Ford Motor Company

Organizational Structure Corporations base organizational structures on strategies to optimize company productions, customer relations, and profits. Three different corporations are compared to evaluate how organizations function, explain the functions, basis of the strategic decisions, and which structure best suits the Ford Motor company needs. Ford Motor Company’s strategy is a functional organization. The departments are grouped by business function and the skill they require. According to Bateman and Snell (2011), this is the definition of differentiation (p. 187). The company is governed by a board of directors (Executive Chairman is William Clay Ford Jr.), which is voted in by company stakeholders (various owners of the company). The board of directors have three basic responsibilities: (1) hire, evaluate, reward, and fire the chief executive officer of the company; (2) strategic direction and financial performance; (3) ensure legal and ethical conduct of employees. The Ford Motor Company has one person in the role of president and chief executive officer (CEO), an Executive Vice President, and either a president and vice president for each of the departments (purchasing, finance, manufacturing, marketing, and human resources). The Ford Motor Company is structured to manufacture quality cars in North America, Asia Pacific, Africa, China, and Europe. Ford has dedicated teams for designing, manufacturing, development, marketing, sales, and service to each region because the cars are tailored to each countries requirements and needs. Ford Motor Company is focused on creating a strong business that builds great products that contribute to a better world (Ford Motor Corporation, 2013) General Motors Company (GMC) has the same Functional Structure as Ford Motor Company. A board of directors, a chairman of the board, a CEO, and corporate officers to oversee functions and or functions in different areas of the world. There are a few differences in the corporate officers area of responsibility. GMC has a dedicated general manager assigned to South America where Ford has a general manager dedicated to the Americas, which includes North and South America. The GM vice president, global manufacturing, and president of international operations (PIO) has the daunting role to oversee GM’s operations in eight regions (General Motors Corporation, 2013), to where Ford has presidents and vice presidents to oversee a maximum of two regions. In addition the GM PIO has to oversee the manufacturing of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM Daewoo, GMC Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall, and Wuling (Autoguide, 2013). The 12 brand of cars the GM PIO oversees is compared to the five brands that Ford oversees, which are Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, Mazda and Aston Martin. The Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) car company employs the same Functional organization as Ford and GMC, but with a small difference in that the company refers to the company officers as the board of management. The management team is composed of chairman of the board, finance, production, development, after sales BMW Group, purchasing/supplier network, sales/marketing, and human resources. The specialized task and skills of each department suggest that the company’s success is attributed to how well each department contributes and communicates toward an integrated team. BMW’s approach is different as the company focuses on only manufacturing three brands, which are BMW (cars and motorcycles), MINI, and Rolls Royce. Focusing on building three quality brands vice the 12 of GMC and the five of Ford may have an advantage in manufacturing a better quality product. Ford’s organizational functions are influenced and determined by the needs of the company. The company has over 300 thousand employees worldwide, which is why the human resources department is managed by a president of human