Analysis

Discuss about the Implementing Change Process for Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd.

The report is basically focused on the change management process of the company named Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd (RSEC). The primary purpose of this report is develop skills in the use of change process and management theories and models in the analysis of a typical business situation that has organization and structural change and development concerns. The assignment requires you to analyze the current situation, and suggest practical and probable solutions. The secondary purpose of this assignment is to give opportunity to apply research, analysis, critical thinking write a case analysis report.

The report is about the company Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd (RSEC) which acquired one company named Electronic Bits Fast (EBF). Both the companies do business of electronic equipment in Australia to the wide range of customers. The reason of acquiring EBF is that the company has good customer service and brand value which would be beneficial for the RSEC. The company RSEC is a decentralized company and on the other hand EBF is a centralized company. It has well structure of functions such as sales, logistic and customer service. RSEC has different business units in different parts of Australia and EBF has one head office in Sydney. Thus the problem is that company RSEC has to adopt some changes in its business structure. It needs some changes in the location, to manage the business of EBF which has its head office in Sydney. Thus, company planned to do some changes immediately. The focus was on designing and implementing new structure for growth in sales, and customer service. Business system manager was appointed as change manager and he created a project team to implement the change plan. The issue is that it has been seen that there are many difficulties to implement the change in the company. It was not easy for the employees to accept immediate change. After the changes, HR manager identified that there is a decline in morality, trust, value and quality of communication.

Company experiences change while operating in the competitive market. To get competitive advantage and growth, company needs to take many decisions such as merger, acquisition, partnership, different strategies, etc. sometimes company needs to implement some changes in the operations of the business (Kaplan & Norton, 2006). Implementing a change in the business organization can be a challenge for the company if the change is not implemented in effective way. Company needs to create effective ways to implement the change. Effective ways of change can help the employees, customers and business partners to adjust in change (Root III, 2016).  In this case, the change manager tried hard to implement the change but there are some issues in the announcement regarding change.

Problem Identification/Case Issues

Change can affect everything in the company. Sometimes change is not acceptable by the staff while merging and acquisition with other companies. Changes are necessary if company wants to grow in the competitive market. To implement the change, company has to face some issues and barriers (Kotter, 2007). The process of change impacts on some parts of the organization i.e. what type of business organization does, process and ways by which the organization does business and the process adopted by the organization to share information with its employees (Recklies, 2001). In the given picture, there is the description of change process: 

Figure 1: Change Process

(Source: Recklies, 2001)

In this case, there are also some issues in the company Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd (RSEC) for implementing the change.

• The reason of problem in implementing changes was that employees had faces acquisition recently and for them, it was not possible adjust with new environment.
• The way of working of EBF was superior to RSEC and staff of RSEC felt that it would be difficult for them to adjust in that kind of working environment in new merged company (Becker, Huselid & Ulrich, 2001).
• There are many employees who are affected with the merger. Company wanted to relocate some of employees according to different departments such as most members of sales teams who making deliveries to the customers. The issue was that there was no clear specification about relocating till initial announcement.
• There were expectations of managers who were working in the regional offices of RSEC that they would get something additional after the company.

According to the change manager, the plan was implemented successfully. But it was not so as the board was thinking. The change was not working properly after giving training to staff and relocating them. The reason was that the change was implemented in speed and in high proportion. Along with this, because of those employees who refused to relocate, company was unable to recruit sufficient new staff to fill all roles. That is why company could not give proper customer services and company had to hire agency workers for the services. This created dissatisfaction among the employees. Employees felt that there is too much work load in the company and it became difficult for employees to cope with their own work loads. Result of all these circumstances were a decreasing brand image of company and increasing customers’ complaints (Frost, 2016).

Implementing a change in the organization needs a clear identification of problem such as why change is necessary. It is the fact that people don’t want to accept the change until they are forced to do so. The problem was that the change process was happened in speed that is why employees felt dissatisfaction. The result of implementing change in speed was that it created increment in customer’s complaints and employees dissatisfaction (Werkman, 2009). In the survey conducted by the HR, it was identified that there was decline in the morality of the company. Along with this, there was a decrement in involvement of the employees in business operation. Decrement in the quality of communication and level of trust showed that employees were feeling less valued in the company. There was growing dissatisfaction among the employees (Gilbert & Bower, 2002).

Problem Analysis and Justification

The reason of these problems was that the board of the company wanted to change in the business operation immediately. The company faced these problems and issues because of poor handling of change management. There was lack of many things in the change management process of Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd such as lack of communication, lack of proper information with employees, confusion in relocating, and no proper reward system for managers, etc. Because of the lack of these points, it created low employees involvement. The impact of the ineffective change management can be seen by the performance of the employees in the company. Because of workload, employees had to face high level of stress, decreasing job satisfaction, additional pressure to complete the work and lots of unnecessary mistakes and because of these issues in performances, complaints of customers had increased. Thus, it is clear that the company Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd had not adopted proper change management process for implementing the change (Kansal & Chandani, 2014).

Change is an important part of the organization when it wants to grow in the competitive market. The process of change can be bigger for the company which going to adopt the merger and acquisition. For the effective change process, good training for change management is necessary for the managers to drive the change successfully. Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd can use some options to implement the change successfully:

Explain the reason behind change: It is the first stage for starting the change process. The reason behind should be explained to the employees that why the change is important. This stage needs to be explained carefully. There should be opportunity for the employees to raise the voice of thoughts and concerns regarding change (Vaughn, 2012).

Change should be implemented in shifts: The process of change become successful when it is implemented in shift. Process in big size can be the cause of confusion among the employees. Process of change should be slowly so that employees may get chance to adjust with the changing environment (Kirke, 2013).

Observe and review the change: There should be careful monitoring and observation of the impact of change on the employees. Observing is essential to identify the success. Employees as well as managers need to be aware that how the change is progressing towards the success and what is the result of changing process. The intension of the company for implementing the change is the improvement of employees so, employees should be aware of the importance of change management process (Kern, 2003).

Alternative Solution

Employee Involvement: For change in the company, there is a need to communicate with the employees. Employee involvement is the most important part for the successful implementation of change in a company. So, it is important to involve their participation in the change process by explaining them about the reason of change (Weiner, 2009).

Removing issues: There may be many issues with the change process because sometimes employees don’t want to adjust in changed environment. There can be issues lack of communication, lack of proper information, problems with relocation etc. This is the responsibility of the management in the company to remove the barriers so that employees can participate in the change process without any issues (Stoltzfus, Stohl, & Seibold, 2011).

Every company wants to grow in the market but to implement the change in the business can be a big challenge for the company. When the employees come to know that the implementation of change is a part of improvement and success, they will give allowance for implementation of change (Wallace, Blase, Fixsen, & Naoom 2008).

There are some recommendations that company Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd can adopt for change process:

• Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd is a decentralized company and Electronic Bits Fast is a centralized company so there can be the mixture operations of both companies.
• For increasing employees’ satisfaction, management of the Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd should communicate to employees properly.
• There should be review of the performance of the employees after change process.
• There should be proper training process in the change process for employees.
• Employees should get chance to contribute their views, thoughts and ideas regarding change.

Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd can implement the change process with new ideas. First of all, management of the company has to explain the actual reason behind the change that the change process is for the growth in sales and customer services. Management has to give the equal chance to the employees so that they can share their view on the change process. There can be a mixed business and the management can establish the sub offices so that employees can work easily. Management team has to focus on the employee involvement without any stress and workload. Managers have to be aware that how the change is progressing towards the success and development of the company as well as employees (Werner, 2004).

Conclusion

The report has been discussed about the merger of the company Rapid Supply Electronics Components Ltd (RSEC) and Electronic Bits Fast (EBF). From the above discussion, it has been observed that RSEC is a decentralized company and company has to adopt some changes in its business structure to cope with EBF. It also has been seen that there are many difficulties to implement the change in the company. It was not easy for the employees to accept immediate change. Change manager tried hard to implement the change but there are some issues in the announcement regarding change such as customer dissatisfaction, employees’ dissatisfaction, over workload, high stress etc. The report has given the problem analysis and justification. Along with this, in the report solution of the problem and recommendations to implement the change process has been give. By the proper communication with employees and review and observation of change process can lead the success of change management within the company. 

References 

Root III, (2016). Techniques for Implementing Change in an Organization. retrieved on 29^th September 2016 from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/techniques-implementing-change-organization-10032.html 

Recklies, O., (2001). Problems in Managing Change. retrieved on 29^th September 2016 from https://www.themanager.org/Strategy/Change_Problems.htm

Kansal, S.,  & Chandani, A., (2014). Effective Management of Change during Merger and Acquisition: Procedia Economics and Finance. (11). 208-217 

Kirke, D.,  (2013). How to Implement and Manage Successful Change Programs. retrieved on 29^th September 2016 from https://smallbiztrends.com/2013/09/implementing-change-programs.html

Kaplan, R.W. & Norton, D.P. (2006). How to implement a new strategy without disrupting your organization: Harvard Business Review, 100-9.

Kotter, J.P. (2007). Leading change: why transformation efforts fail.  Harvard Business Review. 56-67

Becker, B.E., Huselid, M.A. & Ulrich, D. (2001). The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance. MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Gilbert, C. & Bower, J.L.  (2002). Disruptive change: when trying hard is part of the problem. Harvard Business Review. 94-101.

Frost. S., (2016). Barriers & Challenges to Change Implementation. retrieved on 29^th September 2016 from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/barriers-challenges-change-implementation-30842.html

Vaughn, M., (2012). How to Successfully Implement Organizational Change. retrieved on 29^th September 2016 from https://sandhill.com/article/how-to-successfully-implement-organizational-change/

Kern, H., (2003). Implement change management with these six steps. retrieved on 29^th September 2016 from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/implement-change-management-with-these-six-steps/

Suran, S., (2002). How to implement change effectively: Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance.

Werner, A. (2004). A Guide to Implementation Research. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press 

Wallace, F., Blase, K., Fixsen, D., and Naoom, S. (2008). Implementing the Findings of Research: Bridging the Gap Between Knowledge and Practice. Washington, DC: Education Research Service.

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change: Implementation Science, (4), 67-78.

Werkman, R. A. (2009). Understanding failure to change: A pluralistic approach and five patterns. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. (30). 664-684

Stoltzfus, K., Stohl, C., & Seibold, D. R. (2011). Managing organizational change: Paradoxical problems, solutions, and consequences: Journal of Organizational Change Management. (24). 349-367