Change Management Model Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Change Management

Case Study: Sun Microsystems

1) Sun Microsystems believes in sustainable development to meet the needs of the next generation. It has adopted some practices to reduce carbon emission and simultaneously improve the productivity of the organization. The company is environmentally sensitive and thus it has created a vision to take care and do all the possible needful to protect the environment from carbon-di-oxide liberated in the atmosphere. The green initiative named “open works” was adopted with a multi-pronged strategy by them. It has a list of plans to cut down emissions and gases that threatens the atmosphere with their presence.

In the very first step, the company dumped its entire PC’s and adopted thin clients. The objective of this step was to store and access all the files through a central system instead of storing it on the individual hard disk of the computers. There were several benefits of using thin clients in the company. Like thin clients can reduce the cost of maintenance, improve productivity, enhance security and at the same time help workers to remotely access the workstation (Airehrour et al. 2019). Thin clients are perfect alternative to regular PCs for businesses in the company. It is flexible and improves the efficiency of the employees and also improve the lifespan of IT infrastructure. It even gives immediate access to virtual PC’s and applications and provides centralized computing abilities.

In addition to this, the staff was given eco-responsibility such as turning off unnecessary lights, printing on both sides of the paper, switching off air conditioners when not required. The company even redesigned the working space moving managers to the core and offering employees of the organization window seats. They also introduced work from home policy in the organization. Initially, employees were not ready for it but later they started work from home when the managers encouraged them to do so. The company was trying all that it can do to reduce the emission and thereby protect the environment. In the fourth step to maintain the consistent workflow which got disturbed due to work from home, the policy was resolved through video conferences and computer-mediated communication. (Hu et al. 2019).

The last step taken by the company was to raise operating temperatures of the data centers up to 3 to 4 degree Celsius to save power. The gains of all the above steps were significant. The aim of these steps was to reduce the carbon footprint from the country. A thin client just runs on 4 watts of power which is very less in comparisons to regular PC’s that use 100 plus watts. The company contributed to reducing the target emission from the organization up to 20 per cent. Space redesign was now yielding a staff desk of 1 instead of 1.3. The increase in data centers temperature helped reduced 6 per cent of the carbon emission from the country. The strategies used by the company were gaining more and more clients towards them. Everyone was appreciating the steps taken by Sun microsystems.

2) The changes that were introduced in the company will definitely help the organization to reduce the transmission rate of carbon-di-oxide from the surroundings. It will help in achieving the sustainable development goals of the company that the company is bound to. The company is using a creative blend of green initiative and clever technology to improve environmental conditions as well as empowering teams to work exceptionally well for the organization (Kumarasiri and Jubb, 2016). It provides a less hierarchical work environment to the employees so that they can handle the work at their own responsibility.

Flexible working hours also helped in improving the efficiency of the employees. Apart from the project handled, the green initiative taken forward by the organization would decrease the emission rate in the environment. The smallest initiative of reusing paper, switching off air conditioner and lights when not necessary seems small steps but saves a lot of power which gets wasted even when there is no need. The use of a thin client instead of a regular PC also helps a lot to save power and reduce the maintenance cost. It was seen in 2012 that with the help of the "open works" initiate the company was able to reach the target set by them in 2002.

Further, it was seen in the data centers that while increasing the temperature, the organization was able to reduce 6 per cent of the carbon footprint. Redesigning the space and offering window seats to the employees was also done with the motive to use natural light more and more instead of using bulbs and lights. The organization also made people learn who attended the meeting through video conferencing while sitting at a remote place and working from there. It will reduce the air travel expense and Carbon-di-oxide emitted by the planes. The desk space than was converted to 1 from 1.3.

All the above changes, reflect that the organization will flourish both at the environmental as well as the business market. The efficiency level of the staff will improve and the company’s reputation level will also enhance. The company with consistent work in this direction will help become one of the most favorable companies to which clients want to work. The company will start getting more and more clients who have a similar vision and objectives in mind for both environments and the workplace (Zhao et al. 2018). It will increase profitability and productivity for the organization. The overall revenue percentage will get doubled and the company will flourish in the business market. It is also seen that employees feel safe for working with a business that promotes green companywide initiatives.

Going green in business and tackling the projects help the organization to cut extra expenses. It will help in both the economic and financial front of the organization. Brand recognition is another benefit the company will receive in the business market. In 2007, Sun’s microsystems were named as one of the greenest companies in the world by Forbes Magazine. This itself indicates that the company is working hard to achieve sustainable development with the help of green strategies and changes brought in the organization.

3) No, not every organization can adopt these practices in their organization. These practices are best suited for an IT industry where most of the work is carried out sitting at one place using laptops and PCs. The manufacturing industry cannot ask the employees to sit at home and work because it is not possible. An automobile industry will not be able to run if the air or any other travel gets banned. A restaurant based industry cannot run itself successful if it asks workers to switch off the lights and work in open. These companies must come up with their own measure to reduce the carbon emission from the surroundings (Herold et al. 2019). The sales and marketing company can adopt some of the strategies adopted by Sun microsystems but cannot implement all the strategies used by them.

Every industry has its own specialty and thus we cannot force a company’s example or its strategies over the other. It is not at all possible to run a business on some other company’s vision and strategies. Some companies can apply these strategies or some of them in their own premises but saying all the companies can use the same example of open works is wrong. All companies in Silicon Valley can use the strategies used by Sun microsystems. The company sets a perfect example for all the information and technology industry. Increasing the temperature of the data centers or switching off to thin clients can only be done by an IT company. Giving work from home facility to employees and asking them to attend video conferencing meetings can be done in IT or corporate companies where there

is no need to work in the field. Field job companies need to find some other measures companies which they can reduce the carbon footprint in the environment. It was seen after 2007 that companies like Sun microsystems have started following the "Open works" initiative in their organizations as well. Listing of the company in the Forbes magazine as one of the greenest company has drawn everyone’s attention towards a sustainable environment. A sustainable environment is the need of the hour and companies to get more clients to need to do something which can help in attracting their attention (Singla and Singh, 2020).

The measures taken by the Sun microsystems is not enough there can be many and companies must find it out and set a goal to achieve the target in a minimum of days possible. Without setting a target even if companies start adopting strategies it won’t give the benefits as it would give. Lesser the targets or no target at all will delay the impact of the work.

At last, it can be said that some companies can copy the Sun microsystems methods and some cannot. So it would be beneficial if every company finds its own measure to reduce carbon footprints from the surroundings and meet the needs of the future generation.

4) To improve things better Lewis change model must be used as it will help to companies prepare for the change that is the unfreeze part of the organizational structure. Later bring on the real transition and at last accept the changes that are introduced in the companies. There are a lot of changes that a company must follow to improve the situation and this include zero waste strategy. It is a very powerful action of implementing Zero waste strategy as it will pay off immediately. Moving towards zero waste production starts with identifying areas of waste products and how often the waste is generated and disposed of.

The company can also launch an aggressive recycling technique to reduce the amount of waste which gets dumped in the landfills by reusing the products again instead of throwing them away. The company can also ensure that all of its clients use sustainable products to complete their work (Raisinghani and Idemudia, 2019). Instead of using paper, the organization can go paperless and save a lot of money as well as trees from which the paper is produced. Recycling and using ink toner should be the first priority of the organization. It is because these resources take thousands of years to get decomposed.

Apart from a zero-waste strategy, the company should invest some amount of money to harness renewable sources of energy. Over the past few years, it is observed that renewable sources of energy have become more prevalent over the last few years largely due to climate change and depletion of non- renewable sources of energy like coal, oil, gas and so on (Kelly et al. 2019). The finite number of fossil fuels and continues changes in the environment are forcing the companies to start measuring and reducing energy consumption in the premises. This will give long term benefits to the organization like a competitive advantage to the company when the policies will come into effect. Renewable sources of energy like solar and wind will save money from the company shortly.

If the company wants to install energy equipment on an onsite part of the workplace in such case the organization can install solar panels. It will also help the business to qualify for the federal tax credit. Another important step for improving climate change would be education. The organization need to engage their workforce for being carbon accountable. The organization needs to educate the employees so that they can easily adapt their old habits and stop resisting the eco-conscious policies adopted by the organization. To inspire the workforce about the carbon impact, the company must encourage employees to come with energy-saving ideas and putting them in the suggestion box.

In addition to this, the company can even spread the word of the environment’s importance with green initiatives on social media and other marketing platforms (Imasiku et al. 2019). By adopting these improvements, the organization can not only thrive to save the world environment and planet but also improve employee morale and brand reputation in the business market. Many organizations like Google, Lyft and Salesforce are already committed to protecting the climate change that occurs in the environment. The climate emergency is escalating and this creates a need to enact policies to reduce greenhouse emissions from the environment while running a profitable business.

5) Running a business in a competitive market is hard, and it becomes even harder when the company has to run a profitable business with carbon accountability simultaneously. The need for the situation is to drive for a global change and become a world leader by reducing the total amount of carbon generated by the company since its inception in the market. The companies need to understand that they are not working just for the present but also for the future (Sarkar et al. 2019). And this can be done by adopting change management models to reduce the carbon emissions from the environment at a maximum level. The company must use big data analytics to track energy consumption and cut the areas where the production is maximum.

The company must rely on renewable sources of energy instead of non-renewable ones. At times when solar panels do not work, the company must use CFL light lamps as it reduces global warming pollution in comparison to the normal light bulbs that are used. CFL reduce the carbon emission and will also help the organization to save money. In addition to this, the company must create the entire building as a smart one, to reduce demand and support sustainable energy with the help of water resource management (Clark, 2019). Sun Microsystems can become a global leader and help other organizations to implement climate change policies to reduce the carbon emission and simultaneously increasing productivity and, the profitability of the organization. It can help the organization to cut the energy consumption rate or else motivate them to install solar panels in the organization to lower the energy rate in a decade.

Sun Microsystems must ask the other companies to set a goal in this direction such as to reduce 75% of the carbon footprint till 2030. In case if the internal department of the organization does not follow the policy they would be asked to pay a fee. This will help the organization to encourage all the departments to take part in the eco-friendly drive conducted by it. The company can also come with a return policy of the chips and hardware that are no more in use of the customers. The electronic items returned by the customer can again be used to manufacture electronic items that are in demand. It will help the organization to meet the demand and supply while maintaining the carbon footprint at the same time.

All the above management and leadership qualities will help the organizations to achieve the goal set by them to reduce the carbon footprint from the environment and improve the productivity and profitability of the organization (Kasmaei et al. 2019). These are very important to run a successful business and increase brand recognition in the market to gain more and more clients. It is seen that employees enjoy working at a place where they see that moral consideration are kept as a first priority. The retention rate of the employees in such company is very high. The organization must not sleep until and unless it creates a better planet for future generations by adopting green computing techniques.

References

Airehrour, D., Cherrington, M., Madanian, S. and Singh, J. 2019, August. Reducing ICT carbon footprints through adoption of green computing. In 10.12948/ie2019. 04.17. Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest. Department of Economic Informatics and Cybernetics.

Clark, D. 2019. What Colour is your Building?: Measuring and reducing the energy and carbon footprint of buildings. London: Routledge.

Herold, D.M. and Lee, K.H. 2018. Carbon disclosure strategies in the global logistics industry: Similarities and differences in carbon measurement and reporting. In Pathways to a Sustainable Economy (pp. 87-101). Springer, Cham.

Hu, J., Wood, R., Tukker, A., Boonman, H. and de Boer, B. 2019. Global transport emissions in the Swedish carbon footprint. Journal of Cleaner Production, 226, pp.210-220.

Imasiku, K., Thomas, V. and Ntagwirumugara, E. 2019. Unraveling Green Information Technology Systems as a Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Game-Changer. Administrative Sciences, 9(2), p.43.

Kasmaei, M.P., Lehtonen, M., Sanz, J.C. and Mantovani, J.R.S. 2019. Carbon footprint management: a pathway toward smart emission abatement. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

Kelly, C., Onat, N.C. and Tatari, O. 2019. Water and carbon footprint reduction potential of renewable energy in the United States: A policy analysis using system dynamics. Journal of Cleaner Production, 228, pp.910-926.

Kumarasiri, J. and Jubb, C. 2016. Carbon emission risks and management accounting: Australian evidence. Accounting Research Journal.

Raisinghani, M.S. and Idemudia, E.C. 2019. Green information systems for sustainability. In Green Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 565-579). IGI Global.

Sarkar, B., Guchhait, R., Sarkar, M. and Cárdenas-Barrón, L.E. 2019. How does an industry manage the optimum cash flow within a smart production system with the carbon footprint and carbon emission under logistics framework?. International Journal of Production Economics, 213, pp.243-257.

Singla, B. and Singh, A. 2020. An Initiative to Green Information Technology. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(4).

Zhao, Y., Wang, C., Sun, Y. and Liu, X. 2018. Factors influencing companies' willingness to pay for carbon emissions: Emission trading schemes in China. Energy Economics, 75, pp.357-367.

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