dolution

Disk Drives Inc. (DDI) is a specialty electronics firm that, having shifted strategies, needs to
adjust the rest of the organization’s design in order to create alignment and survive in the face-paced
external environment. In 2016, two-thirds of its revenue came from the larger disk drives
manufactured in the United States; by the end of 2018, 100% of its revenue came from smaller disk
drives manufactured (led by Mar) in Japan, China, and Indonesia. DDI wants to grow, but the
competition for winning contracts for smaller disk drives is intense and geographically different. The
current functional organization structure (Figure 1) was good for centralized decision-making, but the
VP of HR (Jan) has recommended a global divisional model of organization (called Unit Structure by
Geography (Anderson, 2020, pp. 352-354).

The DDI president (Mary) is concerned with a decentralized model, but understands that fast-
paced decision-making is required to survive in this market. The finance manager (Hugh) is also
concerned about delegating financial authority. The sales and marketing VP (Lonnie) was also
concerned with losing important talent in the USA since much of the work will be done outside of the
USA. The purchasing VP (Lonnie) and Engineering VP (Max) were also concerned about
decentralization and retraining of new regional people. While all leaders have concerns, they all agree
the new global structure is the correct direction. The direction is to hire an OD consultant (YOU) to
work with Jan from HR to recommend a regionalized global structure and outline possible issues and
actions that must be considered by DDI in this organization level change. You are the consultant and
your task is to recommend
1. A new global structure and identify actions that are required as part of this structure
change
2. Document the stakeholder analysis
3. Diagnosis: identify the correct design component using the most appropriate
diagnostic method
4. Develop a list of appropriate solutions (Org level interventions), which will be
important as this change becomes a reality (e.g. regional recruiting, On Boarding
etc.).
5. Document a high-level action plan–only the most significant steps are required