Factors Determining the Need for Change in Organisations
Strategic management can be defined as managing the resources of an organisation in achieving goals and objectives. It involves setting goals, objectives, analysing the competitive environment analysing the internal organisation, evaluating strategies and ensuring proper functioning of the strategies across the organisation (Hunger 2020). Strategic change is implemented by the organisation to achieve goals and has a competitive advantage in the market. To conduct strategic change, organisations plan and implement changes to gain competitive advantage and other necessary objectives (Greenwood and Hinings 2017). It includes changes to the business policies, structure and process. The paper aims to describe the importance of strategic change management for an organisation, also describing the types of changes and the barriers that are needed to overcome to implement these changes in an organisation.
Organisational change is necessary for the companies to achieve growth and success and thus, change management helps in the successful adoption and usage of changes within the company. There is several factors in an organisation that determines the need for change.
The business environment needs to be changed according to the demand of the customers, market competition and the well-being of the employees. Internal environmental changes can be a facility to work from home for the employees during the pandemic situation of Covid 19 to keep employees safe and maintain productivity (Hamilton 2020). External changes include changes in the supply chain to make the process more efficient and eliminate disruption in the system.
Companies need to change their products or services through improvements, alterations, modifications and additions to make them more marketable, safe, and demanding and make it more effective. McDonald’s is the best example where they changed their menu according to the needs and habits of their customers as well as improvised their existing products. They introduced calorie labelling into their products which helped customers find more information about the food that they were consuming (Petimar et al. 2019).
Refers to the alteration in the equipment and process through which an organisation creates and develops its products or services. Technology also facilitates better internal and external management which includes employees and loyal customers. An example of technological change will be Netflix which began its streaming services in 2007 shifting from the traditional DVD business model (Ruiz-Navas and Miyazaki 2017). This created a disruption in the competitive market and customers accepted this business model.
Employees are the lifeline of the organisation and needs to be taken care of properly. During Covid 19 pandemic situation, the companies have provided flexible working hours, work from home facilities, social distancing and other valuable facilities to improve the working practices of the organisation (Chung et al. 2021).
The relationship in the workplace among the managers and employees play a pivotal role in the success of the organisation. Changes in workplace relationships are important to motivate and reward employees and appreciate them for their efforts to achieve organisational goals and objectives and improve employee retention.
It includes changes like management system, job structure, hierarchy and procedures which have a sustainable impact on the internal and external factors of the organisation. A company might change its hierarchical structure to a horizontal structure according to the needs of the company for development.
Different Types of Changes for Organisations
In this process, the employees of the company makes the decision regarding the development of strategies, structure, systems and people for achieving organisational and personal goals.
Managing a change in the organisation refers to the conversation between the people leading the change and the people who are implementing the strategies of change (Cameron and Green 2019). A sudden change in the external and internal process can be difficult for the employees and thus change management is important for the organisation. The best way to change management is through following Kotter’s steps for change management.
All individuals need to understand the reason for the change and the importance of acting with the change. In this way, the organisation will be able to create motivation for them.
Identifying the employees and managers for serving as the change agents. These individuals hold status and experience in their subject and are important for the organisation for influencing others and eliminating existing problems (Galli 2018).
The vision will help in achieving the objectives within the given timeframe. Employees need to be clear about the vision of the organisation for better acceptance and linking vision with strategies will help employees achieve goals better (Tang 2019).
The vision needs to be communicated effectively at the different levels of the organisation and to ensure that all the individuals learn it.
The obstacles that need to be removed that undermines the vision. Managers need to have an individual conversation with the employees to understand and identify the resistance and empower them to act up with the vision.
Employees need to be rewarded and incentives need to be given for achieving the short-term goals (Doppelt 2017). Initial progress towards the vision will keep the employees motivated and encourage them to act in favour of the change.
The organisation should focus on achieving its long-term goals along with short term goals. The focus needs to be maintained on the structural and deeper changes to bring continuous improvement to the process and projects.
The change needs to become part of the corporate culture and thus it needs to be the core part of the organisation (Holmes 2017). Values and standards need to agree with the new vision along with the behaviour of the employees. Employees need to continuously support the change and managers need to foster a suitable environment for the organisation for a smooth change.
The strategic change types are divided into two parts which are results and nature. The result includes transformation or realignment. Nature includes Incremental or Big Bang.
Therefore, the types of strategic change include the following heads which are as follows –
It refers to the change which can be accommodated with the current beliefs and assumptions. It occurs incrementally through planned initiatives that are focused on realigning how the organisation operates. An example will be Domino’s pizza where they adapted technology and improved their online presence from order to delivery in a completely online platform (Teoh 2019). The adaptation to online technology made Domino’s Pizza profitable and regained its brand value and image.
Overcoming Barriers to Implement Changes in Organisations
It involves changes that are rapid and might involve a good deal of turmoil in the organisation. Examples would be major structural changes or reduction of cost or products or services. But the process does not change the whole paradigm of the organisation. It is implemented only to make the organisation more efficient and better relate to their organisational goals and objectives.
The evolution refers to the implementation of transformational change through various stages and important initiatives. It can be planned or forced for transformation but can also occur in an emergent manner. An example will be Lego, the toymaker company, who evolved from a toy-making company and expanded into other markets like video games, action figures and movies (Geislinger 2020).
Revolution refers to the forced, fundamental or reactive change that takes palace with the help of various initiatives on many fronts and is implemented within a short space of time. It is done concerning the existing competition in the market and is likely to be painful and risky for the organisation. An example will be General Electric complete overhaul in 1981 when he changed the company’s process completely and introduced six sigma to improve the supply chain thus becoming a profitable company in the long run (He et al. 2015).
A new change in the organisation cannot be effective because of certain barriers which create a gap in the current organisational practices. This harms the performance of the organisation and thus needs to be removed from the organisation to facilitate a smooth change management process.
In many organisations, employees are not involved in the change process. This creates a cultural and personnel barrier for the employees as they are not ready to embrace the change (Al-Ali et al 2017). Thus, the company needs to get their employees involved in the change process and provide them with relevant and sufficient resources that drive them towards the change and make them feel comfortable in the organisation.
Announcing the change suddenly creates a communication barrier between the employees and managers (Khan et al 2019). To eradicate these problems the managers and the CEO need to communicate with their employees from the beginning of the change process and make them adapt to the change.
The planning team needs to make decisions based on the feeling and intuitions of the employees and failing to do so will give rise to cultural barriers which will create a barrier in the change management. Thus, the organisation needs to respect the culture and traditions of the employees and focus on critical thinking and analysis to understand the feelings of the employees better.
Introducing a change without knowing the current stage can create difficulty. Failing to analyse the current organisation blueprint create a barrier in the change management. Thus, the employees need to understand current blueprint of the organisation first before introducing it to the change management to ensure a smooth transition of the change process.
The complexity includes products and systems which are difficult for the employees to understand and thus create a barrier (Pereira et al. 2021). Thus, an organisation need to break the barrier of complexity through skilful approach by employing a diligent, quality and highly efficient change management approach. It will be better for the organisation, not to tackle a change that is too complex for the organisation.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that strategic change management is important for the organisation to set new goals and objectives and for employees to expect their requirements and objective for organisational growth and success. Change management helps in developing a roadmap and creates better relationships with the employees by assuring that the organisation is committed and prepared for change. Change management is an integral part of an organisation and the organisation needs to manage proper changes and reduce change barriers to implement its change management strategy successfully.
References
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Chung, H., Birkett, H., Forbes, S. and Seo, H., 2021. Covid-19, Flexible Working, and Implications for Gender Equality in the United Kingdom. Gender & Society, 35(2), pp.218-232.
Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. Routledge.
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Khan, H.U. and Smuts, R.G., 2019. A Comparison of change management guidelines to address technology adoption barriers: A case study of higher educational institutions. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, 97(7), p.7.
Pereira, J., Braga, V., Correia, A. and Salamzadeh, A., 2021. Unboxing organisational complexity: how does it affect business performance during the COVID-19 pandemic?. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy.
Petimar, J., Ramirez, M., Rifas-Shiman, S.L., Linakis, S., Mullen, J., Roberto, C.A. and Block, J.P., 2019. Evaluation of the impact of calorie labeling on McDonald’s restaurant menus: a natural experiment. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 16(1), pp.1-11.
Ruiz-Navas, S. and Miyazaki, K., 2017, July. Adapting Technological Capabilities for World Digital Business: The Case of Netflix. In 2017 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET) (pp. 1-10). IEEE.
Tang, K.N., 2019. Change management. In Leadership and Change Management (pp. 47-55). Springer, Singapore.
Teoh, W., 2019. The Market Risk on Domino’s Pizza Incorporation’s Peformance.
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