Christina Gold Leading Change at Western Union Questions
Christina Gold Leading Change at Western Union Questions
Why was restructuring needed at Western Union?
The restructuring was needed at Western Union because by late 2002 Gold and her team had developed six core strategies for Western Union. These six strategies are; develop a global brand, enhance global network distribution, expand adjacent markets such as western Union.com and Prepaid services, develop future business leaders within the organization, increase productivity, execute on service excellence. So to accomplish all these goals restructuring was unavoidable. To answer global needs all around the world, first the company should understand people’s needs correctly and respond them the way they will be happy and satisfied and it was hard to accomplish these goals with the product-line focused organization structure so they had to change organizational structure as a structure based on geography and functions such as sales, marketing and finance.
Another issue was being domestic Western Union was kind of domestic company, it had international business but functions are domestic so with this global goal Gold and the team determined that this system should be changed. When we look at the first organization board it is clear to see the domestic structure but the current board is more based on international and global functions than before.
What are the most important design changes and what will be their impact on the organization?
The most important design changes in organizations are changing the organizational structure and organizational culture because these are the most important features what make an organization as an organization so these changes can have several and important effects on the organization.
To begin with the organizational structure, every different kind of structure requires different kind of regulations and organizations board. So when it is changed the organization needs to make sure about new board and responsibilities. For example in this case Western Union used to have a product-line focused organizational structure but with the new restructure it became a geographic structure based on several functions. These are different structures so when you go with this regulation the company needs to make sure the organization has enough skilled employees to handle this restructure. Company needs to clarify about new responsibilities because chain of command, span of control, centralization, formalization will be change and need to adjust. And also employees should recognize these changes and adjust themselves to it if they fail to adjust their performance can affect and go down and their satisfaction can go down, they become unhappy to be a part of this organization.
Organizational culture, another big change, because to adopt new cultures in your organizations