Pfizer organizational structure

Pfizer is one of the biggest bio pharmaceutical companies out there. They are currently looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of their new functional strategy. This new strategy is being implemented in their daily operations. The new functional strategy is called Office of the future or the “Magic button”. It is a tool used by Pfizer employees to increase their work productivity. Pfizer has implemented this function because of a study conducted by Harvard employees. They found that almost 40% of the time spent at work was spent on support tasks. This made for a compelling case to find a solution to tactically enhance the time spent during work hours so that employees could effectively complete all their tasks.
The “Magic button” is an outsourcing function that Pfizer has implemented as one of their functional strategies. What it does is that it outsources basic tasks to one of two different companies in India. What the company does is that it receives a tasks, all the information regarding it, a time frame and completes the tasks by the given time. Pfizer uses this method as a type of employee empowerment by giving them the opportunity to decide what tasks needs to be outsourced to make their jobs more effective. Work specialization is in focus in this strategy because employees are dividing their tasks into separate jobs and outsourcing the tasks that would help make their job more efficient and effective.
The decision to implement this function would ofcourse be a form of centralization, but the function itself is a form of decentralization. The function redistributes power by allowing employees to outsource work. This gives employees line authority, responsibility and accountability of tasks being outsourced. Pfizer has found a good balance between centralization and decentralization and understand the importance of having both. I would assume that formalization is low at Pfizer because employees decide how to complete their tasks.
This changes the span of control within the company because the outsourced tasks can no longer be monitored and controlled to the same degree as the employees. Top and middle management might find their span of control being slightly altered, but by trusting the front line employees they have increased the efficiency and effectiveness of their company. Top and middle management also uses this function to increase their productivity. However this changes the employees span of control because the jobs that are being outsourced by them is now within their span of control. This makes for a narrow span of control because employees suddenly assume some kind of managerial role. This extends the chain of command within the organization.
In this new strategy the chain of command becomes more important than ever. In order to make sure this new function is not being misused managers must implement new levels of control, which allows them to monitor the progress and results of the new function. Managers must use feedforward control to a new extent to make sure that the right tasks are being outsourced. They must also use concurrent control to monitor the progress of the employee to make sure that the employees time is spent efficiently and effectively. Feedback control should also be implemented to make sure that the outsourcing company is increasing their effectiveness. Monitoring the employees by receiving feedback from the outsourcing company. Also strategic flexibility has never been more important because the external change of outsourcing work could show to be a mistake because of the company that the work is being outsourced to.
This all would support my theory that Pfizer has a divisional structure, because outsourcing costs are being billed at the department of the employee who ordered the job. This means the company has different budgets and financial reports depending on division or department. If it was a simple structure their would be a budget specifically for outsourcing costs.

1. What role do you think organizational structure plays in an organization's efficiency and effectiveness? Explain