Problems faced by the Company

Write an essay on PC Solutions.

This report is prepared on the company PC Solutions which provide people with the desktop computers. It was started by an IT Professional Frank Wallace who was the only founder of the company and started as a one-man brand. Initially it started with selling the desktop to the people who used them in their houses. But now the company grew up gradually and has around 75 employees who work under it (Roberts, 1996).

This report is will provide an overview of the company and will explain about the problems faced by the company and how they can be overcome. It will explain about the strengths and the weaknesses of the organisational culture. It will recommend a plan for Frank for the areas in which something has to be changed with the ways of implementing the changes as well. And at last it will provide that which leadership role Frank should adopt for the best working within the organization.

PC Solutions doesn’t work on a very large scale but yes looking to its growth from starting as a one-man brand now has 75 employees. As the organization doesn’t have many members so it can be managed easily but still the companies face many problems. The organization is divided into four functional areas- Sales, Administration, Customer Services and Software Development. The company faces some or the other problem in every department. The main problems are the ones that have to deal with the customers (Huang, 2003). The customer satisfaction is must for every organization.

The main problems faced by the IT companies are keeping the technology updated, marketing relations, customer service, focusing on the customer feedback. The main problem the company is facing is the management of all the functional departments. The management between the departments is very important. The main problem that should be considered by Frank is the management of activities and the coordination of the work between the departments. For example, if a person calls in the customer service department and complain about the software problem in the PCs then after solving his problem the message should be passed on to the Software Development Department for they should consider this problem and should try that it should not be repeated in the other PCs (Britton, 2013). This can only be done by looking as to why this problem occurred so as to consider them and find a permanent solution for it.

The strengths and weaknesses of Organisation’s culture

The next problem that occurs a lot in almost all the IT companies including PC solutions as well is balancing between the Feedback and Focus. Sometimes the feedback that the customer gives after he uses a particular product is useful for the organisational development as he addresses the new features which he requires in that product. For example, a customer after using the Desktop computer says that it should be sleeker and should be more attractive in its look. So after listening to this particular feedback of the customer the company should focus on the designing of the desktop (Anderson, 1996). The feedback of the customers should be considered and focused as well but the company should never move out of its directions for the change. In other words, if the change needed by the customer will change the product value or its direction then it should not be considered as the feedback of the customer are according to their need and not according the vision of the company. The original focus of the company should not be lost. In other words, the originality of the product should be maintained.

The customer satisfaction should be the priority of every company. As when the customer will be satisfied only then the company can grow. When the problems of the customers will be solved then they will have positivity towards the organisation which will in all attract more customers towards the organisation.

Organisation’s culture represents the organisation’s beliefs and the principles which have to be followed by the employees and the management. It includes the organisation’s vision and mission which each and every employee considers for the achievement of the specified goals. It is the pattern in the organisation by which every member solves the problems and deal with the situations in a particular manner. Every situation has an appropriate behaviour which can be used to overcome that problem (Riehle, 2010). Every new member is trained with the culture in the organisation so that he also knows the pattern of dealing with different situation in the organisation.

The culture in every organisation is either strong or weak. The strong culture is the one in which all the employees of the organisation follows the appropriate pattern and doesn’t slip in applying it. This is called a strong culture as all the problems in the organisation are easily solved by the employees by following their trained pattern (Cusumano, 1998). While on the other hand weak culture is the one in which the values and pattern of the organisation is not followed. The employees are not fully aligned towards that particular organisation behaviour.  

Sources of resistance to change

The culture in every organisation has its own strengths and weaknesses. First taking the strengths into consideration we can say that the strength of the company depends on the thickness of culture which means the amount of values and beliefs it consists (Stroube, 2002). The more values will have more pattern of appropriate behaviour which can provide the employees solutions for almost all the situations. Therefore, the thicker the culture of the organisation the smoother will be its working only if the employees clearly understand the organisational behaviour. In other words, we can say that the thick culture will contain more assumptions and values in comparison to the thin culture. Comparing this strength with our company PC Solutions we can say that the company is thick in its culture as every department is allotted with their own pattern of work and with their appropriate behaviour.

The second measure of strength is the extent to which the employees share their experience in dealing with the problems in the organisation. The more the people will share their experience of dealing with the problems there will be an increase in the strength of the company as all the employees will be more sure about the actions that they have to take in dealing with the same situations. Comparing this strength with the company we can say that the employees of the company do not share much of their experience with each other. The company gets much benefit with the sharing process between the workers. The last measure of strength is the clarity in the organisation or we can say the more the transparent the working in the organisation the more it will lead to a better organisation (Martin, 2005). This is the strength of the PC Solutions. The working of the organisation is totally clear or transparent. The person in one department is fully aware of what is going on in the other department.

The weaknesses in the organisation affect the working of the organisation. The complexity of the work in the organisation is the weakness of any organisation. If the working in the organisation is complex than it will be difficult for the organisation to train their staff and give them the clear knowledge about the organisation (Swartzlander, 2013). Comparing to PC Solutions the working in the organisation is very clear. In other words, it is not complex. So this is not the weakness of the organisation.

Sometimes people don’t understand the core values in the organisation which can lead the company into failing direction. The company PC Solutions wants its employee to follow the core values specified. For example, PC Solutions takes more attention towards the customer services or customer satisfaction (Heckl, 2007). So if the new employees or even the old one do not understand this core value of the organisation it is of no use. Frank the leader of the company has to be stricter for that as sometimes some employees are careless for this matter.

Resistance to change is the unwanted changes in the organisation from the employee’s point of view or we can say that when the mere changes in the organisation is not acceptable by its employees. There are reasons why the workers resist changing. The main reasons for resistance to change are insecurity of the employees, poor communication in the organisation, feeling of exclusion if they will not understand it, any benefits or rewards (Lee, 2006).

Whenever there is an application of change in an IT company then it is difficult for the employees to unite for the change. As they always want to stay away from the changes because mainly the changes are the updating the technology. So the daily changes in the organisation affect them a lot as they think that they again have to make a deep study to understand it. Sometimes the change doesn’t get successful because of the poor communication in the organisation (Wong, 2006). The higher authorities don’t communicate in a particular pattern which can be accepted easily by the people of the organisation.

Same is with the company PC Solutions the people are not ready for the technology updates as there is a daily change in the technology which gets difficult for them to understand and apply it daily. Sometimes the people in the organisation are in the misconception saying that the change will decrease their value in the organisation. The people are more concerned about their own personal growth rather than the growth of the organisation as a whole. They are unable to understand the fact their growth is directly related to the growth of the organisation (Guide Jr, 2005). As there organisation will grow and be updated with the technology the people in the organisation will automatically grow.

As far as planning is considered for PC Solutions the main problem comes in the acceptance of the new technology so the people allotted for bringing or communicating the change in the organisation should be trained very clearly and there should not be any problem relating to the poor communication in the organisation (Himeno, 2001). In other words, Frank should make clear to the changing authority that the people of the organisation should not complaint about the lack of communication from the higher authorities otherwise the people responsible for bringing the change should be penalized. Second problem is the misconception that the change in the organisation will bring a decrease in the position of the employees. This misconception can only be removed by keeping the rewards or benefits for the employees (Widmier, 2002). This will get sure positive results towards the changes in the organisation as the time they will see that the acceptance of change will get them a reward they will accept it as fast as they can for gaining the reward.

Leadership is the best only when you can get some positive response from your followers. The more positive results mean the role played by the leader is correct. But it is not only related to the response by the followers it should first be compared to the outcomes or the results obtained in the organisation by the methods or strategies applied by the leaders (Wang, 2004).

So here Frank can play a vital role in the working of the organisation by playing as a successful leader. Being a successful leader involves some steps that can be followed by Frank. The first step is the clear understanding and interpretation of the business environment. In other words, we can say that it involves the interpretation of the surroundings of the business with the internal environment (Mason, 2006). It is mainly getting the full knowledge about the working of the organisation and then analysing what is right and what is wrong for the organisation.

The second step involves developing the strategies for the organisation according to the analysis done. This is a very important part of developing the strategies. The strategies so made should be according to the analysis done in the above step. The success of leadership depends upon this step. The right strategies developed will lead to the better working and growth of the organisation.

The third step is the execution of the strategies in the same manner and in the same sense as developed. The correct execution of the strategy is very important otherwise the main use of the strategy will be dissolved. The execution is mainly the understanding of the people in the same sense as proposed by the leader (Breitzman, 2001). The main part is the method of communication which should be chosen very correctly which can lead the execution to either a direct success or failure.

The last step involves measure the efforts of the leader on the organisation. That is the measurement of the impact that the strategies have upon the organisation. Whether the changes implemented to the organisation are giving a positive response or not (Wong, 2001).

This is the clear leadership role that can be adopted by Frank for his company. The main point is to study the company clearly keeping in mind all the negatives and positives in the organisation.

Conclusion

PC Solutions is a very successful company as it has been showing growth in its working year after year. This report provides us with the overview of the organisation and mainly the changes that can be implemented for the upbringing of the organisation. The report presents a plan that can be implemented by Frank and the leadership role that can be followed by him for the better working in the organisation (Armistead, 2002). There are problems that will come in his way but the solutions to the problems are provided as well. He is leading the company from past many years so it will not be a difficult task to implement these changes.

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