Great effort must be expended for coordination and ­intervention, itself presuming role, hierarchy, and decision-making structures which smooth the process of crossover exchange between departments and with external parties. The characteristic features of such an organizational structure include:

• Decentralization and a low level of specialization to accelerate the response to changes in circumstances.

• Flat hierarchical structures as a fundamental prerequisite for fast response and decision-making capability.

• Team structures for the temporary handling of current/innovative topics.

• Horizontal coordination for simplification of the coordination of departments and cross-departmental teams.

• Communication to strengthen transparency and the transfer of know-how in the company.

Get together

Processes clarify the work procedures, deadlines, and responsibilities for the realization of a service or product while utilizing all of the resources available in the company. Strengthening competitiveness requires friction-free process management which enables the company to respond quickly and dependably to stimuli. The aim is to find the right balance between flexibilization and standardization in all of the processes relevant for the differentiation. Decisions as to which processes are most likely to generate competitive advantages depend in part, of course, on the industry, but are also related to the company’s competitive strategy. So the relevance of processes is always closely ­related to the specific circumstances of the company. In the telecommunications industry, fast response capability is critical for customer-centric processes, but so are innovations which enable companies to offer repeatedly new products and services – ahead of the competition – on a short-lived market.

Difficulties related to response capability of a company can arise from interfaces at the junctions of various processes. Either various organizational units work together to generate a service or product, or a service or product is handed over from one to the other organizational unit, or the various departments turn to a resource pool to generate the service or product. Interface problems and superfluous process steps can be reduced by the introduction of process teams, effective interface management, and the support of the processes with the aid of the available information and communications technology.