A COST LEADERSHIP STRATEGY is based on the concept that you can produce and market a good quality product or service at a lower cost than your competitors. These low costs should translate to profit margins that are higher than the industry average. Some of the conditions that should exist to support a cost leadership strategy include an on-going availability of operating capital, good process engineering skills, close management of labor, products designed for ease of manufacturing and low cost distribution.

Matrix management is a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments. For example, all engineers may be in one engineering department and report to an engineering manager, but these same engineers may be assigned to different projects and report to a different engineering manager or a project manager while working on that project. Therefore, each engineer may have to work under several managers to get their job done.

The matrix

Some organizations fall somewhere between the fully functional and pure matrix. These organizations are defined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) 4th Edition as composite. For example, even a fundamentally functional or matrix organization may create a special project team to handle a critical project.

Whereas project-centered organizations (like those in engineering, construction or the aerospace industries) have structures built around project teams as their functional units, matrix organizations follow the traditional structures, with some adjustments to their hierarchy to support project units.[1]

Advantages and disadvantages

The advantages of a matrix include:

Individuals can be chosen according to the needs of the project. The use of a project team which is dynamic and able to view problems in a different way

as specialists have been brought together in a new environment.

Project managers are directly responsible for completing the project within a specific deadline and budget.

Whilst the disadvantages include:

A conflict of loyalty between line managers and project managers over the allocation of resources.

Projects can be difficult to monitor if teams have a lot of independence.

Costs can be increased if more managers (i.e. project managers) are created through the use of project teams.

Competing Values is about understanding how to appreciate conflicting values and integrate them successfully so that the organization is open to collaboration and growth. Jeff DeGraff, the Dean of Innovation, has advocated ambidextrous leadership for more than twenty years through his teaching, consulting, and his three books about the Competing Values Framework (CVF). The goal is that leaders should become adroit at two conflicting values (DeGraff identifies a total of four competing values). We train leaders so that they develop the ability to oversee teams that work towards opposite goals, integrating them when the timing is right, so that each value can be developed successfully. The result is companies that are creative, while meeting high quality control standards, and that are open and collaborative, but also maintain their competitive edge.