Internal and external analysis of the organisation
Structured and comprehensive approach towards the change management of an organisation is significant towards the success of any project that the organisation intense to adopt for the implementation of new technologies and procedures within the changing demands of the competitive business environment as well as for capitalising the opportunities of business (Cameron & Green, 2019). Change management within the organisation is thus the process towards recognition, guidance and management of human emotions as well as reactions that minimises the inevitable productivity accompanying change.
Founded by Sam Walton, in the year 1962, Wal Mart can be considered as one of the largest business organisation in terms of employment rate and market capitalisation. The mega retailer, Wal mart has proceeded to the pillars of success by following three of the basic principles. These includes the concept of the provisions of services and values to its customers by the offering of quality merchandise at a affordable range. The company has developed it’s relation with its customers, which is the fundamental reason behind the growth and success of organisation. Second principle includes the corporate dedication towards the partnership among the employees or the associates of the company (Hornstein, 2015). The third principle involve the commitment by the organisation towards the stores and vendors to confirm principles and values. One of the world’s leading supermarket, Walmart distribute and sell the products that is required in daily living. Originally targeted to setup stores in the medium sized towns of United States, the company has slowly taken off international market in major parts of the world. The main aim of the company is true provide quality materials and products at a low price since the management and directors of the company believes that people are always concerned about the price while buying products for their daily necessities. According to Van der Voet, (2014),Walmart includes a hierarchical functional organisational structure with the features of function waste and hierarchy definition. The major effect of the hierarchical functional organisation structure of Walmart is the capability towards a cooperative managers for easily influencing the entire business organisation.
The fundamental basic strategy of Walmart is to initiate cost-effectiveness within which the basic principle is weakening of the prices. The success and the growth of Walmart is dependable over the internal and external environment. However in the rapid era of globalisation and changing global environment, there has been several organisations which have stood up as competitor of Walmart (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015). For sustaining within the competitive business market with high profit and growth, it is important for Walmart to initiate change management plan from the perspective of management with proposed recommendation strategies for improving the current situation.
Literature review – overview of change management theories or frameworks
Organisation carries a strong brand name with the largest revenue of share in the globe since the last few years. This brand name has made the image of the services and products of Walmart very much popular and attractive to the customers through out the world. The mission and vision of the organisation involved the strength of Walmart towards the ability for making strategic adjustments when required Walmart involves effective supply chain system within which organisation initiatives in keeping products at a safe place until required in a certain branch however the main weakness of Walmart within its internal environment is the challenges towards the maintenance of promise flow structures (Inman & Nikolova, 2017). The business market of the current date are shifting towards mass customisation due to the choices and requirements of the customers which are majorly reflected in the current date’s services and products. Walmart has been providing promising low prices but not customise products which are hindering the choices and preferences of the customers of the current date. According to the reports, Walmart has also been facing poor sales in the section of clothing merchandise. The company is not doing well in this section due to the lack of knowledge regarding reseller of the product.
The opportunity for the business organisation is to recognise means for the provision of unique look and categories of stores and branches. This will enable the organisation to have competitive advantage over the other stores. This renowned retailer is basically focused over offline stores and attracting customers in in physical stores for giving them and experience of smooth and effortless shopping within hands on experience (Haiven, 2013). Furthermore penetration in the international market has also been quite difficult for Walmart due to the lack of power and reputation in United States unlike some of the major international companies like metro, Tesco and Carrefour.
The areas where change is required for Walmart can be summarised by SWOT analysis of the organisation. The internal strategic factors of the organisation represent the capabilities for the kind of change in expansion required for the creation of value through retail service change for overcoming the Indian driving forces of competitors and threats (Jacobs, Van Witteloostuijn & Christe?Zeyse, 2013).
Strength – the strains of the organisation includes global organisational size, higher efficiency of supply chain and global supply chain. Walmart supply chain includes higher efficiency due to the advanced technologies for controlling and monitoring the movement of products from the suppliers to the stores.
Evaluation of possible change strategies
Weakness – considering both internal and external factors highlighted above, the weakness of Walmart are related to the genetic strategy and implementation in the field of capabilities, business development and profit margins (Kickert, 2014). The organisation currently uses cost leadership generic strategy which leads to the weakness of easily copied business model, thin profit margins, competitive disadvantage against Hyun speciality sellers, threats from online retailers.
Opportunities – it is important for Walmart to change and expand for improving their business practice. Linking the opportunity with the global economic situation, it is important for Walmart to expand in developing countries and reach to more number of customers, expand its store both in online and offline platform, improvement in quality standards and effective a customer relationship with proper customer feedback after sales and improvement in the human resource practices for the development of the competitiveness in the current business market.
Threats -the threats of Walmart is linked to the weakness identified regarding the internal and the external factors. These factors furthermore compel towards the significance of change management within the company so that Walmart can make some of the competitive strategy changes (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). Some of the threads for Walmart includes aggressive competition in the market, losing customer base, online retailers and healthy lifestyle Trend.
In this section, two relevant change management theoretical models and framework will be discussed which is beneficial for Wal Mart to initiate the changes targeting its weakness.
One of the most popular and effective model for understanding organisational and structured change, Lewini’s change management model was developed in the year 1950. The model was designed for explanation of the organisation and structural change through the changing state of ice block. The change management model by Lewin, consists of three main stages that are , unfreeze, change and refreeze.
Unfreeze – this initial stage of the procedure of change as per the model involved in preparation for organisational change. In this step the organisation needs to get prepared for the change and also acknowledge that the change is significant and crucial for the upcoming growth and development of the organisation (Sarayreh, Khudair & Barakat, 2013). According to the model, this particular stage is essential since many employees tries to resist the change. In this step it is important for the organisation to explain to its employees about the requirements of the change and how the change management can bring profit to the organisation. This initial step of the model includes organisation to look and review its internal structures followed by re examination.
Recommendations of the most suitable strategies
Change –according to the model this is the stage where the real change transition begins. The procedure might take time for happening sins employees of the organisation spend some time for impressing new development and changes within the organisational culture and setting. Good and effective leadership and cultural practices together with reassurance is essential at this stage since these aspects lead to progress in the right direction of the organisation and also makes it easier for the employees to be engaged and involved in the change management process. Communication is the key essential tool during the step
Refreeze – the stage involves organisation to be stable again after the change has been embraced and implemented. According to the model, disturb requires help for the employees of the organisation to make sure that the accepted and implemented changes are being used for the achievement of the new objectives and mission as per the current global market (Rosenbaum, More & Steane, 2018).
Lewin’s change management model will be beneficial for Walmart to initiate change regarding is expansion in developing countries and improvement of human resource practices for the development of competitiveness in the labour market. This model will help Walmart to participate in online retailing platform and address the aggressive competition from other global competitors.
This theory on the model of change is the goal oriented tool that makes possible for several change management organisations for focusing over the activities which are directly related to the goals that the organisation wants to reach. The uses of the model by the managers of the organisation include the factors towards provision of help and supporting employees to go through the process of transition while the change management process is taking place (Tang, 2019). This model furthermore helps in the treatment and diagnosis of the resistance shown by employees towards the chain and come up with efficient and successful planning for the managers and the professionals for the improvement of the overall organisational productivity during the change.
- Awareness includes the need and the requirement for the change of the organisation
- Desire involves bringing about the change and involving within the process as a participant
- Knowledge includes the procedure to bring the change
- Ability involves incorporating change over a regular basis
- Reinforcement is the step after the implementation and reinforcement of the change in the organisation (Lai, 2017).
This model offers a wide range of capability for the identification and evaluation of the reasons why changes are required within the organisation. Regarding change management procedure of Walmart, this model will be beneficial since it will help the organisation to break the contemporary practices that has been prevailing within the organisation and initiate in the change by considering internal and external forces like competitive threats, involvement in the online platform and reaching to more number of customers throughout the globe.
Required resources for implementing the identified suitable strategies
The market of Walmart has been chaotic since 2014 where the organisation not only faced a major financial break down, it furthermore faced a number of economic headwinds throughout the world (Lines & Reddy Vardireddy, 2017). The loss of customers has been one of the major downturn for the organisation which initiated them towards the development of possible change strategies to improve the situation and overcome the challenges.
Walmart should shift its focus towards becoming and developing to be a technological centric company. It is important for the organisation to develop new capabilities for serving the customers in some new and high-tech ways (Dawson, 2019). The management of the organisation should acknowledge the shift that has happened in the field of retail and technology and how they can use innovations and opportunity in the field of technology to attract and gain its customer base.
Walmart should realise that the company e will be beneficial and protective with the use of the evolving new technology. While the organisation has been facing rigorous ligitations, it is important for the organisation to step up in the innovation technological game to expand in the field of e-commerce and online platform to fill up the growth and success of the company.
According to Benn, Edwards & Williams (2014) disruptions has brought about some of the rapid success in the field of e-commerce. Online advertisement and campaigns have been tested to gain measurability for the retail companies to grow and compete in the global market. Walmart will be beneficial by embracing the challenge of technology to evolve and continue for inventing the shopping experience for its customers.by the use of technology as the main driving force, the innovation strategy and change management of the Walmart will push boundaries of the retail market.
Some of the possible chain strategies that are required for improving the current situation of Walmart includes adoption towards shifting to retail landscape, elevating the E-Commerce platform for competing effectively and efficiently, developing and holding a stronger position in the market through Omni channel mastery (Hayes, 2018). Aside from the lower price range, the utilisation of technology will help Walmart to bill competitive advantage over the other competitors in the market. Walmart should impress technological advancement for developing online shopping platform and digital retail channels.
Recommended plans for the most suitable strategies that Walmart can adapt to initiate change management which technology includes the following.
- Walmart can develop mobile upgrades with integrated Store apps that will allow locations and details of accessible and available stores services for the shoppers.
- Walmart can initiate in the development of digital tools that has been widely impressed by the shoppers for making list before store purchases (Harsoor & Patil, 2015). Technological up gradation help Walmart to develop a language system for the customers who can use it to choose and select specific products they want to try.
- Walmart can integrate shopper purchase data within their mobile application so that both items broad online and within the store can be accessed with the utilisation of the feature for the non digital transactions.
- Introducing robots in the store for finding and returning misplaced products, restocking shelves and tracking inventory levels will improve customer experience and will attract more customer.
- towards the improvement of the work experience and turnover rate of the employees of Walmart, the organisation can roll out new tools of technology in the mobile device and pair with data transmitting the list of deliverables to each of the employees based on the findings.
- Walmart can use virtual reality for improving the training programs for accomplishing work related tasks of the employees
- Automatic device of unloading trucks as well as sorting inventory by the use of technological advanced fast and loader will be helpful for the Walmart stores for Swift action and customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Change Management refers to the adjustment and transformation from one country to another of people, organizations, businesses and programs. When applied to companies and projects, this term can refer to a process of transitioning the project scope to meet changing demands and goals (Hwang & Park, 2016). It’s important to avoid implementing irrelevant or random approaches in order to manage change and implement strategies for change, and to concentrate on an appropriate action plan.
For the change management through technology, it is important for Walmart to change in the managerial functions, emphasize over the technology by developing an attractive and user friendly e-commerce website, mobile application from top development companies for attracting new customers (Beaty & Kriek, 2014). Walmart should also install technological devices and routers for hassle-free Wi-Fi internet access within the stores for improved customer experience and digital payment facilities.
Conclusion
Change management in organisation encompasses all the activities that are targeted to help the organisation to successfully adopt new ways to serve its customers. Effective change management techniques enables organisation towards the transformation of processes, strategy, technologies as well as people for enhancing performance and ensuring continuous and rigorous improvement within the ever-changing environment in the competitive global market. This report analysed the case of Walmart and why the organization needs to adopt change management for future growth via technological innovation.
References
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