Article at a glance:

Better strategy through organizational design

• Executives have a golden opportunity to orient strategy around organizational design and thus to make companies thrive no matter how market and competitive conditions change.
• Organizational-design work is hard and time consuming, but its payback—in profits, costs, and risks—surpasses that of investments in product design and other traditional strategic initiatives.
• Building strategy around organizational design represents an evolution away from the organizational structures of the 20th-century industrial age, when capital was the scarce resource and vertical, hierarchical structures were the key to efficient performance.
• The key ingredients of progressive corporate strategy in the 21st century are “one-company” governance structures, knowledge and talent markets, and organizational designs intended to maximize collaboration among the talented workers who create today’s wealth.