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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Enabling success: organising

Brightwater Insurance handles a claim through separate departments: registration, assessment, approval and payment. Each department works to its own targets and customers complain of delays at hand-offs. The CEO proposes reorganising around a single end-to-end 'claim settlement' process with one accountable owner and cross-functional teams. What is the main strategic benefit this process-based organisation is intended to deliver?

The main benefit is fewer hand-offs and better customer-focused performance across the whole workflow. Organising around an end-to-end process with a single owner and cross-functional teams removes functional silos and conflicting departmental targets, whereas a functional structure favours specialist depth rather than the customer journey.

  1. AGreater specialist depth within each function through larger functional departments
  2. BReduced hand-offs and improved customer-focused performance across the whole workflowCorrect
  3. CLower employee numbers because outsourcing replaces all internal activities
  4. DClearer geographic accountability through autonomous regional divisions

Explanation

Process organisation aligns work with horizontal value-creating flows, so hand-offs and silo targets are reduced and the end customer outcome is improved. Option A describes the strength of a functional structure, which is the problem here. Outsourcing and regional divisions are not part of the proposal.

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