Australia Post Change management - Assignment Example

Change Management Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Australia Post 3 Change Management 3 Change Management in Australia Post 4 Organization Framework 5 Change‐Related Organizational Issues 5 Specific Strategies for Change Management 6 Consequences 7 Recommendations 8 References 10 Bibliography 10 Australia Post Australia Post is a renowned postal organization. The organization is governed by Australian Corporation Act 1989 (APC Act). They are providing postal services for last 200 years. The organization delivers postal service for Australia and other countries. Core business of the organization is to deliver parcels and letters. The postal organization specializes in courier and express services (Australian Government, 2011). The organization is trying to expand business in the field of retail merchandise and agency services. Traditional postal service business had become unprofitable in last few years. The concept of traditional postal communication has changed due to evolution of email communication, social networking. People prefer to use internet communication rather than traditional postal services. The postal organization has incurred a loss of $90 million in last 5 years. Australian Post is trying to change business strategy in terms of shifting focus on retail Merchandise and agency Services. They need to manage the change process carefully. Change management will help them to build a strong organizational framework. Change Management Change management tries to integrate different systems and structure with the organizational structure of the company. Change management can be applied in the transition phase of the organization. A company can go for whole system change or partial system change. Many organizations use ADKAR change management model to improve productivity. Dupont is a well known chemical company of USA. They used the model to implement change management in the production process. ADKAR model can be explained in the following way. A- Awareness is generated for change. Top management of the company identifies problem areas like staff productivity, poor service delivery, poor annual sales volume and low productivity of existing system. The management then decides to change existing process. D- Existing employees express desire to participate in change process. They can be termed as change agents. K- Knowledge in terms of training and development is given to the change agents. The knowledge process helps them to understand key issues of new system. A- This is the application part of change management. In this phase organization starts to use new implemented system. Organization takes external help to implement new system. The external system monitors the application phase. Coaching and mentoring are required to manage change agents. R- Organization tries to reinforce the sustainability factor. Companies try to maintain the new implemented system. They try to analyze the result of change management in this phase. Change management is a dynamic process. Organization can implement change management program in various areas like marketing, production process, financial management system and organizational structure. Change management can be implemented by altering the thinking process of existing employees. It is very difficult to find employees who accept change very successfully. The organization needs to select change agents ready to accept new system. Service based models like changing customer relationship management requires rigorous training and development program. Top level management needs to communicate with change agents regularly. Study shows that at least 15 engagements are required to clarify the objectives of top management (University of Pennsylvania, 2010). Change Management in Australia Post Australia Post has business expertise in the field of postal services (like letter and parcel delivery, courier services). The organization is trying to expand business in the field of third party agency services like banking, bill payment, insurance, passport application and money transfers etc. The organization is trying to develop expertise in the field of retail merchandising (Selling products like souvenirs, packing products, greeting cards, collectable stamps and coins). The organization needs to manage the change in terms of implementing new system in the place of existing one. Australian Post needs to design e-business model to initiate the change process. Business model of any company can be dissected as B2B –transaction between two companies and B2C- transaction between company and customer. Organization needs to select e-commerce model according to business requirement (Chaffey, 2011). Organization Framework Australia Post has nine directors in the board. Managing director acts as executive director. Australian government selects other eight member of the board. The board is responsible for overall performance of the organization. They work on three year corporate plan. Board takes help from other two committees (Human Resources committee and Risk Committee) in critical matters. Business ethics of the organization can be described in the following manner. 1- Safety- they give importance on creating safe working environment. The organization always encourages new idea to improve service level. 2- Accountability- they try to work as responsible organization. 3-Speed of Action- the organization gives importance on reducing service life cycle time. They try to deliver quick postal service. 4-Customer Focus- they give importance on customer relationship management. The organization always tries to improve relationship with customers by proving efficient postal services. Change‐Related Organizational Issues Australia Post is trying to develop expertise in the field of e-commerce. E-commerce application has the potential to earn annual revenue of $1 billion. The organization is trying to implement change for three issues. Postal System- Modern customers do not like traditional postal service. Customers prefer online postal services (delivering parcels, tracking shipments). The organization needs to modernize postal service to satisfy customer need. Parcel delivery service is showing a growth rate of 10.9 percent for last two years. Many customers (almost 70%) prefer to deliver parcel by using online platform. The company needs to connect postal service network with e-commerce platform (Hutchinson, 2011). Financial Position- The organization has incurred a loss of $90 million in recent years. Traditional postal service has become unprofitable in recent years. They are focusing on other postal applications like online shopping to compensate the loss. They need to design a strong financial model to support e-commerce. Risk committee of the board needs to analyze current market trend of e-business model. The organization is trying to enter into third party agency business. They need to invest huge amount of capital to establish presence in agency business. They can use AAA credit rating of government to raise fund but in future the organization needs to develop another channel also to collect fund. Retail Merchandising- The organization trying to expand retail merchandising network. The organization is maintaining a postal network of 4433 post offices. They are offering various items such as souvenirs, packing products, greeting cards, collectable stamps and coins in the retail merchandising segment. The postal organization needs to maintain strong customer service in retail merchandising segment. They need to implement change in the value delivery channel (increase the number retail center, offering online retail solution for customers, maintaining the efficiency of online shopping channel). They need to create awareness about retail merchandising among customers. The postal organization needs to design a stable e-business model for retail merchandising (John, 2009). Specific Strategies for Change Management Australian Post requires implementing change in specific business area. Boards of directors of the organization are working under the supervision of managing director. The board can follow ADK (Application and reinforcement steps are required after implementing change) model to implement change. A- The organization needs to identify key issues like implementing online postal service model, establishing a strong financial structure of the organization, expanding retail merchandising network, converting third party agency service into specialized retail banking. D- The management of the organization needs to communicate with the employees. Reasons for the change should be clearly described to all employees. Convincing every employee to participate in the change management process can be critical for the top management. Many employees may refuse to participate in the process. The top management needs to communicate (more than 15 times) with the employees regularly. K- The organization is trying to increase efficiency in the field of online parcel delivery service, online shopping service, email marketing, online customer relationship management. They need to design training and development program for all employees. The organization can take help from system engineers of the company to train staff. External software support system can be integrated with the existing e-business model. The organization is also trying to expand retail merchandising business. They can establish another 100 retail point within next three year. Concept like brand internalization can be used to train staff. Extensive product training will be essential part of brand internalization process. The organization is trying to convert third party agency business into retail bank service. The organization took the strategic challenge to change third party agency business. They can enter into banking business by doing joint venture with any international banks (banks from UK, USA or other European country). The organization needs to apply for deposit-taking license. The license will help them start banking operation. They can use strong credit rating of government to raise money. The whole process needs constant supervision of board members. Maintaining strong relationship with the government will be a key factor to run banking business successfully. Specialized training program should be designed for the change agents of banking system. Consequences Australian Post requires maintaining a standard performance level for postal service. Government decides the performance standard for them. They need to design postal distribution network of 10,000 street post boxes. The organization needs to deliver mails within two days time period. Accuracy level should be minimum 94% with respect to time schedule. The organization needs to design a mail lodgment system of 4000 retail points. Almost (98%) every delivery point should receive frequency of five deliveries in a week (Australia Post, 2008). The company will use application (A) and reinforcement (R) factors of ADKAR model to measure consequences of change management. The postal organization will be able to meet performance standard set by government after implementing change management. The organization can increase sales volume of e-business by changing the online postal service technology. They will earn huge revenue from online parcel service application. The company will be able to increase customer contact base. Retail merchandising will help them to earn revenue from various retail points. The organization can start banking operation after implementing change in third party agency service. Banking services will help them to expand service mix. Service portfolio management is important for any organization. Implementing change will help them to increase the depth of service mix. They need to design employee incentive program to maintain the success of change. The postal organization needs to design a plan to improve future performance of change agents. Recommendations The organization needs to focus on customer service management. They need to implement business intelligence (BI) to increase the efficiency of business process. Many multinational companies integrate Business Intelligence (BI) with the change implementation process. The organizational structure plays important role to decide success of any business operation. They are following one director board model to implement change in the business process. Advisory partners like human resource management committee and audit committee should play an active role in change management. Audit committee should take the responsibility of banking service related change management. Human resource management committee should take the responsibility of training and development process related change management. The postal organization needs to increase efficiency in the mail delivery system. They should develop a strong postal distribution network to deliver mail within one day. They need to expand retail merchandising network across rural area of the country. Many people like to collect vintage stamps and the organization has the opportunity to design a network of stamp vending machines. Customers can collect stamps directly from the vending machine. The company will charge certain amount of money on each stamp collected. The organization needs to maintain a stable employee base to implement the change. They need to formulate a vertical communication strategy for employees. Frequency of communication between top level management and employees will decide the success of change management system. Brand internalization concept is a key factor to design training and development program. The organization should design a flexible brand internalization program. Lastly the organization needs to give importance on change agent management. Employee compensation structure should be flexible enough to support change management process. References Australia Post., 2008. Customer Service Charter. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Australian Government., 2011. About Australia Post. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Chaffey, D., 2011. Business & E-commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. 5th edn, Pearson/Financial Times Prentice Hall, NewYork. [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Hutchinson, J., 2011. Australia Post Eyes Billion-Dollar E-commerce. [press release], 8 December 2011, Available at: [Accessed 24 August 2012]. John , D., 2009. Bank on Big Changes at Australia Post. [press release], 31 December 2009, Available at: [Accessed 24 August 2012]. University of Pennsylvania, 2010. Wharton on Change Management. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Bibliography Hayes, J., 2010. The Theory and Practice of Change Management. 3rd edn, Palgrave Macmillan, UK. [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Merrell, P., 2012. Effective Change Management: The Simple Truth. EBSCO HOST ; Management Services, Vol.56, no. 2, pp20-23, Business Source Complete. [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Waddell, D.M., Cummings, T. G. and Worley, C. G., 2011. Organisational Change : Development and Transformation. 4th edn, Asia Pacific, South Melbourne. [Accessed 24 August 2012]. Read More