c
c

  

 Gopal Krishan

 D

c 0901202792

c 09BS0002792


 SL GM 612


Business Strategy-2

Jacob Chandy

 15-November-2010










Student Signature Faculty Signature

 
  
  !   ! 

c  The foundation of Arts Council England (ACE) was laid way back in the year
1940 when Committee for Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) was established
under a Royal Charter. It was established with an objective of promoting the performing,
visual and literary arts in England. But there have been huge changes in this organization
relating to responsibilities transformation from center to geographical regions and again back
to the center with strategically designing of organizational structure. The changes were made
in accordance to the changes made in the policies of the organization over time. The
underlying theory of this case is how organizations have to organize themselves in terms of
structures, processes and relationships so that they enable success and adapt to change. This
is because of the reason that understanding the strategic position of an organization and
considering the strategic choices open to it are of little values unless the preferred strategies
are put into action. Arts council underwent changes in terms of their policies and objectives
and to implement these changes, there is a need for strategically organizing the structure of
the organization.

   Organizations, while organizing themselves have to look into its
coherent configuration which consists of:

‡ Ö "   
 The structure of the organization defines the flow of
power, authority and responsibilities. It tells about the relationships between the peers
and co-workers. It also explains the span of control and reporting order. Thus the
organizational structure is important in order to understand the hierarchy in the
organization and to implement the policies and strategies. Different organizational
structures like centralized, decentralized, divisional, functional, matrix, etc. have their
own importance, advantages and disadvantages.
‡ Ö " # 


 Organizational processes tell about the flow of
information and work in the organization. It also defines the supervision processes,
culture and planning processes. The processes definition is very important to
implement the strategies. The planning process is also a tool to implement control
systems in the processes. The relevance of the same can be seen in the case of Arts
Council.
‡ °$

 Relationship tells us about the internal and external
links of the organization. Internally how the organization is linked with its own
departments in terms of finance, work flow and information flow. Externally it can be
linked with the organizations from where they outsource, network, customers, clients,
etc. It is important to understand the relationship structure because the relationship
structure explains the decision making authority to certain extent.
This case of Arts Council is related to different aspects of organizational structures in which
it underwent changes. These structures were coincided with the policies and strategies what
arts council followed in different stages of arts development and expansion in England.

       %&&' Prior to 1990 Arts Council operated as a single organization

covering Great Britain. During that period, the objective of Arts Council was only to promote
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‡

   
 ]ith this structure, the regional centers can focus on
the local activities and talents. This strategy is useful when talents have to be searched
through out the country and regional presence is significant in such a case. 
‡ 

  This kind of geographical divisional structure is effective
because results are clearly visible in terms of regional performance. Each unit is a
standing business on its own. In this case the results can be measured in terms of the
artists they have funded, the funds they have raised and deployed and events they
have organized. Thus there is a spirit of self standing unit and urge to perform better
than the other units. This helps in overall achievement of the broader objective of
funding artists through out the country. 
‡ " ]hen different units are made in an organization, each division
makes its specialization in its own field and in its own way. Every region in England
is famous for its own arts type. This can help the Arts Council to find out new arts
type prevailing in England and the regional units would help in expansion of those
artists. 
‡
!
  The knowledge and strategies used by different units can be
shard among each other and thus can help the underperforming units also to improve
their performance. 



‡ c 


In an organization which is working on public funding, finance is a
major constraint. Because of divisionalization, there is increase in costs because of
excessive staff requirement. 
‡    
     In a divisionalized structure, it is
difficult to follow and implement a single policy. Thus the structure fails when there
has to be unity of decision making. The more the number of divisions more will be
conflicts. 
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Intense competition between divisions is good to some extent if
the business is a profit organization or the divisions are profit centers. But in case of a
not for profit organization competition is not good. It leads to cut down in someone
else¶s funds in order to increase the funds for their unit. Such organizations should run
in mutual understanding and harmony. 
‡  One of the major problems of divisionalization is duplication. At every
division there is a need for functional units and staff. ]hich is a repetition of
activities and it leads to increase in costs. 


  )''* In order to overcome the problems in the structure existing there were
changes made in the structure in the year 2003 again. These changes were made not just to
remove the problems in the prevailing structure but also there were changes in the policies
and objectives of the Arts Council and the prevailing structure was not able to meet the
requirements for the new policy implementation. Since every structure is suitable for a
particular policy, there was a requirement of change in the organizational structure. 

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‡ #  "   
 The most important change in the policies of Arts
Council in the year 2003 was that they started to focus on individual artists rather arts
organizations. They wanted to bring out individual artists in the front and give them
an opportunity to showcase their talents the entire world. 
‡ 6  "
      
  Like before, they were not
merely willing to fund the arts organizations but also wanted them to flourish and
grow so that every artist can benefit out of this. 
‡  
Their priority was to being harmony in cultural diversity. All the
regions and also out of the country artists were to be brought in England so that art of
England could reach maximum people. Their policy was now to give international
exposure to the artists. 

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  An organization like Arts Council of England which is a
government charter organization and works on public funding has a lot of complications in
terms of people who organize it. There has to be equal representation of government in the
organization, at the same time people who understand arts should be there, also the people
who fund the maximum would like a place in the boards. These all issues were tackled in the
new structure. The appointment of members and representation was all defined properly and
role of regional centers was changed. There was a clear relationship structure and process
structure lay in Arts council in order to bring harmony in decision making and to implement
the new policy of individual artist funding rather each region following its own policy.
  (
    (      The members of
national council were appointed by the secretary of state. There were total of 15 members at
the national council.
$ 
 Out of the 15, 9 were the representatives of all local or
regional centers. Thus equal representation was shown from local bodies at the center level.
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$ Regional Arts Councils had the following responsibilities:
‡ Annual budgets
‡ 3 years regional investment plans
‡ Agreement of regional strategies within the framework of national policy
This made a clear process for planning in Arts Council that the policies will be framed at the
center level and it will flow from top to bottom. The budgets and plans will be framed at the
regional levels and will flow from bottom to top. In order to make them frame their policies
in line with the policies framed, the policies were approved at the center level only if they
were within the framework of the policies laid. Then the flow of finance would happen from
top to bottom to all the regional levels.

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( |nder the new structure a single policy could be
formed and implemented throughout the organization. This was because the processes
and relationships were clearly defined. 
‡  
  

 In the previous structure of divisionalization, there was a lot of
repetition in terms of staff and functional area. But in the new structure, as it is seen in
the figure above there was one executive structure formed at the national level and
which saved a lot of cost by reducing the staff requirement and avoiding duplications. 
‡
!! +As discussed above, there was a flow of work and responsibilities was
made. This led to increase in efficiency of work and reduction in lag time. 
‡   
 There was sufficient representation of state and
government in the arts council. Also there was sufficient representation of local
bodies at the national level. 
‡ c!!
This structure was clearly inline with the new policies
that were adopted by Arts Council. 

The new structure was very effective in terms of achieving the policies formed
by arts council and this could be seen in the figures of their funds raised and deployed. Arts
council increased its deployed funds from 335 million pounds to 410 million pounds by the
year 2006. There was a great increase in the number of artists participating in events
organized by Arts council and the arts of England were showcased throughout the world.
There could be alternate structures possible like division based on arts type, but this would
limit the scope of arts and artists which Arts council could find in England. Arts have got no
meaning. If it is defined we are limiting its scope. By doing this there may be a lot of artists
with unique skills got unexplored because they won¶t fall under the purview of the definition
of their arts definition for a particular division. Hence the strategies formed at the arts council
is a classic case of change in policies and organizing for successful implementation of the
same.