Savile Group Analysis - Case Study Example

SAVILE GROUP CASESTUDY Grade Instuctor’s Table of Contents AREAS INVESTIGATED 3 ADDRESS PROBLEMS OUTLINED 4 POTENTIAL PROBLEMS WITH IMPLEMENTATION 10 CONCLUSION 11 REFERENCES 12 This case study represents the on-going problems in the market caused by rising competition while there is a massive amount in recession of jobs available for outplacement. Savile Group is suffering from this; the reason being is that there is no more companies’ now offering outplacement, which was available, a couple of years that were providing the least possible rates. The areas are investigated; the problems are addressed in this paper along with the identification problems and their implementation. AREAS INVESTIGATED For this particular study, the main areas to be taken under consideration are as follows: Outplacement This is the core business for Savile Group in their centre of excellence: Fairplace. At one time this centre was ruling 75% of the market with two other big players and their way of competing for market share was providing innovative prices but since the recent entrance of two new volume recruiters, the market share is suffering drastically. The volume recruiters are offering heavily discounted prices for outplacement, which is in effect affecting their market value (Karyn, 2002). Talent Management This area is covered by Savile Group’s two other excellence centres: IDDAS, which deals with board and senior levels for talent management and Cedar, which deals with middle market by offering assessments, coaching and leadership development. Though both these centres are not facing any loss, their revenues have been constant in the last 2 years, failing to grow. From the market research, it is derived that this is due to lack of brand awareness. ADDRESS PROBLEMS OUTLINED From the problems defined from both research and the case study, it is clear that the main focus of Savile group should be towards creating market awareness, interacting with the public and the employees. A strategic business plan should be made and implemented with the goal insights. Everything should be clearly defined and explained so that nothing sounds generic therefore creating a confusion among the shareholders and the employees (Burnes, 2004). The role of employees should be clear to them about Savile groups’ and its centres position and what measures are to be taken to achieve the stated goals. These changes can be made with the help of Kurt Levin 1947 change management theory and the Weisbord 6 box organizational model (Chia, 2002). The first step of the change is to use the Kurt Levin’s model which has three stages: Unfreeze, Change and Freeze (or Re-freeze, as often known by). This should be done at the managerial and shareholder level. The rapport and need for change environment should be created for main decision makers to realize the importance and urgency of this particular change to take place else, they will be the first ones to resist and prevent implementation, (Change Management, 2011). The first stage is letting the board of Savile group know the current situation to realize the need for change and making them open to suggestions. If they feel that they can get away without change they will do so, so it is very important to create the correct environment and situation. According to Kurt Levin, the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ should be put forward and weighted against each other and if the ‘pros’ are prominent, weighing more than the ‘cons’, then automatically the management will see the motivation and the need to change (Weisbord, 1978). The Force Field Analysis theory is based on this principle and states that there are many forces surrounding the environment that are for and against change. If at any time, the against factors weigh more, the motivation gets low for change and if still change is forced, resistance and lack of productivity will come forward therefore the first stage, ‘Unfreeze’ (Pichault and Schoenaers, 2003). The second stage would be implementing the change. This can be done with the Weisbord 6 box model and can be used on the employee level with the help of managerial decision makers whom we unfreeze in the first stage. Once the main people are satisfied and willing they will help in dealing and unfreezing the employees which is also a critical step and we need to take them under the comfort zone in order for the change to take place successfully. For this, the 6 box model would be ideal as it is likely to cover the main areas and very simple in understanding and application. This model is based on 6 steps explained as follows: Purpose: This step focuses on the business goals and aims. The goal in this case is to increase the share price to £2. To get this proper measures are required to create brand awareness and uniqueness compared to new wholesale competitors. Structure: This step focuses on the strategic business planning regarding the division of work etc. In this case, Savile group would need to take the proper steps and planning for the employees, in order for them to bring in more business to increase the profits, which would lead to the increase in the share price. Also the plan and training for representatives who will be dealing with public to bring up to date information about the brand and services, needs to be done too (Kahn, 2008). What Savile group needs to realize here is the importance of Marketing & Customer Service personal, who will directly be dealing with public by finding new and innovative ways of creating awareness of the company and its services compared to other competitors. Cedar is already specialized in dealing with training and coaching of employees from mid-level market, so the materials and talent can be utilized from this without extra cost of hiring outside trainers. Relationships: This step focuses on building healthy relationships within the business and with public. Its aim is to resolve the present conflicts and dissatisfaction, making use of the technologies in hand. The relationship in this case would be for Savile group to plan way of interacting with potential clients and public in order for increased business (Medley and Akan, 2008). Rewards: This step is about the reward system for every positive outcome. The Savile group has already implemented this step in the form of share option plan for employees but I believe it needs further expansion in the form of monthly incentives and other benefits. Since this step is there, it would be more effective once the other steps are implemented properly (Oxtoby, McGuiness and Morgan, 2002). Leadership: This step is about putting a group of people in-charge for each division and centre to make sure everything is going as planned and in-check. They are there to maintain balance (Johnson, Scholes, and Whittington, 2005). This step requires the management team of Savile group, setting up trained individuals experienced in leadership roles and problem solving skills. Since the centres already deal in training and coaching, this would not be at a high cost to the management or the shareholders (Stahl, 1997). IDDAS already specializes in dealing with senior management and board level training so they will be able to provide the required material and training. Helpful Mechanisms: This step is all about making use of any tool that may help in change and things to run smoothly. The focus is on technologies available for coordination of work, assisting, monitoring and resolving of emerging issues. In this case, all the available tools for talent management, coaching, outplacement etc will be put to use, both in the centres and with clients by Savile group. The final step, as defined by Kurt Levin, after all the changes have been made, should be re-freezing. This final step has been argued many a times due to it not being practical in todays times (Learning and Henry, 2001). The freezing factor is found to be rigid as compared to the view point of things constantly requiring change therefore requiring flexibility in both the environment and the people working there. At this point I agree with both Kurt Levin and the modern thinking and believe in this case the re-freezing should be flexible with open options for further change, but it is a required step. The reason is clearly defined by Kurt Levin, when he said that change, when it is implemented in group levels, tends to be short-lived i.e. the people tend to go back to old ways after some time which makes the actual change ineffective and lost. In order for it to stick and be followed properly, some amount of refreezing is required (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002).A DIAGNOSTIC AND CHANGE MODEL Below is the model to aid the transfer from theory to practice: The steps to be taken in each of this process have been defined in the previous heading. This process box shows how the two models have been merged for implementation in all the centres to get to the required goal (Change Management, 2011). POTENTIAL PROBLEMS WITH IMPLEMENTATION Like every change implemented, there are potential problems present too. No model or plan is fool proof and there are no guarantees that the implemented change would be immediately effective or perfect (Chou, 2007) Many factors, as stated by Kurt Levin, play major roles in, for, or against the change process and they continue to effect even after the change is made. Some of these factors may be as follows: 1. Competition: The market competition will keep on increasing and pressurizing the original companies into taking drastic measures to stay in business. If Savile group management does not implement the plan properly, the pressure will become more making the change ineffectual. 2. Recession: The state of the market will also inevitably affect the business. This may be due to the recession or the drastic price competitions with the lowest bid taking away the business. 3. Resistance: if the resistance is not properly dealt with during implementation of the change, and the incentives and goal were left unclear, this change would not be implemented with same effectiveness or advantage. (Lewis, 2007). CONCLUSION From the case study given, the problem was defined as stagnation in profits and business and the volume recruiters providing minimum rates for business, affecting the whole market share. This case was also present in talent management centres, where each team in the whole market was unable to hold more then 1-2% market share. With the stated implementations for change in public awareness about the business and track records plus increase in employee rewards, will bring the necessitated turn about required in the business unless the external factors are able to play a more dominant role (Reuffler, Van Dooren, and Metz, 2004). REFERENCES Burnes, B., 2004. Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change: A Re-appraisal J. V. Gallos, ed. Journal of Management Studies, 41(6), p.977-1002.  Change-management, L., 2011. Kurt Lewin Model of Change Kurt Lewin Kurt Lewin Model of Change. Group, p.1-4. Chia, R., 2002. Time, Duration and Simultaneity: Rethinking Process and Change in Organisational Analysis. Organization Studies, 23(6), p.863-868. Chou, D.C., 2007. Field development in change management: how information systems contribute to the process of organisational change. International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management, 2(1), p.100 - 106. Herscovitch, L. & Meyer, J.P., 2002. Commitment to organisational change: extension of a three-component model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, p.474-487. Johnson, G., Scholes, K. & Whittington, R., 2005.Exploring Corporate Strategy. Seventh edition. Prentice Hall. Kahn, M., 2008. Building Powerful Community Organizations: A Personal Guide to Creating Groups that can Solve Problems and Change the World. Journal of Community Practice, 16(1), p.129-130. Karyn, E., 2002. Case study: identifying resistance in managing change. Journal of Organisational Change Management. 15(2), pp. 138-155. Learning, P. & Henry, I.J., 2001. Learning and Change through action research J. Henry, ed. Change, p.182-194.  Lewis, L.K., 2007. An Organizational Stakeholder Model of Change Implementation Communication. Communication Theory, 17(2), p.176-204.  Medley, B.C. & Akan, O.H., 2008. Creating positive change in community organizations: a case for rediscovering Lewin. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 18(4), p.485-496. Oxtoby, B., McGuiness, T. & Morgan, R.E., 2002. Developing Organisational Change Capability. European Management Journal, 20(3), p.310-320.  Pichault, F. & Schoenaers, F., 2003. HRM Practices in a Process of Organisational Change: A Contextualist Perspective. Main, 52(1), p.120 -143.  Rueffler, C., Van Dooren, T.J.M. & Metz, J.A.J., 2004. Adaptive walks on changing landscapes: Levinsʼ approach extended. Theoretical Population Biology, 65(2), p.165-178. Stahl, D.A., 1997. Organizational diagnosis: a six-box model. Nursing Management, 28(4), p.18-20.  Weisbord, M.R., 1978. Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook Of Theory And Practice. Edition. Basic Books. Read More