Organisational Change - Case Study Example

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE Introduction Organizations undergo several changes at any one time in order to operate efficiently. These changes may be in response to external or internal changes that are taking place in the environment. The way an organization responds to these changes is very important in determining their survival. In most cases, externals changes in the environment will affect the internal operations of the business. Both the external and the internal environment are very important in an organization. The aim of this study was to look closely at how an organization can implement a change to suit the change environment and how it can respond to these changes through effective organizational change management. This paper will closely at how P & Cruises which is a relatively young company in the Cruise industry in the UK has been able to respond to the changes in operation to suit the changing industry. P & O Cruise change to cope with external changes in cruise industry Since its inception in 2003, the company found itself as relatively young in the industry. However it emerged as a market leader in the industry going over 225 destinations with 6 cruises. The company has taken the necessary strategies to ensure that it responds to the external changes in the industry. It is one of the leading players currently in the cruise industry and has been able to create a competitive edge in the industry which many operators have not been able to create although they have been in the industry for along time now. The company is serving more than 2050 passengers going for journeys of more than 100 nights in the sea. The company has already expressed its interest in Asia and European markets. Challenges that faced the industry before Like other companies P & O Cruise was challenged by the changes that were taking place in the external environment. Let us look at some of the changes that led to implementation of the current changes in the operation of the company that affected the tourism industry. Security changes One of the security threats that have affected the industry has been the issue of terrorism. The attacks by IRL in Britain's transport industry have been one of the threats that the industry has been facing. Many people have feared that the attacks would be diverted from railway travelling system to the cruise industry. But the September 11 attack in the US affected the industry in a way that all people feared travelling. The subsequent attack of the British Railway system on July 7th was like a final blow to the industry. There were record low booking in the cruise industry. Social changes The cruise industry has been led by the social changes taking place in the market. Changes in customer's preference have been instrument in instating social changes that have affected the operations of the cruise industry. Since 1997, it has been observed that there has been more preference to group and family travelling in the cruise industry. Technological changes Cruise industry has been forced to respond to technological changes that directly or indirectly affects the industry. Since 1997, technology has reduced face to face business transaction especially in making the bookings. Many people also take their holidays and at the same time continue with their business. Environmental changes There have been changes in the marine pollution laws that have made the industry to put in place new strategies in order to manage these changes and operate within the new marine pollution laws. Several laws have been put in place by International Maritime Organization which has affected the industry. Political and government policies New legislation concerning the maintenance of ports and the subsequent new changers that have been put in place has been a challenge to the industry. Acts like Crimes at Sea Act 2000 and others like Admiralty Act has continued to be a challenge for the industry. (Jolene 2000, p. 4)) Political stability has been a big challenge for the industry. Economic changes Government crisis in many destination have led to economical change and loss of valuable markets for the industry. The ever changing exchange rates with the continued strengthening and weakening of the US dollar have affected the pricing policy in the industry. Changes that the company has made The company has made several changes in order to suit the changing environment. In particular it has targeted its external operation policies. In order to adapt to the changing environment, the company has made changes in its business process with specific target to all areas affected by the challenges. One way in which it has changed is in its name. Before 2002, the company just operated as a subsidiary of a larger company. But it then found it necessary to change is name and brand itself to face the market. This gave birth to the P & O Cruises in 2002. This was followed by various changes in the product and market. Its initial change was in the promotion strategy. The company started reaching to the customers using any available means of public advertisement including newspapers like Metro, The Times, The New York Times, The Telegraph, and others. It has used direct mailing and magazines around the world to place advertisement. It also uses TV channels like ITV, Channel 4 and BBC and an assortment of other Radio stations. (Alison and Jude 1997, p. 67) This was a change in the way interacted with consumers. The company first was engaged in aggressive acquisition of new markets. It used all means even proposed merging with other existing lines or buying them in order to penetrate new markets. This was a change in it operation plan as it took it outside its traditional market of Europe and lucrative Indian Ocean routs. . Penetration of new markets in Asia and Europe depends on the effective strategies that the company will put in to practice. (Annon1997, p. 87) This was followed by product expansion to ensure that more customers stick to the company. This ensured that there is more variety for the customer to choose from. Unlike what it was providing before The Company has put in place new cruises since 2003 which includes Arcadia, Artmis, Aurora, Oceana, Oriana, and the classic Ventura package. Product expansions is very crucial in any business since it ensures that the company has more to offer to the customer and customer keeps on coming for more. The company has expanded its ranges of tourist packages by introducing Ventura packages launched the Super Ship Ventura in 2008. This is a super ship with increased carrying capacity by more than 30%. Ventura has been the most stylish and luxurious holiday packages to various destinations around the world. (Banerjee 1999, p. 350) The company diversified the range of products services, offers and other aspects of operation. To respond to the changing economic situation it diversified its price of packages. Diversification in price has ensured that the company offers more competitive prices within a range of 99 to 9046. This came in hand with diversified methods of payment making it easier for customer to make their holiday packages. Currently the company provides various means of payment like post, credit cards including master care, switch, delta, visa, and others like phone, fax and web payment. In line with environmental needs the company responded by putting in place measures to ensure that it operates under the guidelines of the marine laws as put by The International Maritime Organization) regarding waste disposal. Although this led to putting of more funds in putting containers to hold the waste to be disposed on land, the company found it as its part of environmental responsibility. To ensure that it provided enough service to the consumers, the company established a human resource and customer complain department. This was a change aimed at bringing the company close to the customer. They are changes which were aimed at enhancing the relationship between customers and the company. Unlike in the past where complains of the consumers was served by any administrator of the company, it set up a department which was responsible for these complains. From the above changes, there are questions that cannot escape our mind. Did the change in name help the company to cement is operation Did the setting up of the customer service department help in streamlining its relationship with consumers Was the change in range of products and customer awareness helpful to the company Could the company maintain the change Was the change in the right direction PART II Introduction It is usual for any company to implement change in its operation from now or then in order to suite the changing environment. Organization change is important since it helps an organization to reinvent itself again. It helps the organization to carry out strategies which are directed towards making its operation smooth. Organizational change is an important process in ensuring that there is continuity within the organization ranks. It plays an important role moving the organization to another step. (Allison and Jude 1997, p. 143) From this case there are particular lessons that we can draw and which can be used by other organizations to make the same kind of change to adapt to the changing environment. The lessons that we can learn from the case include: The name or of an organization acts as the brand which is used to sell that organization the consumers. Change in name of an organization makes a new appeal to the consumers who become more aware of the operation of the organization and changes there perception about on the organization. (Collins 1998, p. 360) a. An organization makes changes in order to suit to the changing needs in its environment of operation. This need acts as the catalyst for the change to be implemented. b. An organization change is an all inclusive process which should not only be directed to one aspects of the organization but should be all inclusive. It should take a change in the approach or the system rather than a change in one part of the system. c. An organizational change should have positive results which mean the change should be beneficial to the organization. Let us look closely the above points and discuss how they were applied in the organizational change. First we have stated that an organization makes change according to a need that arises from its operation. In the day to today running of an organization, there are many difficulties that an organization faces. In most instances, if the challenges are not addressed in time and in an appropriate manner, they are likely to affect the operation of the organization and they may have adverse effects on its overall performance. Therefore it becomes necessary for the management to take its time to analyze the operation of the organization and look at areas of weaknesses that need to be addressed in the organization. As we have stated, this need or this challenge becomes the turning point in the organization which helps it to move forward. The need become the catalyst for a change. It is difficult for an organization to implement any change in its system if there is not a specific catalyst that is leading it to act in that way. Therefore any organization should take time to amylase its system and understand where it is facing weakness and put measures to effect a change in the system. As we have seen from the study case, the company was faced by many changes that were taking place in the external environment which made it make internal restructuring of its operation in order to suit to the environment. Therefore we say that this change can be from within the organization or it can be from the external environment. (Carnall 2003, p. 32) It is imperative for a company to understand the challenges that it is facing and come up with the necessary measures that can be used to address the change. This will include coming up with a field force analysis which will give details of the forces that are for or against the change. This is an important step in the operation of an organization since it helps it to identify the viability of the change and in coming up with the process that will be followed in implementing the change. One issue of particular importance here is to understand how different factors in the organization are going to be affected by the impending change and what can be done to help tem cope with the change. Once the organization carries out this analysis, it will be easy for it to come up with a formidable plan to implement the change in a way that it can be sustained. Senior and Fleming 2006, p. 34) The other aspect that comes out very clearly here is that an organizational change is an all inclusive process. This means that if an organization wants to implement a change, it should be targeted to different department rather than one department. This is because it will be ground that an organization functions as a system and a change in one factor of the system is likely to destabilize the whole system. Therefore there is need to have a thorough study of the organization in order to understand how it functions and how the impending change can be implemented so as to cover all the areas of the system. From our case study, we can see that the company decided to take a change in all its systems. This means that it took to overhauling the whole system. This was important in order to help all the parts of the system interact well. It ahs been found out that it is sometimes difficult to implement a change in one part to the system. This is because this will affect the way the whole system interacts. We should realize that the function of different parts of the organization is held by constant forces that are at a balance. Therefore a change in one part of the system only is likely tot affect the way that part will interact with the others and hence these forces many not be stable anymore. Therefore we can say that before implementing any change, an organization should take a study of the whole system in order to understand how these parts can interact to function again as one system after the change. This means that the change should be aimed at all the parts of the system. (Beer and Nohria, 2000, p. 97) As we have seen in this change, there is need to have a change that will lead to a positive results for the organization. As we have seen in the case study, the organization took a change that was supposed to have produced positive results for the organization. It means that any change that an organization wants to implement must have a positive outcome at the end. This is important since it will affect the way the organization management the change. If a change is negative or has negative results for the organization, it may prove hard for the organization to sustain the change that has been put in place. Therefore it is quite important for an organization to weigh the result of the change and only implement it when it will lead to positive results. This is because if the change gives positive results, it is likely to win support of all the organization members and hence will be easy to implement. It has been found out hat one of the most challenges facing any organizational change is acceptance by the workforce. This means that once the workforce or the shareholder sees the benefits that it can obtain from the change, they are likely to give full support for the change. (Burnes 2004, p. 267) References Allison, M. & Jude, K1997, Strategic Planning, Wiley, New York Anon, W, 1997, Packaging management, Business Review, Issue 2 Balogun, J. & Hope, H.V 2003, Exploring Strategic Change, 2nd Edition, Harlow: Prentice Hall, Harlow. Banerjee, S, 1999, Management Learning in Cruise industry, Journal of Management, Vol. 3(4): 343-367 Beer, M. & Nohria, N 2000, Breaking the Code of Change, McGraw-Hill, London Burnes, B 2004, Managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Dynamics, 4th Ed., Prentice Hall, Harlow. Carnall, C. A 2003, Managing Change in Organizations, 4th Ed., Prentice Hall, Harlow Collins, D 1998, Organizational Change - Sociological Perspectives, London: Routledge Deetz, A. Tracey S.J. & Simpson J.L. (2000) Leading Organisations through Transition: Communication and Cultural Change. London: Sage. Gilgeous, V. (1997) Operations and the Management of Change London: Pitmans Jolene, P 2000, Goals and Strategists in Marketing, Oxford University, Oxford: Senior, B. & Fleming, J 2006, Organizational Change, 3rd Edition, Prentice Hall, Read More