SciMat had grown drastically over the past several years and was now a large, publicly traded company. Given this tremendous growth, SciMat was nearing the end of the coordination phase of the organizational lifecycle, resulting in a “red-tape” crisis and a need for more collaboration. As stated by Greiner, this state is “characterized by the use of formal systems for achieving greater coordination” which results in merged product groups, formal planning procedures and more careful review of capital expenditures. These characteristics are seen throughout SciMat, resulting in times where Biometra is unable to make key decisions, such as Miczek’s compensation increase, the use of laser micromachines and selecting key suppliers.
As shown in SciMat’s organization chart, they were in a hybrid structure with three merged product groups and additional support functions such as Research and Development and Finance. While individual product groups allowed units to adapt to a changing marketplace more quickly, it was difficult for SciMat to coordinate across product lines and create in depth technical expertise. The structure required the leaders of each product group to have a great depth and wide range of experiences, which is one reason Jenkins hired in Harper and Knight. He didn’t have the time or the in depth expertise needed to personally fill the role of the Group VP, Peripheral Vascular, even if only temporarily. What Jenkins should’ve realized, is that while bringing in an experienced executive like Harper would likely offer more leadership, support and direction to help the SciMat / Biometra in the short term, they are in need of a more significant structural change to support growth over the long term.
In order to support growth into the future, SciMat should take on a matrix like organizational structure to better leverage cross collaboration, especially