The world is flat at Kontron America. Thomas Sparrvik sees to that.
No matter the rate of growth of Kontron AG — a German integrated computer systems manufacturer that generated $625 million in 2008 sales — Sparrvik, CEO of Kontron America, wants his American and Asia-Pacific portions of the organization to behave like a smaller, more nimble entity, capable of easily sending and receiving communication ideas from other parts of the globe.
In an organization that relies on both innovation and acquisitions to sustain itself, sharing ideas with ease is essential to success. But building and maintaining an organization that allows employees to reach upward, downward and laterally is a major task.
“It’s very easy to have a flat organization if you are a small company or an entrepreneur,” Sparrvik says. “But it’s more difficult if you have, in our case, 2,500 employees worldwide. The way we handle that is we have eight major locations with a general manager for each of those locations. To make all of these major locations flat and able to fit into the global scheme, we have both a local and a regional structure. The presence of the global function allows people to have the accessibility around the world.”
The global accessibility allows an engineer in the U.S. to have his product reviewed by a purchasing representative in Europe or Asia, who can then help the engineer secure materials to make the idea a reality.
With fewer organizational levels and lateral communication between locations around the globe, projects move more quickly from start to finish, and employees, in turn, feel more enabled to explore different ideas.
“It’s more fun to work in a flat organization because everybody is more involved,” Sparrvik says. “Everybody knows what is going on. It creates ownership and involvement when you are flat, and I love when our people from all parts of the organization are involved with customers.”
Here’s how Sparrvik keeps Kontron as flat as possible.
