Organizational Structure of Gap Inc.

After looking at the organizational chart from the website , there are several aspects of its structure that is worth mentioning of.

Starting with its general structure,I would say that Gap Inc. is more of a flat structure than a tall structure. This is because Gap Inc. only features two levels of management. Since it is a flat structure organization, it has a wide span of control for the top level management,Glenn Murphy.This would also benefit the firm since this way communications are easier in between employers and employees.

By looking briefly looking at the chart we can assume that GAP Inc. has used a variety mix in building its base of structure for the firm. For example, it divides its structure based on its product, HR and Finance. We see that they separated the HR and the finance sector out as a separate department. I think that this would be a good decision for GAP Inc. since finance and its accounts would be more organized by grouping them all together in a group to calculate and departments can be compared easily by the statistics. But I would suggest that the firm should put the Human Resource department into each subordinate departments like the marketing, below the CEO.This because each department may have different styles of staff and it is best for the HR department to truly understand the employees when making HR decisions. Therefore, it would benefit the company if the HR went into the other product-based departments. Additionally, the company divided its subordinates as product base with brands that are under GAP (Banana Republic and Old Navy etc.) and GAP itself (North America). These product based departments resemble somewhat of a matrix structure of a firm because the multi-skilled people from different knowledge backgrounds get together to create the final product for the brand.

Personally, I would be say that GAP Inc. is a decentralized company. Although we could only see a few members in the organizational structure, we know that the ones at the second level of managements are all head of a department of brand. Therefore, it is obvious to not have daily decision making often put on in the highest levels of hierarchy.

The formal group of GAP Inc. should be doing fine with its product sales, but not so well with its internal stakeholders.This is because if the HR department doesn't get into the department, they will not know what exactly the department needs, confusion would be created and may create stakeholder conflicts.

Busines Blog: Survey of China's PMI Growth

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http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9B21QEG1.html

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The following article reports on the recent survey of the purchasing managers index in China’s economy and its economy growth. The state-sanctioned China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing had surveyed approximately 700 different company managers that monitor their purchasing. Based on their results, a 7 straight month growth of PMI was recorded to 54.3, a slight growth from the 50 from last month in a 100-point scale. Additionally, the economic growth had also shown a growth from 6.1 to 7.9 after a season, due to the government’s stimulus of 4 trillion yuan. At the same time, the article reports on an overcapacity warning on few industries from China, and some investments invested to different industries to clear a few economic risks.

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External Environment: political opportunities and threats (1.5)
Stakeholders: External Stakeholders: role of government (1.4)
Public Sector (1.2)

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The article focuses on the role of how the government has actively influenced its economy by several methods. First of all, after the huge financial crisis last year, the economic growth has decline to below eight, so the government of Beijing decided to precede a huge stimulus. The government had then driven back the economy with a enormous stimulus of 4 trillion yuan to its economy for future infra-structure and investment projects. If the government hadn’t stimulated the economy, China would be suffering from a downturn of growth and more economic issues will arise as the PMI and GDP declines. On the other hand, another example a government influence was the investment from the government to several raw material industries to resolve economy and overcapacity issues.

I think that the China government has been playing a huge role in controlling and overseeing the economy, which leads in affecting its index like the GDP and PMI positively. The control of China’s economy is needed from its government. Because China is growing in such a rapid speed with billions of people beginning to have a higher GDP and PMI, it is necessary for the government to make sure that the economy is doing well. This method of China will have a benefit of a constant monitoring of the economy. For example, the government can prevent any other investors or companies affecting the stock market and the economy. Additionally, with the government having such a huge backup of assets and cash-flow, when China is facing economic issues, the government can assist its own economy.

On the other hand, this kind of monitoring has its negatives since the economy is so dependent on the government, the economy would be easily sensitive to any political issues and factors. In addition, though the economy is growing in a decent speed, it has its limitations for businesses and firms since the government can easily control any decision in the economy.