Organisational Change: Planning for Success in Rapidly Changing Business Environment - Essay Sample

Introduction

Benefits associated with organisational change can be very diverse. Therefore, in-depth and well-planned planning is vital in the long run to produce an outstanding outcome. Various multi-national enterprises have been at the forefront to change organisations to adapt and survive in the rapidly changing business environment. Despite the positive outcome associated with change, various firms fail to implement a good plan successfully. Therefore, due to the continually increasing rate of business failures in the modern business community, achieving a favourable organisational change remains a big problem for managers and executives. In this research paper, emphasis will be on the organisation change on Hewlett-Packard(HP), the largest technology company which majorly specialises in personal computer assembling, offers software packages, connectivity, and printing. HP has been for a lot of years proved to be a multi-national organisation with a well-strategised business plan. “Despite the PC market going down in the recent years, HP in 2019 managed to sell almost 60 million computers”(Tekahashi, 2019). Discussions will, therefore, concentrate on change in management and, through their recent experiences, decide whether the change leads to success or failure, the reason that led to change, propose a strategic recommendation to either improve or supplement the current change.

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Organisation Changes in HP

Just like other factors that help firms develop, consistent change is one important underlying factor in this category. However, organisational change is usually very complex, and a substantial amount of funds, resources, and time are needed to execute the move successfully. The process tends to be extremely messy and usually involves the joint coordination of various departments. It is paramount to note that change may happen to a specific department(s) leaving out the rest. For instance, due to delayed distribution of a firm's product in a particular geographical location, the organisation managers may resolve to change the method of delivery; hence, there may either decide to use a faster means of transport or set warehouse near the location to facilitate quick access to the products.

HP operations are usually guided by a very complex strategy formulated and established by the relevant executive managers. Therefore actions are checked by questions like why a particular manager acted in a specific manner. This means the process of change is very long since concerns like, “Where do we start with a change initiative? Which groups should we be working with? How will we know if we have made progress?"(Sano et al., 2010).

Figure 1 HP's decision-making framework

Note. An organisation change guideline and improvement criteria.

On 1 November 2019, When Enrique Lores became president of HP becoming the leader of the most significant PC business in the world, he promised to make organisational changes that will make the company remain the best (CRN, 2019). He became entitled to oversee a massive wave of transformation that will make the company more efficient, ensuring personal dealings with relevant partners and clients, while at the same time providing a substantial amount of resources and time are set aside to support innovation and services. The following are the areas the president promised to resolve:

Extensive Geographical Focus

An organisation structure is ideally a framework multi-national uses to check its operation. Each firm adopts an arrangement that suits the goal and visions of the company. Therefore, all geographical structures should reach all areas, even those that are remote and impossible to access. HP's overhaul of its worldwide operation model was a strategy that has the forefront in ensuring its continuous growth. The firm abandoned "its regional structure composed of Americans, Japan, Asia, and EMEA, thus remodeling to a central commercial unit with ten major geographical markets"(Braithwaite, 2019). Besides, each of these new strategic areas will be head by a managing director who will be reporting to the organisation chief commercial officer, Christoph Schell. Appointing veteran alike Christoph to be in charge of the most central position in the firm was very beneficial for the success of this strategy since he has been with the organisation for too long; therefore, he understood what the company needed to improve.

This new strategy has helped HP adopt a more practical approach on how to market globally to reach a broader market. "Geographical setting together with social proximity act as both centripetal force and a relocation plan towards a regionalised area”( Zhu et al., 2017). Thus, this particular geographical structure is one of a kind since each managing director operates as a company of its own. From the observations, the managers are obligated to undertake and spearhead day-to-day business operations like finance and marketing.

The shift from three to ten marketing models is the best move to integrate all the commercial activities under one more giant umbrella and, at the same time, speed the decision-making process. However, the idea behind this change was to propel forward the company's digital transformation and to improve the overall constancy. Furthermore, there is much importance of dividing a firm into different units to suit the various cultures, languages, and clients' preferences in the market areas.

Improving Client and Suppliers Contact

The organisational change in HP Company through the formation of the commercial organisation targeted the improvement of the interpersonal relationship between the clients and the suppliers; a lot of emphases are dedicated to the management of the consumer relationship due promote a positive outcome on the investment. HP's new organisation model aimed to improve these particular services. When this is done well, clients and suppliers feel excited working with the organisation; hence, they are more likely to engage in business activities in the future. This kind of strategy improves the image of the firm is the long run. As the organisation's image improves due to the excellent relationship, larger access to information builds; hence, the firm is made aware of the area to improve. In addition, the organisation is able to keep important information about its clients, which promotes professionalism in the firm.

The new organisational change in HP is responsible for the creation of a product and services portfolio. This means the new directors are solely responsible for formulating the best sales programs that align with the clients' trends and preferences. “Consumer expectations are the desires or wants of the consumer” (Berndt & Brink, 2004). This form of relationship is, therefore, very critical in the HP organisation as it facilitates not only the equal reach of the products but also those in demand.

Reason for Organizational Change

The organisation realised the need to remodel the structure of the organisation for the main purpose of streamlining the administrative operation to fully concentrate on the realignment to a change that focuses on the welfare of the consumers. Through their past experiences, the company saw the need to transfer responsibilities that were dedicated to the chief executive officer to the newly appointed chief of information. The firm's main commercial motive was to ensure full movement of innovative products and services to the two main countries that had a lot of rivalry tech firms, i. e. India and China. Despite these countries being marked as hostile competition areas, there were still HP's critical markets (Digital media News, 2011). Therefore, HP needed to change its structure after the exit of the former manager since the strategy being used at that time could not fully match the current situation being experienced by the company.

The Success of the Organizational Change at HP

After the review of the business model, HP successfully managed to attain its full potential through the marketing changes that encouraged the formation of new skills, adoption of new ways of conducting business and concentrates on product innovation. Also, HP company, as managed to become digitally enabled as clients, became the main priority of the organisation while preserving the culture, profit pools, and visions. This has an intern lead to the improvement of the firm's image and reputation.

According to a report by Tekahashi, HP attained 14.6 billion dollars of income compared to the past year was it scored a profit of 14.59 billion dollars (2019). These values reveal that the firm managed to double the revenue. The retail printing unit of HP was at a potential state of collapse, but through the new strategy, managers discovered the method of reducing cost was not working right. The latest change solved this problem by forming a multidisciplinary board for strictly strategic planning.

Lesson Learned and Recommendations

This study deals with the analysis of the change of organisational change, either in management, operation flow, or external relations. But this paper majorly concentrates on the outcomes associated with the managerial change in HP Company. “ A majority of the world's best organisation describes leadership development and organisation change as the real work of the organisation"( Carter et al., 2012). The manager is mandated with the responsibility of making critical decisions related to the change in the organisational structure when there is a desire to achieve a particular goal. Therefore, there exist various organisations models professionally formulated by management scientists, which organisations can adapt to suit the needs of the organisation at large.

HP being one of the biggest dealers in information technology has successfully managed to stay on top of the game due to its continually changing plan. The instance, the company was formally dealing with hardware shifted most of its operations to deal with software due to the increased demand. The managers should implement more solid strategies that strengthen the company’s relationship with those of the clients and suppliers. The following are the recommendation proposed;

Satisfaction

The clients always crave for maximum attention and easy access in all the stores to fully satisfy their needs. The idea can be made possible through the provision of quality time, excellent after-sales services, and affordable deals. The company should always create a caring environment for the clients, and also, the staff needs to be trained to adopt a positive attitude towards the customers continually. Also, good relation helps the firm know the precise areas with profitable customers.

Innovation Openness

The organisation should always be ready to listen to the demands and recommendations of the consumers since they know the products to a higher degree. Design actions help the company's decision maker's integrated the best solution into the firms’ agenda and visions as opposed to conventional problem solving method. Therefore, the company should be open and listen to their recommendations. In addition, innovative openness helps in understanding the role of customers in quality improvement. HP's should thus strive to maximise their strengths to outshine other rivalry firms in the tech industry.