Founded in 2009, HousingAnywhere started as a student-to-student platform proposing its services to universities. At the time, the focus was to help international students find a suitable home in the Netherlands. Not only did the need for accommodation grow bigger, but international mobility became an overriding priority. Along with the evolution of the rental market, the company evolved in order to "help people with housing, anywhere", including young professionals and expats. HousingAnywhere made it also part of their mission to educate, and collaborate with, property managers and other housing agents to ensure suitable rooms, apartments, and studios to all their users.
The shift in focus shaped internal changes in the structure of the organization. While the mission aspect of the company, namely the Sales department, worked in a hierarchical fashion, the functional aspect-the Product Development department- worked in a Matrix structure.
HousingAnywhere.com operates now as a global rental accommodation platform and aims to scale up from 5 targeted cities to 20 cities by 2020. How can it ensure that its main departments are well-aligned and that it is well-organised internally, in preparation for its expansion?
Based on field research; 11 pages.
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1. Identify the different degrees within the organizational structure in terms of: - degree of formality, relative amount of attention given to task performance and relationship building, orientation to time, and goal orientation, including vertical vs horizontal differentiation. 2. Analyse how the alignment of these focal points help the company to scale up internally. 3. Evaluate how subsystems within a company provide each other feedback and information. 4. Identify the ways in which bottlenecks can be avoided in a vertical structure.
