3.10 Managing strategic change Flashcards
What are the causes and pressures for change?
Causes for change could be internal (change in leadership/management, changes in staff, better than expected performance, poor financial performance, bus growth and type of business) or external (new tech, consumer tastes changing, change in law, change in ethical views and changes in competition)these lead to bus having to change something.
Pressures for change may be business needing to grow and stay competitive, innovation, survival.
What are the types of change?
internal change, changes within the business.
external change, changes in external environment outside of business.
incremental change, is gradual change usually result of strategic plan that has been put in place, managers decided timescale for necessary changes (minimise disruption) and to timetable strategies.
disruptive change, sudden change that forces firms to suddenly find ways to adapt or reconstruct their organisation.
Refer to Lewin’s Force Field Analysis.
What is the value of change?
Change is valuable as can be seen as an opportunity or a challenge for business to overcome. Benefits of change may be: obtain competitive advantage, align bus strategy with changing consumer wants and needs, take advantage of developing tech, gain improved productivity and work environment, effective organisational structure and build reputation for embracing change (innovation).
What are examples of flexible organisations?
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restructuring, changing bus organisational structure (decentralise) , bus that are able to quickly and effectively adapt structure in order to keep up with changes. Restructuring is to maximise efficiency of decision-making and communication and division of tasks this also can reduce costs.
-delayering, removing part of organisations hierarchy, this can reduce costs, flatter structure with wider span of control have quicker communication. Delayering can help business respond to changes quicker if strategy done quickly.
-organic structures v mechanistic, organic uses decentralised structure (employee get a say in D-M), flatter structure, best suited to uncertain changing environment as info can be acted on quickly, organic structure workforce usually work in teams rather than strict roles adapt to situation. Mechanistic is rigid uses centralised structure (traditional, well defined hierarchy of power D-M by managers at top), tall structure (msgs take long time), don’t need to adapt to change often, employees specialised in certain tasks tend to work separately so easy to assign resources efficiently.
-flexible employment contracts,allows bus to be flexible themselves to effectively manage change, e.g. zero hour contracts, outsource, mixture of core workers and peripheral workers. FEC may result in poor communication as staff may work different times.
-knowledge and information management, refers to collection, organisation, distribution and application of knowledge and info within a bus, K can be data gathered, individual expertise, procedures this can stored and recorded into spec databases.
What is the value of flexible organisation?
Can help firm be more competitive, regain market share, reduce unit costs, improve employee engagement and productivity/efficiency.
What is the value of managing information and knowledge?
Having wide range of knowledge that is easily accessible to everyone may make firm more flexible and easier to respond to change. As can assess their role and what action to take, makes easier for staff to change roles and learn new responsibilities.
What are the barriers to change?
- organisational structure, some structures make it difficult to manage change (tall structures difficult to communicate).
- resources, firm needs correct resources before making changes.
- poor management, managers that are unable to effectively communicate and engage workers.
- passive resistance, carrying on with old ways whilst aware of new needs and being shown new processes, most common in employees and suppliers.
- active resistance, arguing against change and challenge motives for change, e.g. workers organise themselves through trade union and refuse to carry out tasks, customers refusing to make further purchases from company.
Refer to Kotter and Schlesinger’s Four Reasons For Resistance To Change.
Refer to Kotter and Schlesinger’s Six Ways Of Overcoming Resistance To Change.
What is the importance of organisational culture?
Organisational culture shapes the expectations and attitudes of staff and managers. Strong corporate culture can motivate employees, align team efforts towards common objectives, and increase productivity. It can also foster loyalty and commitment, reducing staff turnover.
Refer to Handy’s Cultural Model.
What is entrepreneurial culture?
Employees look for new ways of bringing in revenue for the business, employees responsible for finding to new ways to improve way the business is run. Encouraged to be creative and innovative and more open to change.
What are the influences on organisational culture?
- type of business market it operates in (multinational or domestic)
- type of industry
- leadership
- business size
- reward system (performance-related pay)
- work environment
- organisational structure
What are the reasons and problems for changing organisational culture?
Reasons may be wanting to be more competitive or preference of the leader/manager.
The value of leadership in strategic implementation effectively?
A good leader takes action and ensures changes go as smoothly as possible, leader takes overall responsibility for management of strategic implementation and should delegate responsibilities where necessary. Creates a clear inspiring vision that sets an example throughout the business, can motivate workers to engage with the process (positive culture), leadership is important for managing change ( paternalistic and democratic style leadership fits into these).
The value of communications in strategic implementation effectively?
Purpose of communication is to clearly pass on info and ideas and to motivate people. Senior managers need to communicate functional objectives to department managers the business objectives and strategy so all staff know what business is doing and why, diff departments must communicate to coordinate their activities, any employee affect by strategy must be made aware, employees should also inform managers if there are issues implementing the strategy.
What is the importance of organisational structures in strategic implementation?
- functional structures, can implement strategy simpler as each department focuses on area on expertise, however good communication is needed to implement strategy effectively.
- product-based structures, ideal structure for implementing certain strategies e.g. increase market share, if strategy applied across whole company could be less efficient as implemented by each division separately.
-regional structures, if market development strategy regional division can implement strategy more effectively, difficult for strategy for whole company as doesn’t take in local needs to each region.
-matrix structure, structure can easily change to implement different strategies as teams can be reorganised, can be conflict with implementing strategies however as managers may have overlapping priorities (meeting both dep and project targets).
Refer to Network Analysis.
What is the value of network analysis in strategic implementation?
Network analysis can be used when implementing a strategy, it allows companies to work out when they’ll need resources to be available (possible to shorten CP by allocating additional resources to an activity), resources can be switched between activities, helps managers with D-M as knowing the latest finishing time of a project helps to decide whether to launch an ad campaign or become a public company.
What are the difficulties of strategic decision-making?
- risks of the decision, each assumption of strategy relies on and how it would be impacted if these assumptions change.
- how different stakeholders react to this decision
-feasibility, business needs to assess the resources or skills necessary to implement strategy.
What are the difficulties of implementing strategy?
- business may have to make big changes to implement their strategy, so success of strategy depends on how well bus manages change.
- business needs to plan and organise resources they need
-business needs to make sure these factors are right leadership, communication and organisational structure.
What is the difference between planned and emergent strategies?
planned strategy, the intended strategy which is determined by a formal strategic planning process.
emergent strategy, the strategy that actually happens as a business responds to changes in its external environment.
Pros and cons for planned and emergent strategies?
What are the reasons for strategic drift?
strategic drift is what happens when strategy becomes less and less suited to businesses environment, when bus strategy doesn’t adapt to keep up w changes of environment.
- new tech
- change in consumer tastes or expectations
- legal factors
- political factors
- economic factors
How should business evaluate strategic performance?
Business needs to evaluate whether the strategic planning is working, this is done by:
-monitoring whether all parts of the firm are meeting their targets for implementing strategic changes.
-performance should be measured by objectives in the plan
- competitive environment should be monitored to external factors that could lead to strategic drift can be spotted and acted on.
- to see if targets and objectives aren’t being met and why they aren’t.
-market analysis and management info systems.
What is the value of strategic planning?
- helpful as gives business a clear direction, and communicate exactly what business is trying to achieve.
- makes manager think about strengths and weakness of business and external threats and opportunities.
- can restrict businesses flexibility, employees might believe they have to follow plan even if situation has changed
- useful for business operating in stable markets rather than innovative markets that respond to change on regular basis.
What is the value of contingency planning and crisis management?
contingency planning is to minimise the impact of a significant foreseeable event and to plan for how the business will resume normal operations after the event, crisis management is handling potentially dangerous events for a business.
