Today's successful companies can't afford to stand still. They cannot rest on their previous accomplishments. If they do, they can all too easily become vulnerable—to a competitor's new product, shifts in customer preferences, or other changes in their environment. Instead, they use their current successes to continue to build a competitive advantage for the future, constantly seeking new ways to remain flexible, innovative, efficient, and responsive to their customers. One of the most important ways they have of doing that is to make sure that their organization's structures and systems remain adaptable—prepared to meet the complex and ever-changing challenges that managers and their organizations constantly confront.

As you can see throughout this chapter, managers in progressive companies must be able to act fast. Their companies must act fast too, and in accordance with customer needs and other outside pressures. In order to accommodate these pressures, different forms and degrees of organic structure in the organization will be adopted—depending on its strategy, its size, its customers, and its technology. In this activity, you will consider these variables as they look at the global shipping giant, DHL.

1. John Pearson is comparing which aspect of his company to a "fast growing grass"?

a. its marketing plan

b. its debt ratio

c. its organic nature

d. its mechanistic nature

e. its employee theft problem

2. John Pearson just explained how DHL's setup allows them to convey their value proposition through their own staff in uniform rather than through agents. In which part of the value chain would this be occurring?

a. operations

b. research and development

c. marketing and sales

d. inbound logistics

e. outbound logistics

3. John Pearson just described how DHL first started by transporting documents for banks, and then as it grew, it expanded to shipping and transporting product in addition to paper. When a company expands in size and offers a broader offering of services leveraging their core processes, it is said to be expanding in

a. scale.

b. scope.

c. leverage.

d. quality.

e. globe.

4. DHL's use of bar codes to track every package is how they add value to which part of the value chain?

a. operations

b. human resource management

c. procurement

d. research and development

e. marketing and sales

5. DHL uses a great deal of technology to process all of its packages around the globe. Which type of technology configuration does DHL have?

a. just-in-time manufacturing

b. flexible manufacturing

c. large batch technology

d. small batch technology

e. continuous batch technology

6. Jim Tuohey just described how the flights in the morning at the sorting center in Miami are inbound, and the ones in afternoon are outbound. He is describing DHL's strength in

a. concurrent engineering.

b. being lean.

c. small batch technologies.

d. logistics.

e. simultaneous engineering.

7. Jim Tuohey just described how customer service is what makes DHL unlike any of its competitors. Another way of looking at his comment is that DHL does what with customer service?

a. gets cutting edge shipments

b. lags behind the competition

c. charges more

d. adds value

e. needs improvement