and their impact on the company’s decision alternatives. Therefore, a more vicarious participation in the global market as well as cyber-based communities would be particularly effective for Grapple Mobile in developing a methodology for managing the inflow-outflow of information. This methodology is also found applicable in the case of undesired outflow of information from the organisation. References Appsworld, viewed 19 Dec 2011 Dollinger, MJ 1984, Environmental Boundary Spanning and Information Processing Effects on Organizational Performance, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 27, No.2: pp.351-368. Ekkerink, R 2008, Boundary Spanning Activity: Does Environmental uncertainty make a difference? IAIF, pp.1-22, viewed 19 Dec 2011 Grapple, Official website, viewed 19 Dec 2011 Grapple: Company information, Figaro Digital, viewed 19 Dec 2011 Ginat, J., Perkins, EJ & Corr, EG 2002, The Middle East peace process: Vision versus reality, University of Oklahoma Press. Heatley, D 2011, Hot company profile: App developer Grapple Mobile, Strategy Eye, viewed 19 Dec 2011 Stewart, JM., Tittel, E & Chapple, M 2011, CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional Study Guide, John Wiley & Sons. Technology in our hand, viewed 19 Dec 2011 Read More