Music in People's Life - Essay Example

? VTI LTD. CASE STUDY HUMAN RESOURCE CASE STUDY Overview Music remains an important part of a person’s life. Day in and day out, we all listen to music, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This brings about two major groups of people, who are active followers of music and passive followers of music (Howell & Costley 2006). VTI Ltd is generally into business that focuses on the active followers of music who normally make purchases of music records. Ironically, the fact that a person is an active follower of music does not guarantee that the person will be dogmatised to whatever a music company presents it with (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 2003). Mostly, these music consumers want dynamism and diversity in the way their businesses deal with it. It is for this reason that the all new form of music record trading, which is the online sale of music has become embraced by most lovers of music. There is no denying the fact that online sales make access to music easier and less expensive. There is also a lot of fun when it comes to how interactive and interesting the act of making purchases online can be. Due to this situation, a lot more consumers of music would be more comfortable doing business with companies that guarantee them these variables of services. The need for change at VTI Ltd. Change is not something that a lot of people embrace easily in organizational management and set up. This is because in most cases, people feel very comfortable with the systems they have been associated with and with feel that trying their hands on new ideas, programmes and systems would bring about an entire change in the organisational culture, which would in turn affect the way business is conducted within the organisation (Osborne & Brown, 2005). But as much as it is true that changes in key policies, programmes and systems could lead to changes in organisational culture, it is also true to argue that changes are generally needed when there is the need for a pragmatic reformation aimed at growth and development (Grundy, 1993). In the current case of VTI Ltd, the only justification for change is that revenues are falling and the company has not made any profits in the past four years. Clearly, any organisation that becomes plagued with such a situation must first look out for a course of change to ensure that wrongs are corrected and the direction and focus of the organisation is placed in line with demand trend on the market (Hirschhorn, 2000). There is also the need for change because customers have changed their consumer behaviour towards the company. Yet again, O’Toole (2005) notes that when consumer behaviour changes towards an organisation, its revenues may either go up or down. But in this case, revenues are going down. Causes of change at VTI Ltd. There could be two major paradigms of causes of change for VTI Ltd, which are internal and external. Largely though, it can be said that the internal changes are quiet dependent on the external changes. This is said because it is realised from the case that the major cause of change is changes in consumer behaviour, which is quite an external phenomenon (Batt, 2002). There is also an external cause of competition, whereby the company is seen not to be proactively surviving the competition it is reaching from key competitors. In a situation where there is lack of competition, revenues will fall because competitors win over the available customers of a company (Baum & Rowley, 2005). Even more, changes in business orientation, which is also an external factor, could be counted as being responsible for the change. By this, reference is being made to how the music sales industry has adopted itself to a more technology based way of doing business, where electronic commerce has become the order of the day. Generally, these external factors have led up to internal causes such as organisational conflicts and struggle, which is seen between management and employees, and lack of employee satisfaction, arising from an absence of employee motivation (Weick & Quinn 1999). Meanwhile, Schein (1992) stresses the need for employee satisfaction in organisational growth, stating that employee satisfaction brings about customer satisfaction, which in turn guarantees growth. Types of change options available to the company To undertake any major organisational change at VTI Ltd, the company must be in a position to understanding the types of changes it could be presented with. Generally, Bass (2010) associates planned change and emergent change as the two commonest forms of changes that are experienced at the organisational level. Planed changes take place when the organisation carefully sets out its goals and objectives within a time frame and put in place structures and policies that will be used to effect or implement the changes (Schutt, 2006). Emergent changes on the other hand are more sporadic and untamed. They take place as a result of uncontrolled dynamics that the organisation experiences in its management approach. Currently, there could be said to be an emergent change that has arisen as a result of the external causes of change in the company, identified above. With these emergent changes, it is prudent for the company to quickly respond with planned changes (McGrath & Tschan 2004). This is because planned changes will permit that the company critically studies the trend of change that is being experienced and adopt strategies and control that rightly address the external factors (Baum & Rowley, 2005). Another advantage with planned changes is that it will make room for almost all members within the organisation to bring their ideas, expertise, skills, knowledge and competence to bear while making the planned changes (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 2003). Complexity of change To every organisation, Senior & Fleming (2006) posits that every form of change will come at a cost, no matter what the outcome of the change would be. What this means is that if VTI Ltd wants to undertake this form of planned changes that has been suggested for it, it should be ready to incur some costs or impact. This is always so because changes come with some levels of complexities (Miles, 2000). The first cost or complexity is expected to be a behavioural cost, which would have to do with the attitude of people towards the change, most of which are expected to be hostile treatment of the change. A typical example of this can be identified with the old members in the new management team. Meanwhile when such situations set in, there is the likeliness that there will be lack of corporation in the change agenda (Staudenmayer, Tyre & Perlow 2002). This is because a lot more people will develop apathy towards the organisation and its way of doing business. Apart from this, there is expected to be monetary cost for any form of change, be it planned or emergent. The current changes in revenue flow bring a negative monetary impact for the company. Should the company also decide to effect a change that will solve the problem also, this will come with a very high level of monetary cost, most of which would go into the hiring of technical experts, purchasing of new technology based systems and the training of existing personnel to get acquainted to the new system (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006). Approach to change Currently, VTI Ltd would need a type of change that starts from a more abstract or qualitative manner and manifests itself in a concrete and quantitative nature. What this means is that change should start from within the people in the organisation, where it will be very necessary for them to develop a positive attitude towards change. Indeed, it is only when the people within the organisation, especially those at the management positions admit that the need for change is eminent that any form of fruitful changes can be expected (Greenwood & Hinings, 2006). Once there is a mind set for change, the people should be ready to bring their hands on deck in effecting the changes. This means that change must not be left in the hands of a few people who will man all the affairs of change. Once this is done, there is the likelihood that the changes will take place in a more inefficient manner (Fowler, 2002). Once all these qualitative structures have been put in place, the company will now be ready for a more concrete change, which must be directed at responding to the external factors that are causing the decline in sales and profits. By this, it will be important for the company to develop and use the all new electronic commerce in the sale of its music records. This should be done by bringing in experts who will set up an online sales point for the company. Conclusion From the above discussions, it can be concluded that VTI Ltd still has the potential of selling music records on the street without necessarily having customers to come all the way down to the street to make purchases. Today, by the power of the internet, the street is everywhere (Hinton, Brownlow, McMurray & Cozens, 2004). The internet has also created a limitless opportunity for the company to make its presence felt in every corner of the world without necessarily having to pitch stores that are scattered around the world. With this noted, it will be concluded that the way out for VTI Ltd to stay competitive in the global music industry, which continues to be highly competitive is for the company to go modern with online sales. Indeed, this need for change has come about not because the company opted for it but because of the growing dynamics of the market. Meanwhile, the best way for any company to prove its wealth is for it to be able to change with changing times and situations (Schutt, 2006). Unless VTI Ltd responds to the present form of external change with a very proactive planned change, the company cannot have any justification of readiness to change its fortunes around in making the best out of its sales of music records to targeted customers. References Armenakis, A. A., Harris, S. G. & Mossholder, K. W. 2003. Creating readiness for organizational change. Human Relations, 46, 681–703. Bass, B. M. 2010. Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research & managerial application. New York: The Free Press. Batt, R. 2002. Managing customer services: human resource practices, quit rates and sales growth. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 587–597. Baum, J. A. C. & Rowley, T. J. 2005. Companion to organizations: An introduction. In J. A. C. Baum Ed, The Blackwell companion to organizations pp. 1–34. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 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