Managing Technological Change - Telnex - Case Study Example

Running Head: MANAGING TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE – CASE STUDY University Name: Department Introduction Telnex is a company in UK that manufactures catering products such as freezers and refrigerators. Due to the development, advancement of technology and the high market of catering products in UK. More companies had been established in UK, which specializes in the manufacture of catering products such as refrigerators and freezers. These other companies include JDS catering equipment, the combined catering services Ltd Bootles found in Merseyside in UK. These companies are well established and produced varieties of products of very high quality such as refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers and microwave oven. So there was a great need of Telnex to start producing other products to have more varieties of products in the market apart from the refrigerators and freezers whose demand was decreasing at a high rate due to the big competition from the other companies. The Telnex should also intensify its marketing strategies to include even advertisement and sale of the products through the internet for its products to be able to reach more customers who might not be within the geographical area reached by Telnex. This process will call for the advancement of Telnex IT department to incorporate the software that will enable this service to be achieved. The company also needs to change its structure of organization from bureaucratic structure to a more flexible one that will allow participation of all the parties involved in the production at all levels. This will help to achieve harmony in the company where the parties will work as a team for high production. The company should also increase its geographical area to include other areas, which seem to offer good market for its products such as Lancashire. This will be achieved through the establishment of manufacturing plants on these areas. This in addition will help to reduce the production cost through the cheap local labour available due to the high population found in these areas. The existence of high-class hotels in these areas will provide a ready local market for the finished products.Telnex will have to retrain its employees the skills required to produce the new products. There is also the need to hire more staff for the company to operate 24 hours to increase the production to meet the market demand of these new products that is very high in UK especially at Lancashire. After the market analysis it was agreed that more products will be introduced into the market. Telnex should extend its line of production to produce dishwasher that has a very high demand in Lancashire and Merseyside areas. This will help the company to increase it’s competition with the other companies producing similar products such as JDS Catering company Ltd. Apart from production of the dishwasher it was recommended that Telnex should diverse its products to produce electronics such as microwave ovens. This will help to maintain the sale of Telnex products high once the current products that is refrigerators and freezers runs out of market. Some of the employees of the company will undergo retraining to learn the electronics skills needed to produce the microwave ovens. Also the company has to construct a manufacturing plant at Essex to assemble microwave ovens. Extra labour should be increased to cater for the two new projects in the company. To see through these two projects are two managers who are hired by the company due to their competence and success in implementing a change. They are John who is responsible for the production of the dishwasher at Lancashire and David who will start the microwave oven plant at Essex that will be used to assemble microwave oven. David and John have got a big challenge in their new jobs. (David,2006) John’s Approach The task ahead of John is to develop the new dishwasher in the North England. He plans to establish a manufacturing plant at Burnley. In his mission John has to change the organization structure from being rigid to change to one that is flexible. This is because, the type of organization in Telnex is Top down approach whereby the Directors are the ones that come with suggestions of the changes to be done on the organizations and they pass them to the managers and they make sure they are implemented but for John to be successful in his task he has to change this structure method from top- down to bottom- up approach. In this new structure most of the changes to be implemented usually comes from the employees that is the workers themselves. This will be a very big step if he succeeds, as the production will increase greatly as the problem the workers face at their place of work will be addressed. As the workers are the ones who face directly the challenges in their work. They also have good ideas on how to minimize or how to do away with these problems, but due to the or rigidity of the bureaucratic structure they cannot express these problems they encounter at their areas of work as they are made to believe their work is only to implement what they have been ordered from above. But in this new method the workers will share their mind and will be free to address their challenges in their working place, and when these problems will be sorted out the production will be very high even at a lower production cost. The big challenge here is whether the directors will be wiling to listen and implement these ideas, which will be coming from their juniors as they are used to coming with ideas that are implemented without the consulting the junior or the workers. The introduction of a day shift and a night shift to the company will help to boost production of the company, as the production of products will now be done 24 hours. This will call for recruitment of more workers that is the workforce has to be doubled for this process to work. This will be a big challenge to John as the directors might not honour his idea, as they are not used to this structure where major ideas such as this comes from their juniors. But it will be a great opportunity to this project if this idea materialized as it will boost production of the washing dish greatly. (David,2006) The Telnex Company has to improve its IT department. This will enable an efficient network between the new plants established at Lancaster and Burnley with the main one found at Brown Field. That will help to facilitate communication so that the board of directors can be kept updated to the new development of the new plants. This will also call for tightening of the security of IT department by making sure that the network is well secured from hackers. This will ensure that sensitive information that can be detrimental to the company does not come into contact with the unauthorized users. Hence encryption of sensitive files, use of passwords and use of hackers monitoring system should be put into place to ensure safety of information within the company. The other thing that John has also to consider is developing a very good market for the new dishwashing machine. Creating a good awareness of this product to the public. It can be achieved by advertising the product through the media and also by promoting the product by use of the exhibits and demonstrating how it operates in public places. This should mostly be done in Yorkshire and Merseyside regions where the sale of this new dish washing machine is predicted to be very high. Recruiting local marketers who are more conversant to the locals can also facilitate its sale. The company also should advertise and sell this product using the Internet. This method will help to reach more customers living in all parts of UK.This will then call for Telnex to intensify its IT department to meet this service to its customers who might not be near these geographical areas which will be served by the company’s product. John will not have a very big problem to market this machine, as Telnex is a well-established company whose products are well known of being of good and high quality. He should capitalise on this advantage and build a very efficient market network to for this product. The project manager should also ensure that there exists an efficient network, of all the parties involved in the production that is the company’s suppliers of the raw materials and those who will be transporting the finished product to the market place. Effective communication should also be put into consideration so that the flow of necessarily materials needed for production is constant and transportation of the finished products is also good. David’ S Approach The task ahead of David is to develop the microwave oven for the Telnex region. This is a challenging task before him as it will be the first time for Telnex Company to produce such product. This has called for the training of the employees on basic electronics. This has been made possible through the signed contract between Telnex and a local education college to teach Telnex employees electronics skills. This will facilitate the production of the microwaves as the company will acquire skilled labour from within which will be more convenient and economical for the company than hiring them from outside. Apart from lowering the production cost by having cheap skilled labour force from within the company. The level of production will remain high as the work force is conversant with the companies working condition rather than if new employees are hired who will first learn and adapt to the new working condition before they can produce to their optimum levels. The positive spirit of David to see this project through will also promote towards the success of this project. This is because it will act as a motivation and will help him in dealing with challenges ahead of him. The existence of the microwave oven assembly plant in Essex will also boost in the marketing of the microwave oven. This is because Telnex products are well known in Essex of being good and of high quality so the demand of the microwave oven will still be high as the local customers will not doubt the efficiency of this new product due to the good reputation of Telnex to the locals. (Harry, 1998) The obstacles that are ahead of David before the accomplishment of this project are many. They include; Lack of co-operation from the directors. The board of directors does not seem to realize that they are part and parcel to the success of the project. They don’t like to be involved in the establishment of the project as they assume its David’s whole responsibility to make it happen. (Harold, 2004) They don’t realize the parties involved should work as a team. The directors are reluctant to sign in the stages when they near completion so that David can proceed with the project the next stage. This is important because once they sign money will be released for the next stage. But instead of doing so their work is only to question everything he is doing which delays them coming to a consensus during their meetings and hence he cannot continue before an agreement is reached. (Harold, 2004) He feels frustrated, as the board of directors cannot understand his approach of doing things .As they are used the bureaucratic of Telnex where all decision to be implemented should come from above. David is not also getting good response from the employees. They are reluctant to come for retraining. This is because there have not been a good relationship between the employees and the directors because they have not been given a chance for self-expression. All they do come from the above and their suggestion and contribution are not taken into considered or rewarded. Hence they only work for money but they don’t have appositive desire for the company as they think they are just being used like robot for the benefits of a few i.e. ‘the directors’. (Harry, 1998) The retraining of the employees and the establishment of the microwave oven plant will have a considerable impact on the company’s finances. This is because a lot of money has to be invested in this project before it matures to become productive. So the directors are looking on how fast the project should be through and that’s why they doubt David’s approach to change as they assume workers should be supervised closely for them to be efficient in their work place, which is not the case with David. (Harold, 2004) This also been the first time for the company to produce electronics products will also be a big challenge to David. This is because he will have to ensure that the company technology is developed, this will help the company to produce high quality microwave oven whose quality will be able to compete with the other microwaves oven produced by companies producing similar products. For this to be achieved David have to work very hard as his work force is not very experienced in production of electronics products as it is comprised the companies employees who have learned only the basic electronics. This will require him to work very closely with his employees to monitor how they are working and to assist those that will not have mastered the skills yet. This will act as a very good approach to his new jobs as this will also change the attitude of the workers to positive. When they see the manager helping them to assemble the microwave ovens they will appreciate it and be motivated to work harder which will help to increase the output. David have to put all his effort to see that microwave ovens of high quality are produced to maintain the high status of Telnex which is very important to maintain the good market of it’s products at a very competitive era where quality should not be compromised for the product to sell. The big problem for is on how to maintain this high quality in the company and also maintain high production expected by the board of directors. This is because his work force is not very experienced and also the methods formerly used Telnex cannot apply. That is they used to maintain the production high at the expense of the employees where employees were overworked and closely supervised to ensure high production. But this is not the case with David as he is working closely with his work force guiding them on how to master the new skills and also believes high production should be maintained through positive motivation where rewards for good work should be offered. Hence there is a possibility of low production of the microwave ovens at first as the workers have not mastered the skills and some will tend to relax as they are not used to working without been monitored, but production will increase soon when the workers master the new skills and when they get used to this new method of approach where they don’t have to be closely supervised to work. (Harold, 2004) Recommended approach For the two projects to be successful, the board of directors should have to change their attitude towards their method of operation. They need to change how they treat their workers. There should be a healthy relationship between the employees and the employers for high productivity. They should learn that for maximum efficiency in a manufacturing company, you have to work as a team with all the parties involved; that is the employees, managers and the board of directors should work in harmony and with one mind ‘high productivity’. The board of directors should change their old ways of operation and embrace this new way been used by the two project managers whereby instead of being harsh to the employees for them to be efficient in their work should adapt the use a better method like motivating their workers by offering rewards for the most productive workers. Or give bonus to all the workers when the production has increased. This will help the workers to have a positive attitude towards the company and will also boost productivity as the employees will work harder because they know they will receive rewards. The board of directors should also try to help the two project managers by supporting their ideas instead of questioning everything, as the managers might feel de- motivated. This can be achieved by the company hiring another person who understands how the two projects are supposed to be undertaken and he will try to harmonize the relationship among the parties. So that decision can be reached faster to facilitate the movement to the next stage for the project managers to be able to beat the deadline set for them. Good marketing strategies should be established to market these two products. This will ensure that the companies products are able to compete with other competitors like JDS catering equipment limited Horley, surrey. Who are known to manufacture catering products such as dishwasher of very high quality. Also the combined catering services Ltd Bootle, Merseyside. They should ensure they advertise and promote their products very well to create awareness to be able to sell in place like Merseyside where there is other companies producing similar products that is dishwasher. The Telnex companies should also aim to produce high quality dishwashers and microwave oven that can be used in the high standard hotels located at Yorkshire areas. This is because this is a place with many tourists who come for their holiday here. So the establishment of the company at this place will be a great achievement, as it will offer an ample place for the market of the finished products. They should also advertise and sell their products using the Internet. So this will require the IT Department of the company to be advanced to offer these services, which will boost the market of these products. The company should also hire more professional labour force. This will ensure that apart from assembling the components to make the microwave ovens they can be in a position to produce microwave ovens without buying the components from the suppliers. This will lower the production cost whereby increasing the profit. The workers apart from being motivated through rewards should also be given an opportunity to develop their careers by offering scholarship to the most hardworking to further their skills. Who should after be promotion in their places of work even to the managerial levels depending on their academic qualification and experience. The company should expand its geographical areas to market its products. This will be ensured by conducting a survey of areas, which seem to offer good market for their products and opening new manufacturing plants on those places. The company also needs to install more sophisticated network to allow efficient relaying of information among the various plants established. Effective security programs should be in cooperated in the network to prevent access of sensitive information by the hackers. The company should also high quality work force that will be able to maintain the production of high quality products. This will be achieved by offering better remuneration to its employees. They should also improve their working conditions and create an opportunity for their employees to grow and develop in their jobs by giving them a chance to further their skills so that they can even improve their services to produce better products Reference David W. (2006): The Facilitator's Field book: Step-By-Step Procedures, Checklists and Guidelines, New York, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Harry, W. (1998):The Practice of Facilitation: Managing Group Process and Solving Problems, Greenwood, Quorum publishers. Harold K. (2004): Advanced Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation New York, John Wiley and Sons Read More