Tarnopol Learning Services (TLS) Offers Tutoring to High School Students

Multiple Choice

Tarnopol Learning Services (TLS) offers tutoring to high school students, college students, and adults returning to school. TLS also bids on government-sponsored contracts. TLS's major product offerings include academic tutoring, standardized test preparation, and admissions consulting. Its operations spread over many geographic regions. Currently, the company is deciding whether it should change from its current approach of organizing by geographical area. A senior manager has predicted that if TLS is not profitable this year and fails to develop any new products, the company will switch to either a functional approach or a product approach. Which of the following, if true, would most strongly suggest that TLS should change its organizational structure to a functional-based approach?

A) TLS currently maintains separate human resource departments in each of its regions.
B) Research suggests that product development failures happened because the product developers were isolated from customers.
C) TLS earns large streams of revenue from services it offers to schools.
D) In the current regional structure, managers complain about having a limited view of organizational goals.
E) Sales techniques that work in one region are often much less effective in other regions.