Strengths, Weaknesses, and Performance at Perma Power Solutions - Essay Example

Change Management Change Management PART I: Strengths, weaknesses and overall performance Perma Power Solutions (PPS) has been in the business of producing batteries for a considerable period. The firm produces rechargeable and non-rechargeable cells, including battery charging mats, micro batteries, and lithium-ion batteries. The company consists of managers, executives, and departments, such as the managing director, sales department, the finance department, logistics department, research & development department, and human resources department. PPS faces cut-throat competition in the market, especially in relation to its standard size lithium-ion batteries. The numerous competitors in battery manufacturing industry and market have forced the company to invest in innovation, learn from experience and share information, plan and implement changes, and respond to the external environment. Innovation The company has invested in innovation to improve its productivity, efficiency, market share, and competitiveness. The managers and the R&D department promote innovative environment to enhance employee motivation, autonomy, creativity, and to build stronger teams. The company has been committed to fostering clarity in understanding of roles, strategic partnerships, organizational restructuring, investment in human resources, and increased responsibilities to enrich the organizational culture of innovation. By empowering employees to engage in innovative processes, PPS believes this will provide them (employees) with a sense of autonomy thereby boosting job satisfaction. The company’s HR department can also work closely with R&D department to offer training and tools that enhance employee efficiency in an effort to promote a culture of internal innovation and efficiency. Red vs. Blue Ocean Strategy will particularly help PPS create uncontested markets (blue oceans) for its new products and services. In contrast, competitors are often aware of the competitive rules of the game in red oceans, a highly contested market space However, PPS has been experiencing difficulties with achieving goals and purpose of innovation. For instance, the handling of electric batteries in gear rooms, dedicated electric battery rooms, isolated sites, and facts and figures centers have proved to be a major obstacle to internal innovation. The battery handling equipment has been around for several years, and its efficiency for the job has declined drastically. At some point, PPS lacked safer handling methods due to limited number of trained and qualified personnel for battery work. Apart from the current cell handling techniques at the company, PPS continues to encounter challenges in relation to positioning, moving and ultimate transportation of both chargeable and non-rechargeable batteries to various destinations. The battery manufacturer is looking forward to integrate new product codes to enhance safety, authenticity and applicability of its wide range of battery brands. Showing the ability to learn Since the company management and employees have shown the ability to learn, PPS will typically and widely gain from its new ventures, strategies and activities. As a result, the company should consider devising a new framework and policy approach to foster efficient transportation of its products to and from production sites and installation locations. Incidentally, withdrawal of the spent batteries requires compliance with certain stringent code requirements. As a result, PPS should focus more on strategies and procedures that uphold its reputation amid constantly changing prospects in the market. Safety and efficiency in relation to the transportation of manufactured batteries will vastly improve the competitiveness of PPS even with cut-throat competition in the battery manufacturing industry. The company’s research and development department should particularly step up efforts to ensure that PPS transform from being a market follower to a market leader. Responsiveness to external environment In particular, the R&D department should come up with new products and brands to counter those of competitors. The manufacturer of rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries should focus more on the long-term solutions to production challenges and cut-throat competition in the current market. The company should also review its production philosophy, examining the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the philosophy in the wake of plans to advance through innovation. For instance, PPS (through its Research & development Dept.) should partner with another company in the manufacture of a nuclear-powered micro-battery in addition to other products. Strengths and weaknesses of the company Although PPS successfully managed to break even and make profits, it fell short of attaining the given target at the end of the simulation. A number of issues widely affected the company’s ability to meet its targets and introduce fresh innovation. For example, the lack of cooperation and disagreements among members of the research and development team hampered plans and strategies of the company to introduce new products. It is worth noting that varied viewpoints and opinions about products and innovation slowed down implementation of certain recommendations. However, the variation in opinions significantly helped PPS come up with better products compared to those of competitors. Nevertheless, the company is keen to initiate new measures that would ensure objective production and not merely manufacturing new products to counter those of competitors. Meanwhile, PPS has pointed out the lack of speed and shortage of strategy-based innovation as some of the fundamental problems or challenges that impede achievement of both short-term and long-term goals. Accordingly, the company continues to experience difficulties about quick and proper response to the consistently changing market situations. External influences have particularly impacted the organization’s ability to respond to changing market conditions. As a result, many of the PPS competitors have taken advantage of the company’s failings in coping with external influences to manufacture products. This is in addition to inadequate implementation of new strategies that often make their products more competitive in the market. PPS has so far been unable to diversify markets and customers. The human resources department, on the other hand, has been incapable to make changes, such as moving people to more productive positions. Initially, unproductive and ineffective communication (among other issues) rendered most of the production strategies and marketing plans of PPS inadequate and fruitless. Nevertheless, every employee of the firm seemed optimistic and confident to execute their assigned roles at the initial stages. PPS managed to sell products it had routinely produced, and all seemed set toward attaining the target. The battery manufacturer could however not make significant progress toward launching new products. In particular, lack of organization and chaos caused some inefficiency as everyone attempted to do virtually every role. Accordingly, the company fell short of meeting its target or break even during the first day of simulation. The happenings of the day demonstrate the deep-seated challenges facing PPS in the wake of a heightened competition in battery manufacturing market. A general increase in the team members’ effort and the open market fostered employee productivity and production, in general. Employees need to cooperate and work together as a team despite having diverse opinions. By hitting the set target, employee of the company would feel inspired and motivated to achieve more in line with the vision, goals and objectives of PSS. An increase in sales would mean that the company keep track of the stock and ensure the existence of good turnaround time to meet other deliveries. Perma Power Solutions need to change its strategy from reactive to proactive measures. Moreover, the company should consistently show positive strength and determination in standing and rising up to impending challenges and making significant contributions to solving issues. It should mainly demonstrate the ability to learn from past experiences and shared information. For example, PSS should review the positive and negative impacts of previous external influences in an effort to tackle new challenges of the external environment. The company should, for instance, reexamine how changes in the previous market structures impacted production, distribution and sales of its products. In the event, that the company realizes that it would neither meet the turnover target for the day nor launch a new product, it should begin shifting focus by giving more attention to research and development. Other challenges that can potentially impede the attainment of the target include negligence, lateness and unsuccessful attempts to introduce new products. Mistrust and suspicion among partners in any business or trading arrangement would also contribute to unsuccessful attempts to meet up targets. For example, several deliveries of PPS were canceled due to lateness while the research and development department was generally unsuccessful in trying to launch a new product. Similarly, PPS partner canceled the previous arrangement and returned the cash for research, development and design of the nuclear-powered micro battery that the company ought to have launched. Using chaos theory to analyze the company Lack cooperation and conflicting viewpoints hampered proposals to launch other products with the new partners. In essence, one of the greatest impediments to teamwork is emotions. Some people were upset by the proposal to launch other products. Apparently, members could not accept diverse viewpoints and suggestions that could transform the way PSS carried out its day-to-day activities. As a result, PSS could not make any considerable progress in terms of innovation. Members spent the better of the trading period throwing blames at each other for failure of the business to achieve any tangible progress in the field of innovation. Edward Lorenz’s ‘the butterfly effect’ enlightens why responsive dependence on the initial conditions of the human resources and R&D would ultimately lead to larger differences in the later state of the departments and the company in entirety. Increased funding toward innovation, hiring competent workers, employee motivation, and capacity building would potentially help improve the company’s innovativeness, production capacity, and competitiveness. However, the deterministic nature of initial conditions does not make the outcomes predictable because other factors will also influence success. Competitors, on the other hand, took advantage of the PPS woes to launch and market new products. This scenario further complicated the future prospects of the battery manufacturer amid R&D department’s attempts to reconcile dissenting viewpoints. The members at PSS failed to realize that their actions and reactions were only worsening the situation. The company was destined to more tumulus moments, which could have adverse effects on innovation and hopes to go back to profit-making ways. Stakeholder Analysis Perma Power Solutions should identify the individual employees or groups vastly affected by proposed changes or actions, sorting depending on how the action will impact them, and vice versa. Thus, the firm will successfully manage to address interests and concerns of stakeholders before adopting a new policy, program or action. Also, the company ought to encourage teamwork to get better results and reflect understanding of the issues in the functional groups and relations between members of the organization. In addition, the company should adopt a human resource decision to change particular roles and workers. However, such decisions would also meet incessant resistance because members are reluctant to accept a pay-cut. Others would be hesitant to embrace these decisions because they were already feeling comfortable performing their initially assigned roles. Nevertheless, many people stayed in their roles though they tried to help out with other tasks when necessary. The R&D department would play an integral part to come up with new products and make suggestions to launch and ultimately sell them. They can also work on other products and begin selling them. This, in essence, shows that a positive attitude and resilience towards work are vital elements of innovation, growth, and development of a business entity. PART II: Gap Analysis PSS seems not to make good use of available resources and innovation to increase its potential production levels, as well as enhance its competitiveness and efficiency. The company needs to take a set of actions to develop its change capability further. For instance, staff members should be committed to taking certain risks and decisions and stop spending a lot of time criticizing proposals. This will help the company to see to a comprehensive implementation of most of its initiatives and innovation. Moreover, members should get out of their comfort zones and accept the reality that innovation is the key to enhancing PPS competitiveness in battery manufacturing industry. The managing director, in coordination with the HR department, should start cracking the whip on team members who are extremely opposed to any proposals by the R&D department about launching of new products. The management and employees should have informal obligations, mutual beliefs, and perceptions as highlighted in psychological contract rather than the formal duties and responsibilities. Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Analysis is vital to the assessment and evaluation of factors that influence goal-achievement and the future prospects of PPS. The model provides a framework for examining how these factors impact social situations, especially the helping forces and hindering forces. Meanwhile, Strategic change dimensions by Pettigrew and Whipp (1991) highlights the steps or procedures to solving challenges of external environment, strategy and human resources. The company should create better opportunities for team members to learn, advance, suggest, and have liberal mindsets. Lastly, the organization should choose an astute leader during the creative process, change the location (meeting place), create brainstorming sessions, eliminate fears, and build on one another’s ideas or philosophy. 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