Strategies for Managing Change - Example

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY To manage business strategically can prove to be a competitive edge for any company. This needs to balance the expectations and accountabilities of all the relevant stakeholders. Further, ddynamism is trademark of business. An organisation is continuously subjected to various internal and external factors which compel it to keep adjusting in order to sustain. Any management needs to adopt these contemporary changes. Change is a panacea for sustainability and it is a universal law of nature too. Change can either fetch fortunes or it can be detrimental. This depends on how one handles and manages change. In technical terms this is what is called as “Change Management”. It needs a great deal of managerial analysis, introspection, strategic layout and strong will to sustain a change. This assignment endeavors to highlight the work-plan for affecting a change initiative at Apple Inc. The assignment deals with an impressing managerial problem pertaining to internal communication and a operational problem pertaining to initiative of Total quality management (TQM). It will analyze the affairs and then will put forward a work-plan with effective toolkit to deal with the problem and affect the recommended changes. The assignment will stress more on the tools and method to identify the challenges and the solution propositions rather than solution itself. 2. INTRODUCTION Apple Inc., which was formerly know as Apple Computer, Inc., is involved in designing, manufacturing and marketing of personal computers, allied software, services, peripherals and other application based solutions. Products and services include the Macintosh line of desktop and notebook computers; the iPhone, Smartphone; the iPod line of portable digital music players a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications; the Mac OS X operating system and the iTunes Store (Forbes). Being a truly global company, Apple operates in various geographical locations which include European, Asian, Japanese markets and of course the domestic market of United States. It is headquartered in Cupertino, California, USA. The Apple Inc. has a philosophy of continuous improvement and innovation. This is evident from the fact that company has always come out will new and enhanced version o its products and services. Management and operations with non hierarchical and teamed based structures is designed to promote employee commitment and involvement. But at the same time if one takes a look at flow of communication among various stakeholders then it casts shadow on the sustenance of the company itself. The flow of information among different managerial hierarchies was hampered. The reasons are both structural and operational. Strength of Apple Inc. is its product and design quality compared with competitors. The company prides itself on offering innovative products and services that really fit the needs of its wide customer base. Apple Inc. has always been very quick in trying to improve itself when confronted to the gaps between its strategy and the environment. The change management imperative has always been at the centre stage. The company in order to keep up its competitive advantage through agile operations wants to deal with the issue of internal communication and also wants to improve quality and capacity as per the TQM initiatives. 3. Problem identification and analysis toolkit The management is layered in the company. Broadly it can be categorized into three layers. They are namely strategic, operational and support level. They are at top, middle and entry level of management. There use to be a communication channel between these layers for the flow of information. Forward Communications Figure 2: The communication chart of the firm A framework having various methods and tools to cater with the problem of internal communication is discussed as under: 3.1. One way communication The most prominent problem from the managerial perspective is the one way nature of the information flow. The strategies and relevant information effectively percolated down the hierarchy in form of the forward integration. But the feed back mechanism in the form of backward communication was absent. This setup has a major setback. The top management almost remains aloof of the ground realities. The customer and the partner touch points are mostly at the bottom of the pyramid. The feedback regarding the response and expectations customers and suppliers are not effectively reaching to the top management. Thus the firm lacks the strategy buildup relevant to the ground realities of the market. This is also apparent from the swinging performance of the company in spite of having the best in class products. There are various gaps existing at the customer touch points. The support staff is unable to brief up the top management regarding these gaps. The gaps can go on widening and it can translate into the loss of market share for the company. Thus a Gap Analysis tool can be used: Gap 1 Management perceptions of client/customer service expectations VS Actual or perceived service levels Gap 2 Management perceptions of client/customer service expectations VS Service specifications (mandatory requirements/standards) Gap 3 Service specifications (mandatory requirements/standards) VS Service delivery Gap 4 Service delivery VS External communications to clients Table 1: Gap Analysis Tool to infer service performance gaps in the company (adapted from Poole, M. S., Van de Ven, A. H., Dooley, K., & Colmes, M. E. (2000). Organizational change processes: Theory and methods for research. New York: Oxford University Press.) 3.2. Inadequate employee involvement Due to this very nature of the communication channel, the employees across the hierarchy is not feeling involved in decision making. It is rather an imposed decision process which is top down in nature. This is also evident from the high rate of attrition in the company. The lack of ownership for the decision made reduces the accountability form the part of employees. The strategic decisions are not shared among all the employees. The company is in fact not adamant to make changes in the existing state of affairs. But it is always very difficult to change the prevailing culture of the company. Thus we can put in place various change management initiatives so as to bring the requisite employee involvement. Change management involves staff psychology which needs critical analysis as their attitude needs to change. Employees seem to be adamant to get involved in the two way communication process. The long standing culture of one way communication is ingrained and is difficult to change. 3.3. Improvise Quality The quality is no more considered as the competitive advantage. Rather it has become an order qualifier, especially in the industry to which the company belongs. At the same time the onus of maintain high standard of quality cannot be confined to the company only. There are so many suppliers and other partners involved. Thus there remains a challenge to involve everyone in these quality initiatives. The products of the company have been innovative. But the cost of quality for the company had been proving very high. This was evident from high R&D expenses of the company. In order to deal with this issue, TQM initiatives are recommended. The result of TQM initiative cannot be achieved unless the stakeholders also commit for the same. There need a free flow of information among all the stakeholders for the same. The major problem here faced by the company is to achieve such an integrative level of communication and commitment among partners. TQM will result in bringing down cost of quality only with the integrated efforts. 4. Solution proposition toolkit 4.1. Pertaining to organisational communication The solutions for the above mentioned problems are very logical and realistic. But their proper implementation is very crucial. Here Information Technology as tools serves strategic purpose. Forward Communications Feed back and reporting Figure 3: New proposed communication chart 4.2. Implementation Methodology Adding a backward communication channel seems to be a very simplistic approach to the problem. But it takes tremendous effort to achieve. To make the flow of information free and on real time basis needs IT initiatives. The proposed network of the IT infrastructure is represented below. Figure 4: Visual representation of the proposed IT network systems The proposed system would help in maintaining the two way communication channel among all possible stakeholders. The organisational communication is established along the various hierarchies and hence the issues like employee involvement are taken care off. This setup also helps in creating a shared decision support system which caters to all possible touch points of the customers and partners. At the same time it also helps in sharing the responsibility and accountability of the strategic decisions taken. 4.3. Pertaining to Employee Involvement Change Management can serve as a useful managerial tool here to bring in the employee involvement. Though, as discussed earlier, the issue pertaining to employee involvement is an outcome of communication gap, yet a dedicated tool for this issue could serve to address the problem in more effective manner. 4.3.1. Implementation Methodology This would be a process oriented tool which would include various stages of implementation as under (Murray, 2004). Facilitating a change process means taking it through four steps of Diagnosing, Planning and Implementing, Evaluation (Dyer, 2004). 4.3.1.1. Diagnosis This step deals with primary question of what, who and how. The diagnostic tool will have following approach: Figure 5: Diagnostic Tool for change facilitation (adapted from Blake and Mouton, 1964) 4.3.1.2. Planning and Implementation This stage of interventions should be conceded collaboratively with all the members of the organization. This will ensure the collective ownership and understanding of change by everyone in the organisation. It should be taken into consideration that the required intervention must be designed in a way to achieve the goals arising from diagnosis (Blake and Mouton, 1964). 4.3.1.3. Evaluation The evaluation phase should start once the intervention has been implemented. This will help to recognise the desired effect of the intervention. Evaluation during and after the implementation, will help providing Apple Inc., with feedback about the intervention. 4.3.2. Nature of Change The nature of change to be implemented varies from organisation to organisation and from situation to situation. In this case all the following three kinds of change need to be implemented. They are namely as follows. 4.3.2.1. Cultural Changes This will include Apple Inc. to formulate a clear strategic vision which will display top-management commitment. It has to adopt top down approach. Top management need to modify the organizational structure to support the proposed change (Dutton & Duckerich, 1991). At the same time the company will have to develop ethical and legal sensitivity (Millward, 2005). 4.3.2.2. Self Design Changes Opposed to quick ‘off the shelf’ solutions, the self design changes will transform Apple Inc. in order to meet the challenges of competition (Mohrman and Cummings, 1989). This is multi- layered approach. Here Apple Inc. will have to continuously resort to designing and implementing change at all levels. It emphasizes the need for self design as. 4.3.2.3. Knowledge Management and Learning based changes Organizational learning and knowledge management will add up to the ability of Apple Inc. to get hold of new knowledge. But for this Apple Inc. need to focus on team building along with structural design and employee involvement. It emphasizes on the issues associated with human resources. 4.3.3. Strengths The proposed initiative would be situation specific and caters to the specific gaps present in the current affairs. The processes are very simple and time tested. It is Cost effective as no external expert or consultant is required. It can be aligned with day to day operations of the company and do not need special and separate sessions (Blake and Mouton, 1964). 4.3.4. Weaknesses The outcome is dependent on employee perception and hence needs continuous perception make up. It needs to be executed over a longer period of time. The tool cannot objectively evaluate any performance parameters (Blake and Mouton, 1964). 4.4. Pertaining to Implementation on TQM Initiatives IT infrastructural setup is usually measured as an enabler of TQM. An information system has a crucial role in the TQM initiative. In fact these initiatives involve strategic, human resources and technology. IT is more and more being used to gauge, recognize, and progress of company's level of sustainable quality. The TQM initiatives can be facilitated by IT through the application of various tools like Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD). 4.4.1. SPC The SPC would help the company to keep the existing production line well within the quality benchmark. Any production process, however precise it may be, has variations in its outcome. This variation in the output has direct bearing on the quality. Thus statistical techniques can be used to measure the variation and hence control the quality of the process outcome. There are various parameters which are determined to adjudge the quality of the process outcome like Process Capability and Capability Index etc. 4.4.1.1. Implementation Methodology SPC would be a continuous process once implemented and would require execution of three phases repetitively until the process capability is achieved (Montgomery, 2005). First phase includes defining process output, testing methods and data collection plans. In the second phase of measurement, these the defined process would be measured through the defined testing methods by the help of data collected. The final phase of analysis would be required to study the trend as well as recommending the process improvement based on the analysis outcome. 4.4.1.2. Strengths SPC would reveal the existing quality deficiencies and can be decisive in bringing down the loss incurred due to the poor quality. The implementation of SPC would aid measurement of variation i.e. the ability of any process to give output within a targeted range or specified limits. Thus the quality improvement program can be made more objective (Woodall, Spitzner, Montgomery and Gupta, 2004). 4.4.1.3. Weaknesses Though, as one of the important tool for TQM, SPC would not help at all in designing the future products and their quality benchmarks. It just reveals the state of affairs and does not help building any futuristic design considerations to incorporate the customer voice in the quality benchmark (Woodall, Spitzner, Montgomery and Gupta, 2004). 4.4.2. QFD QFD would be used as an indicative too that will help the company come out with devices which would fulfil the demand in the market as per the prevalent trend or customer needs. QFD would be used to translate customer requirements into technical specifications. It will serve to bridge to manage the customers’ expectations, design considerations, competition and the production. It would be incorporated early in the design phase so as to provide holistic insight into the entire design and manufacturing operations, right from the stage of conceptualisation till manufacturing. Once adopted, it can dramatically improve the quality as well as efficiency as production problems would be resolved early in the design phase itself. 4.4.2.1. Implementation Methodology QFD would be implemented in four phases (Hauser & Clausing, 1988). The first will be production planning phase where the customer requirement will be translated into the technical requirements of the products. Then in the second phase of product design would help translating technical requirements into key systems or sub-systems. Thereafter in the process planning phase key process operations would be identified that are needed for the key systems. Finally, process controls would be required to establish process control plans, maintenance plans, training plans to control operations. 4.4.2.2. Strengths QFD is a holistic management quality too which is capable of bringing the views of all the stakeholders e.g. customers, competitors and the company’s design & manufacturing. Unlike SPC, QFD is capable of targeting the cause of poor quality right at the developmental phase (Hauser & Clausing, 1988). 4.4.2.3. Weaknesses QFD inherently is a phased process and is time consuming. It needs a dedicated team and efforts which would increase the initial cost. Moreover, cooperation among the various teams is a pre-requisite (Hauser & Clausing, 1988). 5. Critical Reflections The proposed work-plan with the recommended tools and methods has been arrived after doing rigorous internal and industry level analysis. However, the proposed framework can be evaluated rationally for its suitability. The possible improvements can be as under: The outcome of the proposed initiative through the recommended tools and methods can be improved by aligning some employee incentives (Tangible or Intangible) to the desired results. Employees and all the associated stakeholders need to be conveyed the reasons of application of the proposed methods and tools. They should be convinced about the effectiveness of the work-plan in order to make it successful. The subjective evaluation can be done periodically in order to ascertain the requisite effects of the initiative. 6. References Blake and Mouton (1964) cited in Millward L. (2005-in press), Understanding Occupational and Organizational Psychology. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Dutton, Jane E., and Janet M. Duckerich. (1991). “Keeping an eye on the mirror: image and identity in organizational adaption.” Academy of Management Journal 34 (1), 517-554. Dyer, W. (2004): Strategies for Managing Change. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, Inc Forbes, Is APPL a Buy, Sell or Hold?, retrieved as on 16th May 2011 from http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/BuyHoldSellAnalysis.do?tkr=AAPL Hauser, J. R. and D. Clausing (1988), "The House of Quality," The Harvard Business Review, May-June, No. 3, pp. 63-73 Millward L., 2005, Understanding Occupational and Organizational Psychology, London: Sage Publications Ltd. Mohrman, S. A. and Cummings, T. G., 1989, Self-Designing Organizations: Learning How to Create High Performance. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Montgomery, 2005, Introduction to Statistical Quality Control and Improvement, 5th Edition, Wiley Murray, D. (2004): Changing Ways: A Practical Tool for Implementing Change within Organizations. New York, New York: AMACOM, A Division of American Management Association. Poole, M. S., Van de Ven, A. H., Dooley, K., & Colmes, M. E. (2000). Organizational change processes: Theory and methods for research. New York: Oxford University Press. Woodall, W. H., Spitzner, D. J., Montgomery, D. C., and Gupta, S. (2004). "Using control charts to monitor process and product quality profiles." Journal of Quality Technology, 36(3), 309-320. Read More