Organisational structure

Helping you to build the right organisational structure for growth

Building the right organisational structure for your business is crucial when planning for growth. At Firestarter, we have been working with owners and leaders of businesses both small and large for over 10 years. Over this time, we have seen that regardless of businesses size they are all structured in one of the following four main types, functional, multi-divisional, flat and matrix.

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A balanced approach to your organisational structure

By understanding your business needs and pairing it with an organisational structure type, we can help you to create a balanced approach to managing and developing your existing people whilst building the team you need.

Functional structure

Promoting specialisation and efficiency within departments, in a functional structure, employees are grouped by their specific roles or functions, like marketing, finance, and operations.

Multi-divisional structure

A multi-divisional structure organises employees into separate divisions based on products, services, or regions. Each division operates independently, allowing for flexibility and responsiveness.

Flat structure

Encouraging open communication, shared decision-making, and empowering employees, with a flat business structure, there are fewer hierarchical layers.

Matrix structure

A matrix business structure combines functional and project-based teams. Employees belong to both their functional departments and project teams, promoting collaboration and resource sharing.

Relaxed business meeting between 5 people sitting at meeting table in naturally lit room

Organisational design

Achieving business objectives and improving performance

Organisational design is the process of creating or modifying the structure of your organisation and forms a crucial part of your people strategy. The design of your organisational structure should be driven by the goals and needs of your business. We help you to identify gaps by looking at the key elements of your business, such as P&L, strategic intent and product strategy, which then helps to determine how we align roles to goals. By following this process, we can help your business to become structurally well-designed with improved communication, increased efficiency, and stronger employee engagement.

How we develop an organisational structure that meets your goals

Defining your goals

The first step towards designing an effective organisational structure.

Assessing your internal capabilities

Evaluating your company’s strengths and weaknesses to determine the best structure.

Analysing your business environment

Identifying external factors that may impact your organisational structure.

Performance measurement

Developing metrics to measure performance and ensure alignment with organisational goals.

Flexibility and adaptability

Building an agile structure that can adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs.

Continuous improvement

Continuously evaluating and improving the organisational structure to meet evolving goals and challenges.

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Organisational structure management

At its simplest, the sum of all the roles in your business should be an organisational framework that has all the right skills in place to deliver your financial business plan.

Most organisational structures don’t need to be complicated; typically, structures tend to be fluid in young SME organisations, with people performing multiple roles. Ultimately, there always needs to be a ‘boss’, but then all other roles need to be functional delivery points, related to business development, operational delivery, or administration within your business. At Firestarter, we help business leaders understand the challenges of building an effective organisational structure, not just for the performance of their business, but also to build a longer-term strategy for themselves and their role in the business.

Clay figures of employees demonstrating organisational structure

Building an organisational structure for the future

It is important to remember that the team who got your business to where it is now may not necessarily be the team that you need to deliver your future strategy and growth plans. At Firestarter, we focus on different planning horizons to address organisational structure and skills development issues as businesses develop and scale. Identifying the skills and potential of your current team, as well as being honest about the areas for development and recruiting effectively are crucial for the long-term scalability of your business.

Organisational Structure FAQs

How can Firestarter help with organisational structure management?

By providing guidance we have helped to create a transparent, efficient, and comprehensible organisational structure for our clients. They can help with outlining roles, devising communication channels, and setting up policies to support the structure.

How does Firestarter improve my organisational structure?

We can help with defining goals, analysing the business environment, assessing internal capabilities, developing performance metrics, building flexibility, and continuously improving the organisational structure.

What work has Firestarter completed with its clients?

We have helped businesses across different industries improve their communication, increase efficiency, and strengthen employee engagement. You can find real life examples of our work on our case studies page.

Case studies

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June 14, 2024

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