Change Process Implemented by Ms Albanese in Sunflower Incorporated Company - Case Study Example

Sunflower Incorporated Name Institution Date Introduction Implementing change in an organization is one of the most difficult tasks. It requires a lot of leadership skills and knowledge for it to be successful. Change is something that cannot be omitted in any organization. It is the biggest constant in the current business world (Wax, 2005). Many organizations around the world normally embrace change as a competitive strategy. It is believed that organizations around the world do always implement change so as to avoid loosing the competitive edge and to ensure that the needs of loyal customers are met (Richards, 2012). This paper therefore seeks to critique the change process implemented by Ms.Albanese in Sunflower Incorporated Company. Case Synopsis Sunflower Incorporated is a huge distribution Company that has over 5,000 workers. It participates in buying salty snack foods and liquor and then distributes them to independent retail stores within the United States and Canada. Sunflower Incorporated has its businesses in 22 regions around the United States and Canada. Each region has its own warehouse, purchase department, finance department and salesperson. The activities of each region are independent due to different local tastes and practices. In 1989, Sunflower Incorporated opted to introduce financial statement system that compares the sales, profits and costs across regions. It was later discovered that the profits varied widely among the regions. This therefore called for standardization of pricing and purchases practices. A new position, headed by Agnes Albanese, was created by the company’s president to control pricing and buying practices. Ms. Albanese, after spending three weeks in the job, decided that the purchasing and pricing practices should be standardized across regions. She informed all regional managers regarding her decision on purchasing and pricing practices. The managers were happy with her decision and agree to cooperate. However, after eight weeks, the regional managers failed to send the notices regarding local purchase or price changes. It was later reported that the regional managers were still following the normal procedures. Analysis of the case Mistakes made by Ms. Albanese One of the major mistakes made by Ms. Albanese was implementation of change process without evaluating the situation on the ground. Ms. Albanese did not take adequate research on the change she intended to implement. She did not visit the 22 regional offices and evaluate whether her decision to standardize pricing and purchasing practices will be successful in the short run or long run. Even after being advised by Mobley to personally visit the regions and evaluate their pricing and purchasing practices, Ms. Albanese refused, claiming that the trip is expensive and time consuming. She informed Mobley that she has a lot of work at the headquarters, thus making the trip impossible. Therefore, Ms. Albanese assumed that, given her position, regional executives will immediately follow her direction and initiate the change (Daft, 2009). Another major mistake that Ms. Albanese made was implementation of change process on peak sales season. Ms. Albanese could have implemented her idea after the company annual meeting but not on peak sales season when all regions are aiming at maximizing their sales and profits. It is believed that at peak season many companies normally try to execute their already planned strategy so as to maximize profit. The best time to introduce change is after the company annual meeting. At this time, companies normally try to evaluate their previous strategies and come up with new ideas and strategies that will make them more competitive in the market (Carnall, 2007). During peak season, managers concentrate on utilizing the prevailing practices so as to maximize sales and profits. Initiating any change at peak season is a waste of opportunity, since the focus will shift from sale and profit maximization to implementation of new policies. This therefore will make an organization loose the opportunity of maximizing sales and profits. It is quite hard for executives to initiate any change at peak season (MacCalman and Paton, 2008). Therefore, Ms. Albanese made a huge mistake when she decided to implement change process during peak sales season. She could have waited until the end of the season, which was in three months time. Ms. Albanese did not embrace teamwork. This was among her greatest mistakes. She preferred working alone and not as a team. It is quite evident that Ms. Albanese made a sole decision regarding pricing and purchasing practices. She did not engage interested groups such as regional executives in decision making. This therefore made her not to understand what is required for her decision to be implemented successfully. Ms. Albanese, without meeting the regional executives, decided to standardize the pricing and purchasing across regions. In her decision, Ms. Albanese wanted the financial managers in all regions to notify her of any change in local prices that exceed 3%. She also decided that the new contracts for local purchases that exceed $5000 should be settled in her office. Ms. Albanese did not also engage Mobley in decision making process. She only discussed the proposed policy with Mobley and then submitted the formal proposal to the board of directors and the president. Ms. Albanese did not listen to Mobley suggestion. Mobley informed Ms. Albanese that she should visit the regions and discuss with the regional executives regarding purchasing and pricing policies. Albanese rejected Mobley suggestion, claiming that the trips will be costly and time consuming.Mobley also advised Albanese to post pond the implementation of the change processes for at least 3 months, that is, after the annual meeting. Albanese ignored Mobley suggestion and claimed that the procedures were highly required at the moment. This therefore is an indication that Albanese did not embrace teamwork. Working as a team is very essential for effective implementation of change. It is believed that team working improves communication among the parties involved in change process. Rajeev (2010) argues that teamwork improves communication and coordination skills among team members. It is through effective communication and coordination that a person can effectively implement change. Team work enhances creativity. With team work, a person can easily come up with a good idea that will ensure the change process is effectively implemented. A person will incorporate the ideas of all members and come up with a suggestion that pleases everyone. Ms. Albanese made a great mistake when she hurriedly imposed change to all regional executives. She did not give the regional executives enough time to adjust to suggested change process. Ms. Albanese instructed regional executives to immediately change their pricing and purchasing practices within four months. However, four months was too short for such kind of change to take place. Even after being advised by Mobley to delay the implementation of change process until the annual general meeting is held, Ms. Albanese did not listen. She insisted that the change should be implemented immediately. This therefore made the implementation process to fail. Ms. Albanese assumed that her decision to standardize pricing and purchasing practices will be adopted immediately. She forgot that initiating change is too challenging and in most cases requires a lot of time for it to be fully implemented. Implementation of Change is a gradual process. Change is not an event but a process. It is believed that successful change process assumes three stages, which are unfreezing, change and freeze stages (Morrison, 2010). Therefore, a lot of time is required for change process to go through these stages. If hurriedly imposed to people, the change process will be unsuccessful. Akram and Bouguettaya (2011) argue that people’s response to change assumes three stages. These stages include the unfreezing, transition and freezing stages. The unfreezing stage is the most essential stage in change theory. It entails understanding that change is essential and being ready to move away from the current comfort zone. Individuals at this stage normally prepare themselves or other people before the change. After the change is familiarized, individuals normally move towards or transit to a new way of being. This is the second stage of change process. It is the most challenging stage in change process. Individuals at this stage are always expected to develop new attitudes and behaviors that will enable them adopt the change. The freezing stage is the final stage of change process. It is a stage of adapting a new change. At this stage the former practice can be resumed if the change is not reinforced through freezing (Russell, 2006). Therefore, it is evident that change is a gradual process. It is not something that can hurriedly be implemented. It has stages and each stage needs enough time for it to be effectively implemented. Ms. Albanese idea of implementing the change process within four months was inappropriate. Reasons for not getting notices One of the main reasons why Ms Albanese did not get notices was poor coordination between headquarters and regional executives. When implementing the change process, Ms. Albanese did not coordinate effectively with regional executives. She just wrote an email to the executives informing them of the new change that should be implemented immediately. Ms. Albanese did not make any follow up after sending the email. She did not try to make arrangements that will ensure all regional executives implement the change as required. It is clear that even though the executives were happy with Ms. Albanese decision, they did not know how they will initiate the change, particularly at the peak sales season. This was due to poor coordination. Ms. Albanese did not make the necessary arrangements that facilitate coordination between the regional executives and her office. She just wrote an email and assumed that everything will work well. Due to people coordination regional executives did not see the urgency for change and continue working as usual. The regional executives did not see the need to send notices regarding local pricing and purchasing changes (Daft, 2009). Inadequate supply of information is another reason why Ms. Albanese did not get notices. The supply of information regarding changes in pricing and purchases practices was poorly done. Information was supplied through email, which was not detailed enough. Ms. Albanese did not inform the regional executives why such change is necessary and why it should be implemented at peak season without any delay. She only informed the regional financial and purchasing executives of the new change and instructed them to insert it in all policy and procedures manuals within four months. This therefore made the regional executives to feel like they are being sidelined in decision making, thus making them to ignore Albanese instruction and continue with their usual procedures. Using only email to send information was insufficient. There was a need for Ms. Albanese to personally visit the 22 regional offices and inform the regional executives about the change that the company has decided to implement. This would have made the regional executives to comply and change their pricing and purchasing practices as suggested by Ms. Albanese. However, this was not the case, Ms. Albanese, even after being advised by Mobley that the use of internet was insufficient, did not visit the 22 regional offices. Ms. Albanese did not get notices due to poor timing. Peak season is a very tricky period to initiate any change. Many organizations at this time do always concentrate on maximizing sales and profits so as to outcompete other players in the market. During peak period, organizations, such as Sunflower Incorporated, prefer dedicating their entire time in sales and purchases. They do not like wasting even a single minute in other activities. Ms. Albanese could have known this and post pond the entire change process until the peak season is over. However, due to her hurry to implement the change process during peak season made her not to receive notices. She did not receive the notices since regional executives were busy trying to meet targets. Regional executives did not see the need to initiate change at peak season. They preferred to maximize their sales than acting on Ms. Albanese demand (Daft, 2009). Things done wrong Ms. Albanese did several wrong things. One of the major wrong things done by Ms. Albanese was ignoring advice from her senior, Mr. Mobley. Mobley tried to advise Albanese on how the change process can effectively be implemented. He advised Albanese to delay the implementation of change process until the end of the company annual meeting. Mobley also advised Ms. Albanese to personally visit the regional offices and discuss with regional executives regarding changes in pricing and purchases practices. However, Ms. Albanese ignored the advice and continued with her implementation process. She was surprised when the regional executives failed to respond to her orders, even after promising to corporate. Ms. Albanese did not take enough time to understand the company’s operations before initiating the change. She did not even try to familiarize herself with the organizational culture. After being hired from one of the competing firms, Ms. Albanese immediately came up with an idea of standardizing pricing and purchases practices. She wanted the change to be in effect in four months time. This was too fast. She could have spent more time in the office before ordering for immediate change implementation process. It is quite evident that Ms. Albanese spent only three weeks in the office before coming up with an idea of standardizing pricing and purchases practices. She did not give herself more time to evaluate the culture of the organization and know the right time to implement change. Another wrong thing done by Ms. Albanese was initiating change as per the management view. Management was on the view that standardization was necessary for the betterment of the company’s image. It created a position and employed Ms. Albanese to look into the issue. Ms. Albanese was given an authority to create any rule and procedure that was necessary. Her main responsibility was to monitor the purchasing and pricing procedures. However, Ms. Albanese did not conduct her own research to find out if standardization of pricing and purchases was necessary. She only made a quick decision and ordered the regional executives to quickly comply. Ms. Albanese relied mostly on the earlier decision made by the management. This was quite wrong. The solution for equalizing profits and costs could have been a change of other practices rather than pricing and purchasing practices (Daft, 2009). Conclusion Sunflower need for change was reasonable but the process of implementing the change was ineffective and poorly executed. Ms. Albanese made a lot of mistakes while implementing the change process. She commenced the change implementation process without evaluating the situation on the ground. Another major mistake made by Ms. Albanese was implementation of change process on peak sales season. Ms. Albanese did not also embrace teamwork. Ms. Albanese made a mistake when she hurriedly imposed change to all regional executives. There are several reasons why Ms. Albanese did not get notices. One of the main reasons was poor coordination between headquarters and regional executives. Inadequate supply of information is another reason why Ms. Albanese did not get notices. Ms. Albanese did not get notices due to poor timing. Ms. Albanese did several wrong things. One of the major wrong things done by Ms. Albanese was ignoring advice from her senior, Mr. Mobley. Ms. Albanese did not take enough time to understand the company’s operations before initiating the change. Another wrong thing done by Ms. Albanese was initiating change as per the management view. References Akram S. & Bouguettaya, A. (2011). Change Management for Semantic Web Services. New York: Springer Carnall, A. (2007). Managing change in Organizations. New York: Prentice Hall Daft, L. R. (2009). Organization Theory and Design. London: Cengage Learning MacCalman, J & Paton, A. R. (2008). Change Management: A Guide to Effective Implementation. London: SAGE Morrison, M. (2010). Kurt Lewin three step change theory model – unfreeze, change, freeze < http://rapidbi.com/kurt-lewin-three-step-change-theory/> Rajeev, L. (2010). Importance of Team Work. < http://www.buzzle.com/articles/importance-of- teamwork.html> Richards, L. (2012).Why Is Change Important in an Organization? Russell, J. (2006). Change Basics: A Complete How-to Guide to Help You: Introduce, Manage, and Lead Change, Reduce Resistance, Build Change Resilience, Implement a Solid 10-step Action. New York: American Society for Training and Development Wax, D. (2005). How to Lead Change in Your Organization. Read More