Strategic Change Management

Subject Code : GM703
Subject Name : Management

Executive Summary

The importance of change management and how strategic management can help to achieve the objectives of any organization has been studied. There has been a study of different types of models that can benefit the organization in different ways has been given. The fulfillment of the goals as per the basis and dependability of the organizations has been integrated with the services which includes the advancements in the technology and which links with the failure for adopting contemporary models and tools have been studies that have impacted in diminishing the advantage is being stated. The different stages of the change management model is seen and discussed.

Introduction

It is often believed that whenever there are times when the organizations are in a dire need for change, then it must assess one of the most strong and compelling visions that can lead towards the path of change. Change is often said as the only constant. According to Hayes (2018), strategic visions to change are usually related to that particular company to become one of the best companies in that industry and to strive for excellence. In addition to this, it is also imperative that the SMEs focus on comprising of competitive advantage, enhanced performance, and comparatively better-sustained growth. On the contrary, the absence of all of these things can lead primarily to the declined organization and sometimes failure.

Introduction of the chosen organisation and background to change

The reorganization of the organisation in this case is taken that of the British Airways. It can be seen that the British Airways took into consideration about the need to reorganize their processes and announce the factors which considered the admission and factor which is responsible for creating a bigger and newer operating groups. In this, it can be seen that in order to resemble with the separate companies one needs to maintain a division of the charter group. In the search of profit, the organisation took into consideration about increasing their fiscal count of the year by creating an interest charge which is estimated for up to $215 millions a year (Coller, Mills and Mills (2016). In addition to this, British Airways is always looking for ways or rather is strving so as to improve and increase its productivity, which when compared to the other American carriers is rather much low. For instance, there are several airlines which focus on cutting their costs per staff from around 30 percent, according to Coller, Mills and Mills (2016). Hence, there was an imperative need for creating a new management structure which will ensure that there are various profit targets which are provided to one of the each division and which will also remain centralized for a new kind of internal pricing system.

Implementation of Changes

Hayes (2018) mentioned that strategic management and its benefits can be viewed as the thoughts or rather a process that focuses on analytical processes. The strategic vision and the strategic change must be laid out in a way that can be resonating for the employees and it should rather be something that does not deter the growth of the company. It is often said that ‘to err is to human’ but it should not be the goals for a company that is looking for prodigy. Having said this, one of the most optimum ways in which one can use and implement efficacious changes can be instigated with the help of strategies.

Strategy is one of the most crucial ways to inflict changes. It also acts as one of the most crucial key issues for the organizations and their future. Strategic management is primarily related to achieving the optimum goals of individuals, groups, and organizations. In addition to this, it also leads to change and enforces the optimum usage of the best available resources for the companies. There are a lot of institutions nowadays which require the management of their SMEs for shaping the organizations to associate them and make their products unique and remarkable. There are a lot of reasons why companies especially, SMEs embark on changes on the relevant change initiatives. There is no denying that every business out there wishes to grow, the main question however is about how many of them are willing to sustain for being stable. This brings to the point, as to why strategic management is important and what are the changes that it can bring. It is easier to ask rather than doing; the ramifications of the changes or for that matter the prognosis of the change, sustaining is not an easy task. There is no gamut when it comes to the waning of the subaltern in terms of organizations. Thence, quelling the growth of the organization. However, one should always be willing to trudge the requirements and keep striving for excellence.

Factors which influence changes

The factors which influence the changes in the strategic management and which influences the shift of changes in the strategic management comprises and falls under the category of the management functions, the structural transformations, competitions, socio-economic factors, laws, and technology. According to Medley (2008), the main aim of the changes concerning changes in executive management is that which relies on the composition of the hierarchy or maybe sometimes the board of directors which directly influences the change in the strategy. The transformations in the structure of the organization can also be one of the structural transformations such as mergers, acquisitions, and various expansions towards the expansion of the markets which can necessitate the realignment of the strategies Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman, and Bamford (2017). These types of changes are primarily associated considering factors such as capital ownership, market structures, and making changes for the strategic management (Pollack and Pollack 2015). There are some other factors as well such as competition from the other businesses or it can be structured in a way that the increasing and rising competition in the target markets can trigger various elements for enhancing the advantages of having competitiveness. The other factors such as social and cultural factors are also some of the profiles which must be targeted to make sure about the orientation of the businesses that can be realigned for it to account for various demographics and cultural sensitivities.

There may be some of the other factors which must be adhered to if there is a need for managing and handling the changes. These changes may be regulated if there is a need for the law and regulations, for example, if there is any sort of changes in the laws such as that of tax, environment and healthcare laws then these factors will influence changes for the management of strategy (Razmerita Kirchner and Nielsen 2016). There are also some of the adjusting and existing strategies of business which must be incorporated with the laws and requirements. In simple words, keep in mind a fact that if any organization is required to reduce the footprints of carbon then one must review the production and must also enhance and apply their strategies which can help and comply with various new organizations. The factors are not just limited to this, there may be some of the other models which require relevant changes and they can be that of the technological forces in the strategic management. There may be a requirement for acquisition and technological forces in the strategic management and there are chances that a company might require the change of strategies due to the availability for the adequate and technological capabilities (Brocke and Schiedel 2016). There can be some of the acquisitions based on strategies and which may require to build forth an availability. In simple terms, it can be said that the advent of technology and being updated in terms of technology and following the trends of technology can enforce changes in any organization. The technology and its trends also influence changes for the management. For example, the growing influence of e-commerce or being technologically skilled in these COVID times is playing one of the most important roles. There might be a lot of companies who would have to shift there regulations, terms, and policies keeping in mind the fact that almost everything needs to be accessed online in these unprecedented times.

Change management and its models

It is seen that change management is one of the most currently sought business models, hence it makes it safe to say that the change management model is often the most perplexing part of managerial work. There is no denying that it requires great skills and it is quite relevant especially in the context of modern businesses. Although there are a lot of change models that have been made and implemented but there are some of the models which require the models and research which is even still relevant for the twenty-first century. The problems and issues in the organizations are the same as they have been before, the organizations are more or less the same.

The change management models:

Lewin’s Model

In Lewin’s model, various aspects stipulate the distinct steps which are relevant for the implementation of the changes. In simple words, it can be said that the needs and requirements for this model is relevant and causes the need for changing the occurrence. This model is still used in practice as it was designed in a way that focused entirely on focusing the responses which make sure that there must be some unplanned changes. The issues that focus on the substance and the contemporary organizational changes can be planned in such a way that it only focuses particularly on the prediction and knowing about the advancement about the occurrence if any. Lewin mentioned that “Motivation for change must be generated before changes can occur. One must be helped to re-examine many of the cherished assumptions and attempts about oneself and one’s relation to others”. There are some practical steps which can be used as the framework for the Lewin’s model and they are mentioned as under (Hussain et al. 2018):

Unfreeze: This process determines the needs and its changes, followed by understanding and surveying the current state.
Change: This factor lies in the fact where the communication and its impacts are given rather much more importance, this step also involves factors such as communicating, dispelling rumors, empowering actions, and involving people.
Refreeze: In this step, the anchor of changes concerning culture and identifying the needs and supports of the change is implemented. It also comprises of other factors such as providing support and training and celebrating success.

Kotter’s model:

The development of Kotter’s model was done in such a way that it was to be used at a strategic level of an organization which helps for the assessment of the organization and also provides aid for using it as the strategic level of an organization to change the vision and which subsequently transforms the factors of this organization. According to Hussain et al. 2018 and some of the studies it can be seen that the change processes go through a set of processes and steps, it can also be seen that there are a lot of phases where the Kotter’s eight-step of approach to change is allowed for its management and which follows the uncertainty about the steps that how future should intervene. There are in total 8 steps of approaches in the Kotter’s model and they are as follows:

Creating urgency
Forming a powerful coalition
Creating a vision for change
Communicating vision
Removing obstacles
Creating Short Term Wins
Building change
Anchoring changes as per the corporate culture

Implementation of changes by British Airways

It was noted that the company was not able to generate much of the profits and hence as a result, it had to take into consideration about how they should apply the change management models to improvise their profits. For starters, the organization was split into operating groups which was seen to have been resembling with the separate companies so as to offer intercontinental services which will also ensure that there are an aggravation in the profits. The main aim which were dwelved for the British Airways was a result of imposing relevant changes which took into consideration about how they can be competitive and how they could have survived in the airline industry by securing a place in the market (Al-Ali, Singh, Nahyan and Sohal 2017). They took into consideration about the change management models and implemented the factors such by getting all of their employees a message by creating urgency, forming a powerful coalition and simply stating their vision and by telling their goal to sustain in the airline industry and this simply resulted in the formation of a team which assisted and give their best. This is a straight example of Kotter’s model. As a result, the changes which were implemented by the company helped them to become an airline industry which became more customer friendly and they eventually started to deliver some of the excellent service quality to their customers (Al-Ali, Singh, Nahyan and Sohal 2017). These changes also ensured that the employees helped their company to improve their relationship with the clients as well as the relationship of the customers with the employees. In addition to this, the company also achieved a reduction in its costs with the help of savage labor cuts.

Conclusions and recommendations

To reiterate, it can be said that the change and change processes revolve primarily on a lot of factors but the factor for technology remains the most dire factor. There can be a lot of processes and changes concerning processing and implementing technological changes. The factor of globalization is also one of the most important factors which are required for going through several changes. Other than this, change management is important because of the importance of change in the businesses and business environments allow the environments and its employees to learn and enhance their skill sets. It should be also noted that there is no amount of changes or approaches which can be categorized as ideal change for the organizations. The choices which are based on the considerations and the integration of the several models are necessary for the implementation of changes and to assess the situation and specific desired results one must learn how should they deal with managing the changes based on approaches and the models which are considered. It will be knowledgeable to know that all of the models have somewhat the same and unique approach for their changes related to change management and the emphasis of the different aspects and issues must be considered rather in terms of complementarity and opposites.

In simple words, there must be knowledge of different perspectives, models, and approaches.

References

Gupta, P. 2011. Leading innovation change-The Kotter way. International Journal of Innovation Science, 3(3), 141-150.

Hayes J. 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.

Hussain S. T., Lei S., Akram T., Haider, M. J., Hussain S. H., and Ali M. 2018. Kurt Lewin's change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), 123-127.

Medley, B. C., and Akan, O. H. 2008. Creating positive change in community organizations: A case for rediscovering Lewin. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 18(4), 485-496.

Pollack J. and Pollack R. 2015. Using Kotter’s eight stage process to manage an organisational change program: Presentation and practice. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 28(1), 51-66.

Razmerita, L., Kirchner, K., and Nielsen, P. (2016). What factors influence knowledge sharing in organizations? A social dilemma perspective of social media communication. Journal of Knowledge Management.

vom Brocke, J., Zelt, S., and Schmiedel, T. (2016). On the role of context in business process management. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), 486-495.

Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., and Bamford, C. E. 2017. Strategic management and business policy (p. 55). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Coller, K.E., Helms Mills, J. and Mills, A.J., 2016. The British Airways heritage collection: An ethnographic ‘history’. Business History, 58(4), pp.547-570.

Al-Ali, A.A., Singh, S.K., Al-Nahyan, M. and Sohal, A.S., 2017. Change management through leadership: the mediating role of organizational culture. International Journal of Organizational Analysis.