UAE based company internal analysis ( Al foah dates company)

Improving the Service Delivery at Al Foah Dates Company
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Introduction
The organizational structure at the Al Foah Dates Company is an important aspect of its operations and product delivery to the customers. The company has a hierarchical management structure with functional departmentalization of functions. Some of the departments that the company has maintained over its life cycle include the human resource departments, the finance departments, and the marketing department. Moreover, the company has also created the production department that has the product research and development functions. This section of the research projects looks into the cultural set up of the organization regarding the management values and structures; the challenges encountered through the structure, and the paper goes ahead to propose an alternative structure that the company can use to develop a more actionable service delivery.
Areas of Management
The Al Foah Dates Company has various departmental duties within its structure. Traditionally, functional structuring of organizations would have many employees with similar skills hired and given job roles in a given department (Schein, 2010). For instance, it is always possible to find people in the finance department to have educational and qualification backgrounds in finance. The human resource department at Al Foah Dates Company, as well as the production or the marketing departments, would have people who have educational qualifications relevant to the departments.

Traditionally, this was important in the development of a common pool of workers who could share ideas and sharpen their skills.
However, in the modern highly dynamic and competitive market that Al for Dates Company operates on the global scale, the functional structuring of the organization has been more of an impediment as the employees cannot easily handle functions that are not in their department. In the modern competitive market, there is a need to have employees who are dynamic in nature and who can carry out any role within the organizational setup (Augier & Teece, 2009). Therefore the hierarchical organizational structure at the company slows down the level of innovativeness and growth prospects for both the employees and the market share. According to the company research data sources, various departments have defined duties that they strictly observe. For instance, people in the marketing department cannot be allowed to participate in the production department. The various departments include;
1-Human Resource
The human resource functions at Al Foah Dates Company includes the need to hire and fill up the vacant positions, train the employees, remunerate and fire employees according to the company policies. The HR team carries out the development of the staff welfare and the benefit schemes as well as evaluating the quality of work performance to the company.
2-Finance department
The department is responsible for handling all the financial matters in the company including balancing the company books, paying the organization expenses and receiving all the revenues from the trade functions in the company.
3-Marketing department
The department’s the responsibility at Al Foah Dates Company is to identify and explore new markets for the company products. They seek to carry out marketing and promotional activities that aim to improve the level of the market penetration of the company dates products. The marketing department is also committed to ensuring that the level of the product awareness in the company is sustained and the existing market and customers locked in for the sustained cash flow to the organization.
4-Production department at Al Foah Dates Company
The department is useful in researching about the competitive product features, designing the products and ensuring that the dates and other products from the company meets the requirements of both the local market and the export market. Some of the products lines that they have developed for the company sales include the Plain date’s category that contains products like Jabri, Lulu, and Maktoomi among many others. Other product lines include dates with nuts, Date syrups, and Paste dates. The company has also been committed to producing quality products in other product categories like Dates with chocolate, Organic dates, and Date Halwa CITATION Alf14 l 1033 (Alfoah.ae, 2014). Each product line has unique products that the department has managed to provide.
Challenges to This Management Structure
In the modern dynamic and competitive market, the company cannot be able to effectively reach out to the customers with the hierarchical organization structure. At least, there should be interlinks and cooperation between the various departments that aids in the development of sound knowledge in the organizational products. For instance, involving the sales team in the product development would be useful for them to explain to the customer the core components of the products on offer. If a customer asks to know variables in the syrup dates, for instance, they will not need to call the production department to offer a solution, but they will have an instant solution, this would improve the customer confidence in the product. The hierarchical theory may not be so efficient especially in decision-making capabilities. On the same note, a production personnel should be able to know what the marketing team goes through in the market, and the pain it takes to explain and convince a customer to try out a new product from the company. Therefore, if a product feature needs to be included in the right amount, like the chocolate, the production team must always strive to give the products as they are stated in the correct description. Variations in the product descriptions may lead to customer distrust.
Proposed Flat Structure Model That Is Made To Have a Lean Organization
The company needs to adopt a flat organizational structure that would be useful in delayering and removal of the middle management. The flat organization structure will also mean that there are no bureaucratic procedures to be followed whenever a communication is necessary (Crozier, 2009). This eases the management of the employees as it would create a direct line of communication. Moreover, it would be imported for the company develops a strong bond between the employees to foster cooperation and work supportiveness within its operations. The flat structure is important in the development of a dynamic workforce that can deploy functions across the different core areas of the organization.
According to the data collected from the organization, a lot of expenses goes in the management of the different layers and organizational hierarchies organized into departments. The company can reduce its operational costs by up to 35% by introducing the lean organizational structure deployed through the use of the flat structure. In this case, the company will also be able to develop a dynamic workforce that can improve the level of service delivery to the customers (Nancarrow & Borthwick, 2005). The employees will also be able to provide services and work skills in any department, making them shift the job roles with ease, and making them more useful to the organization. The company will thus be able to reach out to a higher market share in the society.

References
BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 Alfoah. (2014). Product Range. Retrieved from Alfoah: http://www.alfoah.ae/contentPage.php?pid=36
Augier, M., & Teece, D. J. (2009). Dynamic capabilities and the role of managers in business strategy and economic performance. Organization Science, 20(2), 410-421.
Crozier, M. (2009). The bureaucratic phenomenon (Vol. 280). Transaction Publishers.
Nancarrow, S. A., & Borthwick, A. M. (2005). Dynamic professional boundaries in the healthcare workforce. Sociology of health & illness, 27(7), 897-919.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.