Background to Organisational Strategic Change Management
Strategic change management is the process that is developed to help companies in managing changes in the structure such that organisational missions, objectives and goals can be met appropriately (Barney, 2017). The company selected for understanding the concept of strategic change management is Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is a U.S based multinational company established for the purpose of selling computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and laptops. The company was incorporated in 1976 and by 2018, they have established 500 retail stores across the world (Apple Inc, 2018). The purpose of this report is to understand the concept of strategic change management along with analysing the issues due to which the company wants to bring. The process of bringing change is also discussed in the report. The main issues faced by the company includes communication gap between employees and top management and the increasing competition.
The most suitable model for the Apple Inc. strategic change management is Lewin’s Change model. This model focuses on the behaviour modification of the employees/people. The model is divided into three parts i.e. unfreezing, change and refreezing. In this particular model, unfreezing will be used for changes at initial stage. The company would inform its employees regarding the implementation of some changes in the process. (Cummings, Bridgman, & Brown, 2016). The second stage includes changing which is very crucial and important stage. In this stage, the change is implemented in the organisation and it is suggested that the organisation should apply the change in short time.
This is due to the fact that if the change process takes a long time, the employees will resist change. The third stage includes refreezing which is all about solidifying the change. Once the change has been implemented, it is advised to the organisation to evaluate, monitor and make necessary adjustments to refreeze the change. The Lewin’s change model provides full assistance to the company to apply change management strategy in the business (Ethiraj, Gambardella, & Helfat, 2018).
Current environment
The application of the Kurt Lewin’s Model provides a planned approach for solving the issues faced by Apple Inc. The three steps provided by Kurt Lewin’s Model for change has both negative and positive impact on the organisational structure and on its employees. The existing behaviour pattern of the employees of the organisation is unfreezing which ceases the resistance to change and impacts the behaviour of employees. Unfreezing include shortened employee’s incumbency, downsizing of workforce policy and reduction of the hierarchical level. On the positive side, it will empower the functioning of employees and help them in fast decision making that will further result in better performance (Manchester, et.al. 2014).
How the Chosen Model is Relevant to Apple Inc.
The Kurt Lewin’s Model will bring the topmost administration to the bottommost line. It will also alter the inner system and structure of the Apple Inc. Moreover, this model along with the new performance appraisal and incentives will bring drastic improvements in the change management process. Kurt Lewin’s Model emphasised on amalgamation of different teams in the hierarchy and customer pleasure.
Apple Inc. is one of the most famous and successful technology company in the world. The technology they use is best in the world but due to the continuous internal and external pressure, the company is being forced to adopt the corporate culture, and values to enhance the organisational enactment. Kurt Lewin’s Model is the most significant model for Apple Inc. in the implementation of change management strategies. The initial stage of the model reduces the hierarchical level of the company and provides more independence and liberty to the people who are working with them. Furthermore, it will also provide a facility of working without any struggle and as a result, the performance of the company will improve (Ellis & Abbott, 2018). Few years back, Apple has introduced a retirement policy for reducing the employees and to provide a chance to new blood. This policy got a good response from the employees. At change stage, the company is required to develop strategies and plans to bring new ideas and changes in the organisation in order to bring down the management level to the bottom line employees. For the purpose of supporting new changes in the company, the existing internal factors will play an important role.
Why Apple Inc. need a change
Apple Inc. is a well-known name in the world as they always serve the best quality products to their customers. The customers are also fully satisfied with the products offered by the company. The company is aware of the fact that change is very important for every business for getting success and to survive in the market. The adoption of these strategies provides that the company is continuously meeting the need of change in their products. But there is one area where they are lacking i.e. in applying the need of change strategy in the management of the company (Oyerinde, et.al. 2016). The company is facing the problem of lack of proper communication between the managers and employees that result into tension in the organisational climate. Apple needs to adopt a strategy that ensures proper communication in the organisation with the help of which the manager and employees will comprehend the value of cooperation and will work vigorously together to evade risks.
Techniques in Apple Inc.
Strategic management is a set of supervisory decisional activities that regulate the long run enactment of the business. Strategic management comprises of features such as plan formulation based on the existing environment of the administration, application and assessment and control of formulated strategies. For carrying out the organisational change for increasing the efficiency of the organisational development, traditional approach is most suitable. Due to the rising competition in the market, continuous change in technology and the introduction of new companies in the industry, Apple Inc. finds that strategic change process is very important (Mahmood, Idris, Samah, & Omar, 2017). The strategic modification is overbearing for every industry because it assures the success of business in the market. Majority of technology-based companies are following the strategy of mergers and amalgamation. Mergers and amalgamations are the part of the strategic development plan. Amalgamation is the very useful part of every technological company and it improves the quality of the product and increases customer satisfaction.
The business of Apple Inc. has been affected by new business trends, continuous change in technology and economic trends. The company takes time in the adoption of changes in the organisation and this acted as a factor due to which Apple Inc. has lagged behind. However, the main problem faced by Apple Inc. is its poor management strategies (Zhang, Ali, Mustelier, Gamatche & Zhang, 2016). Previously, when Steve Jobs was the part of Apple Inc., the company was performing well and earning amazing profits but after the end of the leadership of Steve jobs, the problem of mismanagement started. The company became reliable due to enormous trust of the customers on iPhones which, in turn, assisted the company in leaving the competitors behind. Due to the lack of managerial strategies and resistance to change, the company’s profits are going down every year. Another problem that is associated with the company is increasing competition. When they entered the market, there was no strong competitor which ensured its smooth operations and success. However, slowly and gradually, number of competitors emerged in the marketplace and became a threat for the company.
Identify a system involving stakeholders in the planning of change at Apple Inc.
To create a shareholder aware culture in the company, the much-needed requirement is a structured approach and skilful management. The structured process will focus on recognising the participants, understanding opportunities of stakeholders and handling their expectation, observing the productivity of the participant actions and frequent analysis of participant community that can be used to attain success in managing participant association. In the organisation, the stakeholders have their stake (Tkaczyk, 2015). The stakeholders may be interested in the product or result, group or person prejudiced by the effort or the product that might be indirect or direct. As a constant advancement procedure, the participant requires indulgence and support of everyone in administration extending from CEO to the worker. This will ensure the concept of actual participant association with the group. The administration has to ensure that the achievement criteria of their group must be wider than the lowest line consideration. However, every organisation follows the ideologies of the bottom line. They always put the shareholder’s value on highest priority and consider CEO as the main boss. If any type of activity is required to be pursued by operational, strategic or tactical management of the company, they first need to take permission and advice of stakeholders. Maintaining and attaining the provision and faithfulness of participants requires a continuous process that includes attracting the stakeholder at a correct time.
Comprehend Issues Relating to a Strategic Change in an Organisation
Stakeholders
Participants are the person, group or organisation having concerns about a business and can either get disturbed by the business. A stakeholder can affect or can be exaggerated by the actions, policies and objectives of the group. Stakeholders are the group of persons who source important resources.
The Stakeholder Circle Methodology consists of 5 steps that provide a structured and flexible method to manage and understand the relationship within the company. This methodology will prove that the achievement of every company will be based on the level of participation of stakeholders. The Shareholder Circle Methodology includes five steps and the initial step is identification of a stakeholder for some project of the company. It is a process of developing a list of those individual or group of individuals who can provide either positive or negative impact on the project (Wang, Wang, Huo & Zhu, 2015). The stakeholders can be a team member of a projector and can be an individual who is familiar with the organisation, its policies, and structure. Identification of stakeholders can be done through brainstorming or by using another process that is commonly used in the organisation. The second step involved in methodology is to prioritize assessment of every stakeholder. It is important and crucial for the organisation to select best from the identified stakeholders on priority bases. The next step which is used in this process is visualisation which helps the company in determining the overall stakeholder’s community. The next step is engagement; this will help the company in maintaining effective communication between the stakeholders and management of the company. The last step of the methodology will include the process of monitoring which assists the company to evaluate the outcome from the engagement between management and stakeholders (Burnes, 2014).
The key shareholders are those single person or group who influence the working of the company. On the other hand, such person or groups get influenced by the working of the company. The stakeholders will show their interest in the organisation when they are earning profits.
Apple Inc.’s stakeholders consist of the individuals or a group who are concerned about the business of Apple Inc. and those are
Apple Inc.’s workers who want Apple to do well as company and pay the mortgages on time
The stakeholder of Apple Inc. will be those who want the company to do well because they have made an investment in the company and want that their investments will increase
Assess the Resource Implications of Apple Inc. not Responding to Strategic Change
The stakeholders of Apple Inc. are its suppliers because they make money by supplying services and goods to the company.
The stakeholders of the company are its customers because they are using the product and services provided by the company and want to avail their services on constant basis (Vallurupalli & Bose, 2018).
The concept of shareholder circle methodology is based on the success of the company’s activities and to get profits because this is the reason behind the involvement of stakeholders with the company. All the decisions of the business are taken by the project manager as per his/her knowledge. The process of Stakeholder circle involves various steps which have been discussed above. According to those steps, the stakeholder’s community start their engagement with the company when they are earning profits as this is the time when the company is in the position of increasing its revenues.
The CEO of Apple Inc. Tim Cook has confronted a chief business challenge when he tried to implement a change agenda in the company with the intention of developing the competitiveness of the company. For the procedure of change, the company has adopted a model of Lewin’s model, unfreezing-change-refreezing. The change at Apple Inc. resulted in increased competition from Samsung and Sony (Berry & Green, 2016). Such change can be precarious for its existence as well as for the performance. Apple is the largest mobile selling company in the world. Apple is the market leader but its competitors have launched the mobile phones with the same feature at low prices which has influenced the decision of the company.
The company has always tried to make a healthy relationship with media. By maintaining good relation with media, the public image of the company will remain good. Stakeholder’s engagement with the Apple Inc. is very important for the company and they are maintaining the same from many years. The network of stakeholder’s relation exists within the industry (Shirey, 2013).
The Lewin’s change model is suitable for change in Apple Inc.
The organisation always tend to bring change in order to preserve a stable state and the Lewin’s change model will support manager in understanding why organisation requires exterior force to pledge modification and why the change will be divergent. The organisational modification occurs in three stages and the designs at each stage are required to be changed to implement the change strategies. The three levels of change management involve:
Change in the process will include bringing change in the person who is the employee of the organisation which means bringing change in their values, attitudes, skills and behaviour. The process of bringing change in the interpersonal style and in the organisational environment reflects how the conflicts among the team are managed, how the decision is taken and how the employees and management behave with one another (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016).
In the first step of the model, the organisation needs to unfreeze the area where they want to bring the change. The major issue that the organisation is facing is the gap between the employees and the top management and due to that the miscommunication is raising and misunderstanding has been developed. The company will unfreeze various levels such as at discrete stage- by selectively encouraging or dismissing the workforces and on organisational stage- by evolving extremely experimental training, providing statistics based response on how personnel will feel about assured administration practices (Frankland, et.al. 2016).
The next step brings the change in which the company implements changes in the management practice and in the process. The changes that the company bring will help the it in reaching new heights in the future. The last step the company use in change management process is refreezing in which the changes which are brought by the company will be refrozen. At this point the company will bring the changes in the organisation and then in this step they will enforce those changes on employees (Frankland, et.al. 2016).
Apple Inc. will use the same strategies which are used by the competitors while they face challenges. The company has chosen workforce management and tactical movement. The forthcoming requirements of the workforce were associated with the present human resource. The company has established a plan for developing the human resource tactic for preservation and removal of compensation (Latif, 2014).
To achieve the goals, Apple Inc. has undertaken strategic functions that are based on the objectives that will make the business more competitive. At Apple Inc., skill obsolesces is the major factor. The future of the company depends on the continuous development and continuous improvement in the work, therefore, it is important for the company to retain innovative and creative employees instead of overstaffing. Overstaffing will only increase the cost of the business. Therefore, it is important that the company should keep selected employees in the company. The company should follow the three steps that will help in keeping valuable staff with them
- Distribution and apportionment of workforce and balancing of supply and demand
- Controlling Human resource
- Introduction of strategies on sequence, transfer and relocation of the workforce (Van der Voet, 2014).
The external and internal modifications in the company are very important as changes bring innovation, creativity and competitive strategy. The external changes include customers taste, amendments in the government rule and inner changes related to service and product design novelty, the appointment of skilled and knowledgeable managers who are having fresh ideas (Hechanova & Cementina-Olpoc, 2013).
Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators are the non- fiscal and fiscal procedures that are used to know the position of the company by measuring its growth and the objectives of the business. The key measure of the success of the company is customer recommendations. To know the experience of the customers, the company has started an online survey with the help of which they can improve their work quality. Besides that, if any customer is facing other issues, the company will try to resolve it too. The company always think big for the people who are associated with them. They invest in implementing logical communication programmes, leadership training, and improving the way business employee’s performance in all commercial zones (W Techs, 2017). The financial position of the company is very strong and they are able to provide good returns to their shareholders.
Conclusion
To conclude, Apple Inc. is facing problem in establishing effective communication with its employees. Due to the problem of communication, employees and the working of the company is being affected. To manage such conditions, the company should bring certain changes in the business. The Lawin’s change model is the best model with the help of which the company can bring the change in the organisation in a positive way without having any negative impact on the employees.
References
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