A case study of organizational structure at
Beijing EAPS Consulting, Inc.

1. Discuss the implications of co-conducting a project plan from the project and department managers’ points of view. Beijing EAPS Consulting Inc. (BEC) is a growing consulting company that specializes in providing psychological assistance to employees of BECs client firms. BEC started with six employees in 2001 and has increased to 20 employees in six years short years. When the company first started it was managed by the two co-founders working out of the same single office. In the beginning there was no clear company structure, no clearly identified departments. Projects where assigned to employees based on schedules and skills. In 2006, BEC started hiring new employees and set up new departments. The new company structure included a marketing department, a consulting department, a training department, a research and development (R&D) department, an administration department and two project departments A and B (PDA and PDB). Exhibit 1 illustrates BEC project structure after 2006. Note that the two organizations responsible for projects are listed as separate departments under different management. This type of organization structure is known as functional. Exhibit 2 list the responsibilities of both Project Departments as having the same overall responsibilities with regards to their projects. Difficulties may arise because the project managers fall under different functional managers i.e. PDA is under the Vice President and PDB is under the CEO (Exhibit 1). Both PDA and PDB project managers must co-operate with marketing department to provide proposals and write advertising articles. PDA can expect better cooperation with the marketing department as both fall under the Vice President. PDB’s needs will be satisfied after PDA is taken care of. PDB