Organizing is the process of arranging people and resources to work toward a common purpose. When there are clear missions, core values, objectives, and strategy, organizing begins the implementation phase. This phase answers the questions, who is in charge, what is going on, who will be effected and how things relate to each other? Organizing seems to be easier on centralized and not decentralized organizations. GM which started as decentralized organization wanted to be more centralized like its competitor Toyota. For example GM marketed about 8 midsized sedans which all 8 had different names and different parts from all over the world. However, Toyota a more centralized company marketed only a couple sedans. GM saw the success of Toyota and wanted to be more of a centralized company. This required reorganization of the whole company.
The First step was for GM to realize the flaws of being decentralized. Reorganization for any company is not something easy and nothing something that can be done over night. GM is such a huge company with many locations and different divisions all over the world. Most of the division would run on its won management and would try to differ from other divisions. Each division had its own suppliers and own purpose. GM needed to create one common purpose and have everyone work to reach that purpose. The first attempt to change the company around occurred in 1984 by Roger Smith, the CEO of that time. The attempt to reorganize was a complete failure and it took a hard hit on the company. The focus of this change was to "streamline GM's processes by merging the engineering and manufacturing activities of the five passenger-car divisions an ...