You have just been appointed as the new regional manager for a web development company called Complete Web Solutions (CWS). The company specialises in designing and developing websites for small to medium-sized businesses (of up to 250 employees).

Understanding Business Organisations Assignment Title: Complete Web Solutions June 2014
Important Notes: ? Please refer to the Assignment Presentation Requirements for advice on how to set out your assignment. These can be found on the NCC Education Campus. Scroll down the left hand side of the screen until you reach Personal Support. Click on this, and then on Policies and Advice. You will find the Assignment Presentation Requirements under the Advice section. ? You must familiarise yourself with the NCC Education Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy and ensure that you acknowledge all the sources which you use in your work. The policy is available on Campus. Follow the instructions above, but click on Policies rather than Advice. ? You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work’. The form is available on the Policies section of Campus. Scroll down the left hand side until you reach Personal Support. Click on this and then click on Policies and Advice. ? Please make a note of the recommended word count. You could lose marks if you write 10% more or less than this. ? You must submit a paper copy and digital copy (on disk or similarly acceptable medium). Media containing viruses, or media which cannot be run directly, will result in a fail grade being awarded for this module. ? All electronic media will be checked for plagiarism. Marker’s comments:

Introduction
You have just been appointed as the new regional manager for a web development company called Complete Web Solutions (CWS). The company specialises in designing and developing websites for small to medium-sized businesses (of up to 250 employees). The company has offices in a number of other countries, but is just about to an office in your region for the first time. Your role is to set up the regional operation of the company. Currently, there are no staff in post. However, CWS has just purchased a small local web design company called Accountancy Web Services. This company has 6 employees, made up as follows: ? A manager ? 2 web developers ? 2 sales/support staff ? 1 administrator They provide web solutions exclusively to accountants in your region. The intention is for your regional operation to take on these 6 staff together with their company’s existing client base. In addition, you have been given the authority to recruit a further 18 staff which, together with yourself, will take the full staff numbers up to 25 for the new regional office. The Managing Director of the CWS parent company has asked you to provide him with details of your plans for the staffing structure you intend to put in place, including the staff taken on from Accountancy Web Services. The Managing Director is aware you will be integrating staff from Accountancy Web Services into the new structure and is keen to ensure this change in their business environment is managed effectively and that any potential disruption is kept to a minimum. The intention of the new regional operation is to focus its services and offerings on three key industry sectors so that it becomes recognised as a specialist provider of high quality web solutions to local businesses within these sectors. He has asked you to identify which three sectors you propose to target and to ensure that the staffing structure you put in place is capable of supporting these three specialist sectors. Website development is a very competitive industry, so he has also asked you to provide him with a clear indication of how you propose to monitor the performance of your regional team against budgets to ensure that agreed targets are met in terms of sales and profitability. Finally, the intention in the first two years of operation of the new regional operation is to use the existing office of Accountancy Web Services as the regional head office, as they have a rental agreement on this office for a further two years and it is located in the heart of the business district in your major city. However, the space in this office is only sufficient for 10 staff, so the Managing Director has asked you to consider the options for utilising virtual teams, with some staff members working from home. As part of this he has also requested that you identify those roles which you believe are most suitable for the virtual team approach.
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Understanding Business Organisations June 2014 Final ? NCC Education 2014

Task 1 €“ 6 Marks
You need to familiarise yourself with the subject area. You should therefore carry out some research on the Internet to establish the following: ? The range of services typically offered by web design and development companies; ? The approaches that such companies take to the sales and marketing of their services. You should briefly summarise your findings and conclusions.

Task 2 €“ 4 Marks
Produce a project plan for the way you intend to complete the rest of this assignment. For planning, use the timescale you have been allocated for this assignment i.e. from the date you start to the date you submit your assignment. Submit a copy of your plan to your tutor before you proceed further with the assignment.

Task 3 €“ 24 Marks
You should set up the Organisation Structure that you propose to put in place to run the business. You have been given a budget to appoint 25 members of staff (including yourself). These staff will be split into teams to provide the following services: ? Marketing and sales (including telesales); ? Administration; ? Web design; ? Technical development and user support. It is your decision as to how many staff should be appointed in each of these four teams, and also how these teams will focus upon the specialist industry sectors. You have been asked to put together your organisational chart using one of the approaches (functional, divisional, matrix, teams or networks) that will provide a HORIZONTAL structure. You should explain why you have selected the particular approach and list THREE (3) benefits of using this. The approach you have selected should clearly show the lines of authority and the span of control.

Task 4 €“ 16 Marks
Produce a briefing document of no more than 500 words that: ? Describes TWO (2) possible reasons why there may be resistance to the proposed organisational structure from the staff who formerly worked for Accountancy Web Services ? Lists and briefly explains the SIX (6) steps that are typically found in the Management of Change Process.

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Understanding Business Organisations June 2014 Final ? NCC Education 2014

Task 5 €“ 16 Marks
Produce a report of no more than 500 words that explains why effective communications will have a crucial role to play in ensuring that all staff in the new organisational structure work effectively and feel part of both their individual team and the Complete Web Solutions organisation. The report should also include TWO (2) examples of Communication Channels that you believe should be used to help foster team spirit within the new structure, giving the reasons for your choices.

Task 6 €“ 16 Marks
Put together a short briefing paper of no more than 600 words that explains how you propose to maintain financial control of the new regional office. This should include: ? How you intend to monitor performance against the agreed budgets ? What is cash-flow and why is it important to take full account of this for both the survival and success of the new regional office. It should also provide THREE (3) examples of how you intend to use financial information to assist in your managerial decision making processes.

Task 7 €“ 18 Marks
Using PowerPoint, or a similar tool, put together a maximum of TWELVE (12) slides that could be used as the basis of a presentation to the Managing Director. The presentation should clearly explain how Internet-based technologies could assist in setting up a virtual structure where at least 15 of the staff included in the new structure will be required to work from home. It should detail the staff roles that you believe are most suitable to be included as members of virtual teams. For ONE (1) of the staff roles you should list THREE (3) potential advantages to the individual member of staff involved which could be used as a means of persuading that staff member to agree to become a virtual team member.

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Understanding Business Organisations June 2014 Final ? NCC Education 2014