Reasons for change Change is inevitable

Reasons for change Change is inevitable in many a situation, in fact the only thing that does not change is change itself. In this proposal for change, the focus is on what (Zheng et al., 2015) describes as the most important asset of an organisation, its human resources. The management of Altheeb are concerned that the operations of this organisation is mired in complaints and dissatisfaction from clients. The organisation is in the service and good provision sector and thus its personnel and products are being viewed as inadequate to meet the needs of its clientele, calling into question the practices that are in the organisation vis-?-vis the human resources aspects of recruitment and training. Innovation and Change are two aspects which are central to every firms strategy today (Volberda, 2014). Firms which forget to spot innovations and adapt to those innovations fell prey to the incumbent curse (Damanpour, 2014). Indeed, there are a number of firms which went from industry leader position to near bankruptcy within a very short time as a result of their failure to innovate; consider, for example, Blockbuster, Nokia, Blackberry. In order to innovate and change firms need to obtain clues both internally and externally and build on these while ensuring that innovations are value adding and strategic (Mol and Birkinshaw, 2009). An organisation is made up of the people. It is these people which are key to firms ability to change, either proactively or in reaction to change in the business environment. Thus, managers looking to bring about change need to guide the individuals working for the organisation to change. This requires strong business management and interpersonal skills. There are various reasons due to which the change is necessary, it can be said that crisis is one of the factors that forces an organisation to change. Often the financial crisis occurred in the economy enables the organisation to amend their strategies and consider the change approaches so that they can complement their business operations with the requirements of the new approaches (Mabey et al., 1998). On the other hand, it can be contemplated that apart from this, there are various other reasons as well which are listed as below: Change purpose and aims As mentioned in the opening sections of his report, change can be necessitated by a number of factors, some can be specific to an organisation (Waddell and Sohal, 1998) while other factors can be industry specific or global (Damanpour, 2014). This discussion is focused on Altheeb Intergraph Saudi Company. Atheeb Intergraph Saudi Company (AISC) is a joint venture of Atheeb Trading Company, KSA and Intergraph Corporation, USA. This company provides security solutions to its clients in the Middle East region. It is the largest security product and service provider in the region and has seen its market grow very rapidly with the increased turmoil in the region. Amidst the rising competition, a number of foreign firms started to investigate opportunities in the region. In order to protect its market share as well as exploiting the growing business opportunities, AISC decided to restructure the organisation employee and product management process. Prior to this change, AISC was mainly acting as a subsidiary entirely dependent on its main partner, Intergraph, for business decision making. The change will be in the form of hiring new personnel as well as new product development and innovation as the company had to consider this for competing on the large scale. Thus central to an AISC ability to innovate is its ability to change. Change competence is one skill that every firm looking to adopt innovation strategy need to develop. Change Idea The approach that will be considered in the case of bringing about the change at AISC will be backed by various change management approaches. In the current scenario, it can be illustrated that improvement in various areas is needed. The aim of the current assessment is based on offering recommendations to AISC so that the areas which have been lag behind the company can be amended. Some of the objectives have been set in order to structure the change management plan for AISC, some of the set prepositions are listed as below: Change agents In any of the organisation, the change agent is the entity that helps in bringing about the change. They are basically the outsiders or a person within the organisation that help in changing the organisation (Waddell and Sohal, 1998). In this organisation, with the view to ensure that the change process is successful, there are persons who are crucial. The following are the change agents of AISC limited (Table 1); Table 1. The change agents of AISC limited Person Designation Function within the change process Mr X Product development manager He is responsible for identifying new products and market trends and devising ways of ensuring that the organisation is able to meet the new standards. Mr. A HRM The HR manage leads a department that is charged with identifying talent and skills and imparting talents and skills. The HR manager is instrumental in creating motivation and an environment where staff members will feel that they are part of an organisation that aspires to lead the market and industry. Mr. Y C.E.O of AISC The chairperson who supports or stops decisions and who approves major investments and directions that the organisation seeks to adopt. He steers the organisation from one direction to another. The persons given above are the change agents in this process and whose leadership will prove vital to enabling the organisation reach its desired objectives. Section 2: The change project analysis Stakeholder analysis It is important to note that embarking towards a plan for change does require identification for groups or individuals could be directly impacted due to their desired actions. As AISC is an organisation that comprises of various multiple networks and employees that work towards a common goal, consistent coordination and communication among employees would certainly increase the perspective of shareholders. For this reason, it is highly important to alert AISCs stakeholders for the implementation of a change plan so that they are able to evaluate and anticipate their personal plans (Appendix ii). Due to the fact AISC is a publicly traded company, any potential change or restructuring or revamping should be conveyed to their shareholders. The impact that the change will have over an organisation is certainly of massive importance to company shareholders (Marlow and Patton, 2002). It is certainly important for AISC to address all the relevant stakeholders before any changes have been brought upon by the firm. For improving product/service quality to a considerable extent, AISCs core priority would be to address the demands of its senior management, support staff and domestic customers as they are the core stakeholders of the company. It is important to note the fact that exercises such as employee engagement along with customer satisfaction are essential for measurement of organisational success (Rhodes and Eisenberger, 2002). Table 2, represent the stakeholder analysis. Table 2. The stakeholder analysis: Name of stakeholder Role in the process Influence Interests Senior management They develop policy that governs the organisations operations High High Human Resources Department Manage employees High High Potential employees Work for the organisation Low High Clients Get services that the organisation can provide High High Readiness of the change process and organisational culture In this project, the main stakeholders were the CEO, the HRM and Operations managers. It was considered essential to expand the workforce. For this, some of the staff from existing units were to be relocated to new branches with the responsibility to work with new staff and guide them. This would have brought in additional responsibilities. Some of the employees were to be promoted to senior positions. However, the question before the AISC management is whether to promote the employees based on seniority or based on performance. In addition, AISC management was to recruit some managers from competing firms with experience in the sector. Management are also worried that it may not be easy to manage employees within AISC because of a distinct organisational culture. AISC, although provided scientific products and services but was largely a bureaucratic organisation. Employees fought hard for having a larger proportion of fixed salary with a smaller proportion for performance. AISC management wanted to have a system of managing staff members and products that will lead to improved performance of the organisation in the industry. The approach is to ensure that existing staff members and product management aspects are improved and professionalism is inculcated. Most of the business were done through the employees and employees had formed a stronger relationship with the customers than the AISC brand itself, but their approach was not processional calling into question the approach of managing them including how they were sourced in the first place. The whole collective culture means that management was always under pressure and could not push for reforms or restructuring. Senior managers were the key change agents. The problem was that senior managers did not want to be seen as favouring some over others as they themselves had very strong and long relationship with the staff. Senior managers were given two weeks to come up with numbers and names for restructuring and this was then to be considered with the HR manager. However, even after 4 months, the managers could not submit their recommendations. Management was not aware of the skills and performance of the employees and was reluctant to take a decision which would have been counterproductive. Thus, even the planning for restructuring was delayed and AISC lost valuable time to compete. Organisational background and stated need for change Figure 1. Stakeholder Analysis From the aforementioned figure 1, it can be said that the figure demonstrates the power and interest of the stakeholders (Brugha and Varvasovszky, 2000). In the case of AISC, it can be identified that there are stakeholders involved within the organisation that help in the effective functioning of the business operations of AISC. It can be explained that the AISC need to examine the power and interest of all it stakeholders so that they can highlight who are the promoters, latent, defender of the organisation and apathetic. The identification of the key players is essential as it will be beneficial for the organisation in knowing about the point that which employees or stakeholders wont resist the change and who will support the change implementation. Moreover, it can be illustrated that the employees of AISC will fall into the category of defenders during the phase of implementing the change. The main problem with AISC was that despite having offices in the region, AISC was depending too much on Intergraph for business guidance and business decision making. Not having local level business decisions making capabilities started to affect AISC as, despite the rapid rise in market demand, AISC was not able to increase its revenues rapidly. The rapid decision making combined with the need for local level knowledge for regional decision making were considered the key reasons for this restructuring. Force field analysis According to AISCs own analysis as well as per the recommendations of the consulting firm restructuring of AISC was critical for AISC to both maintain its market share as well as benefit from the rising business opportunities. It was also considered essential because with current structure AISC was finding it difficult to exploit business opportunities arising in markets such as Iraq and Jordan which AISC had not targeted before. Restructuring and a corresponding rise in capacity would have significantly expanded the business capabilities of AISC making it better compete against some of the formidable rivals which were fast expanding in the region (Figure 2) Resistance From a theoretical perspective, a force-field analysis is a highly productive approach for convincingly expressing any potential resistance towards change management. It can be defined as a model that would certainly describe organisational situations being transitory equilibriums among forces that would create change and forces that would be resisting them. The observation made by Lewin stated that when management focuses on the driving forces as well as the restraining forces, managements inclination will be towards attempting and moving towards the status quo by applying a relatively greater amount of force and not achieve the same result by diluting the power of the forces that have already been restrained. When change are being implemented resistance to change might come from a number of quarters and there is need to identify the areas of such and make necessary plans and adjustments beforehand to overcome potential failure of the process. the forces that resist change (Kuzu and ??zilhan, 2014). However, the power shifts in the later stages if certain conditions have not been fulfilled. In the analysis presented below, the forces for change include competition, the costs and regulations that are passed by the government, while the forces against change are the issues like costs, resistance due to fear and loss of jobs. The following shows the Forcefield analysis with regards to the changes in this organisation; Figure 2. The Force-field analysis with regards to the changes in this organisation Cultural Web In order to analyse an organisations values, it is crucial to employ the cultural web (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015). A culture that exists in an organisation defines the way ??things are done here (Zheng et al., 2015) thus can dictate the way an organisation can adopt certain important changes as and when they become necessary. Culture is defined by things like language, beliefs, myths, stories etc. (Zheng et al., 2015) whose understanding can dictate the way certain changes or proposals are accepted. When certain cultural values are internalised among the staff members, new ideas may not be accepted. In the case of Atheeb Intergraph, there are a number of issues that staff members have always been made aware of, for instance, being informed about the importance of sustaining the name of the organisation, and also being made to show pride of being part of a large and successful security company. Another issue is the symbol, i.e uniforms worn by the staff members, the procedures for supporting clients, the tools used by the staff members, all of which are made to create an impression of impeccable security arrangements. Section 3: Evaluation/ discussion of the change programme Van de Ven and Poole (2004, p.512) define organisational change as ??an empirical observation of the difference in form, quality, or state over time in the organisational entity. The entity may be an individuals job, a work group, an organisational strategy, a problem, a product, or overall organisation.? According to French et al. (2005), change is essential for any entity to move to a better and more desirable state which, in turn, improves the sustainability of the entity. Chaffey and wood (2005) posit that organisational change is driven both by endogenous factors and exogenous factors. Endogenous factors driving change include declining profitability or efficiency, HR issues, conflicts, operational restructuring etc. On the other hand, exogenous factors are mainly related to competition or regulations (Nystr??m et al., 2006; Rabey, 2003). Firms like AISC which react to change rather than undertaking change proactively find it difficult to undertake the change. This means that the firm is delayed in the market which threatens its competitive positioning as happened in the case of AISC. But it is not always easy to undertake change because it is more than simply installing a new system or opening up new offices. Change involves a change in culture and behaviour of the people who work for and with the organisation. It is this change in culture/ behaviour of people which is most difficult to achieve (H??renstam et al., 2004; Jacobs, 2002). The problem is that organisation depends on its employees to achieve its outcomes. In the case of AISC, the firm was dependent on employees for bringing business because most of the business was through the strong relationship of the employees with the customers. Change often affects employees and leads to employee resistance which is the main cause of failure of most change projects (Chaffey and Wood, 2005). Nevertheless, firms change competence is a strong predictor of the firms sustainability (Non?s, 2005; Senior and Fleming, 2006). What the managers can do is find the best way to undertake change rather than imposing change on employees without considering its consequences (Hirschhorn, 2000). Many change projects fail because the management fails to consider the human resource related issues emerging from the change project. In this case also, AISCs management failure to consider the human resource related issues threatened failure of the whole project. Firstly, the management failed to identify the impact the whole restructuring will have the employees and this led to a general belief among the employees that the change was being imposed upon them. Senior managers did not raise employees issue because they did not want to be seen as those colluding with the front line employees. The high power distance culture of Saudi Arabia meant that managements decision was going to be final so senior managers also found it futile to resist any restructuring plans even though most of them agreed that this is likely to fail. Management was unaware of the key issues and considered everything to be going smoothly till the whole project hit the roadblock. Many of the employees were concerned about working in new teams and with new team members and customers. They felt that they whole effort they invested in building relationships was going to a waste and many of them openly expressed their dissatisfaction by threatening to leave the job. AISC management relied on the intermediate managers for communication and this led to even more confusion among the lower level employees and even line managers. Recommended model and its implementation Several authors have presented change models which can be used to guide the organisational change such as Lewins model and Kotters model. The eight stage model proposed by Kotter is considered as one of the most detailed and useful models in understanding how organisations can undertake change. AISCs change project can also be analysed using Kotters model: Stage 1: Establish a sense of urgency: In many cases firms fail to undertake change because there is really no ground for firms to undertake a change which makes it difficult for management to build a case for change (Nach and Lejeune, 2008). In the case of AISC firm was losing thebusiness opportunity and the competitive threat was rising. Frontline employees did not notice it because they were looking at performance internally. However, AISC was performing very poorly as compared to competitors. AISC management could have resolved it by establishing a sense of urgency. For example, AISC management could have held meetings with front line staff presenting whole industry picture and making them aware of the short term and long term consequences. There was, however, no direct communication from the top management making it difficult for the front line employees to see the rationale behind the change. For explaining the system, people, structure and the processes, the use of McKinsey matrix has been made and recommended for illustrating this point (Appendix i) Communication Plan AISC management has to identify and select senior managers as change agents. They should meet a number of criteria that Kotter (1996) recommends as critical for being a change manager: position power, expertise, credibility and leadership. The problem, however, can be a lack of leadership in terms of taking decisions. Senior managers should be candid with the staff members about their concerns while informing the line managers and front line employees of what is happening at the top level. There was a breakdown of communication at senior manager level. Communicating the change vision: AISC management should ensure that communicate is such that can be well understood (OShea et al., 2007). There is need for having a proper communication framework that shows how responsibility is spread in the organisation. It is crucial that communication with stakeholders is kept as open as practically possible. In order to develop an understanding of the change issues, meetings can be organised by the management, there can be team meetings run on daily basis however there is need to ensure that print media is also used to clarify the change aspects that are being put in place. Generating short-term wins: The need to develop some form of milestones or short term wins that can be communicated to the staff members. For instance, the need to have a chart showing the levels of recruitment measures in place, the practices that are being employed by the HR department for identifying recruitment needs, staff quality trends in the industry and the general performance of the organisation (Appendix iii). All these matters feed into having best practice in place that can make this organisation a leader through having very good staff members. Consolidating gains and producing more change: Since the approach was big bang change approach the management had little time to consolidate changes. This meant that AISC was going to be in a state of flux between start and end of the change project. In the case of AISC, consolidation never occurred and end users were not able to realise the benefits of the change. Anchoring new approaches in the culture: Since the change did not take place AISC management did not get the opportunity to embrace it in the culture of the organisation. Risk assessment The factor that needs to be considered in the risk assessment of the change management is in the form of organisational readiness in order to highlight the capability of the organisation so that the change implementation can be catered in an effective manner (Kobrin, 1982). The risks that need to be assessed in the case of AISC includes the impact of change on the human resource, competencies of the organisation, the extent of acceptance by customers, influence on the business operations etc. On the other hand, the risk assessment of the change management at AISC can also be in the form of capital that has been allocated in bringing about the change and whether the change complements the cost that has been incurred. Some of the methods of risk assessment are mentioned as below (Table 3): Table 3. The methods of risk assessment. Benchmarking Statistical probability analysis Interview with stakeholders conceptualisation through lateral thinking, and more It has been recommended that three assessment risk scenarios can be contemplated by AISC in order to think of assessing the change which includes low, medium and high-risk scenario. Section 4: Change plan In the change plan, the following are the intended actions Time plan: this relates to the realistic time for conducting this project. This has been given in the Gantt chart below (Figure 3); Finance plan: In order to develop this change to completion, there is need to have sufficient funding. Liaising with the finance department to have sufficient funding is crucial in ensuring that all activities that should be undertaken are actually undertaken without budgetary deficits. Communication plan: it is important to ensure that communication is made in the most appropriate manner. This is to mean that all those who should be informed and involved in the process should be made aware. The right means of communication should also be considered, this can be in form of meetings, debriefings, notices, memos etc. Timeframe It can be explained that the aforementioned steps of change will be taking sufficient amount of time because the change implementation is one of the time-consumingprocess that helps the organisation in setting one-time frame that will be specified for change. In case of AISC, it can be said that the time plan allocated to the change process, is an approximate of one year that will be a time plan in which the allocated time span. Figure 3. Gantt chart for Change plan Implementation Phase During the implementation of the proposed changes, the following activities will be carried out; Scouting: Within the phase of scouting phase, the feasibility study needs to be effectively addressed and performed. If the feasibility of the change has been considered feasible, entry point within the change needs to be addressed and identified through the negotiation of expectations of potential stakeholders (Bhatti and Qureshi, 2007). The feasibility should consider the financial and technical feasibility. This involves asking questions like whether this change can be undertaken, let alone if it is possible and if the organisation has the capacity to make the changes within the duration that has been proposed. Planning and briefing: This stage involves drawing up a step by step approach to making necessary changes that are required. It is important for the management to develop a course of action that is achievable and to communicate the same to the stakeholders involved. The main task here is to be carried out by the Human Resources Department. Intervention: This stage will involve identifying areas that are proving to be problematic and ensuring that measure is taken to address these. It is crucial for the organisation to know that any change will encounter unforeseen problems and there has to be means of dealing with such shocks. Evaluation: It is important for the management of AISC to seek consultancy on an independent level for evaluating the process of change management and to evaluate certain pivotal areas that the company has missed and was unable to gather relevant information about. The management of AISC should also suggest within this context how such mistakes can be controlled in the near future. Action, evaluation and additional planning would be required in this regard to have an idea regarding the best possible ways that could be used for dealing with such changes. Personal Reflections During the preparation of this very assignment, I was not known about the concept of change management in an organisation and how it is being implemented. After the successful completion of the assessment, I now gained the complete information that how important change and is and what are the reasons due to which organisations has to revamp their strategies. Moreover, priorly I did not have significant knowledge or application of these models as I didnt apply them practically, after their implementation to the company under consideration, I have understood fully that change is followed by a serious of steps which are even backed by the resistance of employees. Conclusion Making any meaningful change to the way processes or resources of an organisation are managed is a strategic decision that managers may from time to time have to make. In this orgnaisation, external forces meant that there are certain weaknesses to the internal operations of the organisation. Companies that fail to see the need for change often tend to face the problem of lagging behind competitors besides many other challenges. The proposed changes addressed in this discussion bordered on the need to improve recruitment processes and sourcing or management of the products that the company offers its clientele. By having a transparent recruitment process that does not go to benefit certain individuals, and by having an effective management process for the products, the organisation is able to seal two loopholes that have disadvantaged it over the years. Obviously, there is need to carefully plan the actions and this discussion has employed Lewins Forcefield model to exemplary the issues that might arise. The management must be prepared deal with the forces cost, resistance and failure of the system by employing effective plans that will support efficiency. 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