The Kortrijk imaging group Barco is changing its organizational structure and letting three board members go. The stock market reacts with satisfaction to the first glimpse of what ‘Barco 2.0’ should become.
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The change in Barco .’s organizational chart
is the first major achievement of the new CEO duo Charles Beauduin and An Steegen. That took recently replaced Jan De Witte. The new organizational structure is the result of a “global assessment of Barco’s capabilities, market effectiveness and growth strategy,” according to a press release.
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Until now, Barco worked with a so-called matrix structure. On the one hand, there were geographic divisions that took care of the sales, marketing and customer service of their region, and on the other hand there were centrally managed business units that were part of three operating divisions: Entertainment, Healthcare and Enterprise. In the new structure, the focus is on the business units. In addition to product management and research and development, they will also be responsible for sales.
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The changes also affect three executives who headed Barco’s divisions: Filip Pintelon (Healthcare), George Stromeyer (Enterprise) and Nicolas Vanden Abeele (Entertainment). They look for other places. Barco says their departure is purely a result of the new structure. ‘This is independent of their performance and many contributions to Barco in recent years’, it sounds.
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Criticism
The new structure has not come out of the blue. Internally, there has been criticism for some time of the cumbersome structures and ‘bureaucracy’ in Barco management. A matrix organization is especially suitable for very large, multinational organizations that have to reconcile centralized management with the needs of local markets. The disadvantage is that, especially in smaller organizations, it can lead to extra management layers, internal conflicts and a too slow flow of information.
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Internally, there has been criticism for some time of the cumbersome structures and ‘bureaucracy’ in Barco management.
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By centralizing sales among the managers of the business units, the company hopes to get shorter lines with its customers. This is necessary in order to respond more quickly to questions and needs in the market.
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‘Beauduin and Steegen are signaling that they are not doing an exercise without obligation’, says KBC analyst Guy Sips in an initial response. The market responded with satisfaction to that signal on Thursday: the Barco share was trading more than 4 percent above its closing price on Wednesday, when the company announced results that were below expectations.
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