Every business is run on either individuals or structures. Most of the businesses that run on individuals are usually sole proprietorships and struggle to survive without the physical presence of the owner in the business. Cue those whose minds have sprinted at NRM, Museveni and Uganda. The chances of being mismanaged and run down in the long run are so high if the owner chooses the business be run by another individual other than himself.
Again, cue those who are wondering if that explains why Museveni is reluctant to leave this Uganda State House business. But the disclaimer is that this is not a Liberation story from 1981 to 1986 and further. This is a piece to jog your idea on how to succeed in your real business.
That said, the other way of running a business is through structures. I must say businesses that run on structures have a higher chance of succeeding and being profitable sustainably. A structure is a system that defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision are directed toward the achievement of business aims and goals. This set guide or protocol takes out too much reliance on particular individuals in businesses and makes it easy to replace and interchange team players for as long as there are clear structures.
Most importantly, it enables the business to run efficiently even in the absence of the owner. There are three main types of structures I want to share with you today; functional, divisional and matrix structure. You can choose any one of the three and build your business around it.
Functional structure
This is the most common type of structure run by most businesses and organizations. This structure works in a way that the business or organization is divided into operational units like a marketing unit, a sales unit and production unit. For example, each team works on its own to meet specific goals and objectives which later feed into the bigger business or organisational objectives. The only problem with this type of structure is that units may not get to directly work together and it works better for small businesses and organizations with very talented and skilled individual employees/team members.
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The divisional structure is majorly used by big businesses and companies running operations that cover a wide geographical area for example; the whole of East Africa. You have the head office in Uganda and have different regional teams say in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.It’s harder to manage because of the distance between teams and the costs that come with it due to the scope covered. Small businesses can downsize the structure to fit their operations by say putting in place different marketing teams for different towns or regions with all reporting to the main off.
Matrix structure
The matrix structure is actually a high breed of the divisional and functional structures. This kind of structure also works best in big companies allowing the functional and divisional structures to jointly work together. The challenge is it creates unnecessary duplication of responsibilities and this can cause clashes for example; where you have a regional head of marketing and a divisional head of marketing covering the same jurisdiction and have similar powers.
Many small business owners start with no particular structure and start building structures as they go on and hire more members into the team clearly to outline what each team member’s responsibilities are. Sometimes try and error is the best way to get things right so don’t be so hard on yourself. Just try to build some structures and let it flow as it comes; somehow you will get it right. Crazy, right? Hahaha!
About the author
Jaluum Herberts Luwizza is business consultant, writer and public speaker with YOUNG TREPS a business management and consulting firm that helps people start, run and grow profitable and sustainable businesses.