Royal Mail

1. Why did Royal Mail implement the “Business Development” process?

Royal Mail implement the “Business Development” process to redesign the organizational structure as they had faced structural decline and had a highly bureaucratic organization. Bureaucracy is a form of organizational structure in which people can held accountable for their actions because they are required to act in accordance with rules and standard operating procedures. There was a low degree of specialization and a high degree of multi-skilling in some parts of the organization. For an example, administrative staff could expect to serve on the counter and also work in the back office functions. Office staff is trained on a variety of roles concerning sorting, distribution, and delivery of mail.

So in 1986, Royal Mail had decided to separate the organization into Royal Mail Letters, Royal Mail Parcels, and Post Office Counters, which itself became a limited company in 1987. The organization retains a group board to coordinate overall strategy and each separate business gained its own managing director. Royal Mail introduced the “Business Development” initiative in the early of 1990. The business was reorganizedinto nine divisions, instead of the 64 pervious Postmaster/Postmistress districts. These divisions were given responsibility for their own budgetary performance and effectively possessed a great degree of autonomy and layers of management have been removed. Reducing the number of levels between frontline staff and board level in a move that was also designed to promote empowerment amongst the workforce. After that, the operational part of Royal Mail was implemented where delivering, sorting and distribution were separated.

2. Post Office Counters have pursued a policy of increasing the number of Post Offices run autonomously by Sub-Postmasters or Sub-Postmistresses. Is this a form of centralization or decentralization? Explain your answer.

This is a form of decentralization....