Customer Service Change at Wal-Mart - Research Paper Example

Service Change at Wal-Mart Affiliation: The operations of a businessenterprise in the business environment are influenced by myriad number of factors, all of which affect the short term and long term prospects of the enterprise. On the same note, the business environment is dynamic in nature, making necessary for operators to undertake change management from time to time (Leslie & Linda, 2012). When change management is leveled down to a specific type of business, the business enterprise designs and develops operational strategies that favor the business aspects of that enterprise.

Wal-Mart is one of the globally renowned stores for its multinational retail operations (Basker, 2005). Maintaining its operations in the diverse and dynamic global markets it serves requires that the company pursue change that suits each industry of operation independently, prior to the expected outcome. In this respect, customer service change is fundamental to account for. In pursuing customer service change, Wal-Mart can essentially make use of the 8-step change model developed by Kotter.

Kotter’s 8-step change model covers the following steps: creating urgency, forming a powerful coalition, creating a vision for change, communicating the vision, removing obstacles, creating short-term wins, building on the change, and anchoring the changes in corporate culture (Furnham, 2002). While all the steps are fundamental in the realization of the desired outcome, the coalition step is critical to account for. This is because it forms the foundation on which all the other steps are undertaken.

The coalition step is meant to identify key potential stakeholders that are highly likely to make the whole process a success. In this respect, the chosen coalition of persons, experts, professionals, and stakeholders must be as powerful as possible in order to move the process towards the desired results (Ilozor, Peter, & Graham, 2012). Wal-Mart has a strong customer base and clientele. The coalition chosen for change purposes along this line must be in a position to understand the diversity and dynamism of this customer base and clientele (Rieley & Clarkson, 2001).

The idea is to understand company trends in terms of performance, relative to the expectations of the industries it serves across the globe. For this purpose, the Wal-Mart’s coalition for change cannot be short of having evaluative skills in terms of understanding the environment that the company operates in all over the world. On the other hand, the focus of change in customer service is to enhance the company’s mode of handling its clientele or customer base. Therefore, a competitive team must be installed in the department chosen to handle change in customer service.

On the same note, the coalition aspect of change management by Wal-Mart is to have a team that works together towards a common goal. This cannot be short of customer expectations. References Basker, E. (2005). Job Creation or Destruction? Labor Market Effects of Wal-Mart Expansion. Review of Economics and Statistics 87(1): 174-183. Furnham, A. (2002). “Managers as change agents”. Journal of Change Management Vol. 3, 1, 21– 29. Ilozor, B., Peter, L. & Graham, T. (2012). “The impact of work settings on organizational performance measures in built facilities”.

Facilities 20. 1/2 (2002): 61-67. Leslie, S. & Linda, D. (2012). “Development of a measure to assess organizational change”. Journal of Organizational Change Management 15. 2 (2002): 184-201. Rieley, J. & Clarkson, I. (2001). “The impact of change on performance”. Journal of Change Management Vol. 2, 2, 160-172.