Analyzing Organizational Change Management At Woolworths
Overview of Woolworths
Change Management is all about moving from one state to another one. In particular, from a problem state to a solved state. It is regarded to be an approach that directs the transition of organisations and has an influence over the overall productivity of the organisation. For surviving in a long run, change within an organisation is very important as it brings a change in the strategies that the company is following from a quite long period of time (Waddell et al. 2013). This paper will elaborate on the researching about Woolworths thoroughly by using different non-academic sources and literatures on the organisational change. It would make use of wide range of theories on change and the concepts for informing and underpinning a critical analysis of the practical data and information that are gathered about the company. Furthermore, it would also provide few recommendations for the future change improvements that are required in Woolworths.
Being recognised as one of the most renowned and best retail brands in Australia, Woolworths Limited is continuously endeavouring for delivering high quality experiences to all its customers present across its available stores in different Australian region. Along with continuous evaluation and innovation process, Woolworths is considered to the be a perfect example for who has reflected as incredibly growing in terms of delivering different services such as petrol, liquor, home improvements and food services (Hill and Day 2015). It blends the changing business environment and also made significant changes for the purpose of accomplishing the ever-extended demands of its customers as well as greater values of the choices of theirs. The management department of Woolworths believe in the fact retailing should be continuous and it is very essential to admit that the decision regarding the consumers as well as their shopping behaviour should change in dynamic way. The company is responding towards this new era of technological and scientific development through means of improving the foundations in order to increase the growth and level of opportunities. Woolworths is putting its customer demands at the heart of its business and therefore the management of Woolworths has significantly changed the way or concept of selling their products and services by accepting the use of mobile technology and by increasing accessibility towards the price and product fixation processes (Scott and Walker 2017). It has very recently changed this process in order to keep a pace with the current trends and increasing demands. However, while looking towards for improving the customer experiences it has neglected its employee satisfaction level and has faced structural change recently. A majority of the section of its senior employees has left Woolworths as because of the fact that they lose trust on its organisational operations. Hence, the company is at present failing to meet the demand of its customers by delivery their requirements (Waddell et al. 2013). It is facing a significant change the subsidiary companies and some of its many subsidiaries are struggling very hard for surviving in today’s market. It is also to note that the majority of the issues are taking place in its SAP structure. The loss of faith in the process of management has resulted in notable change in the structure of the employees. The overambitious objective and goal of the company’s management has forced the workforce to quit the organisation. With the same, the continuous loss has resulted in the downfall of Woolworths in term of morale. The company has recently faced huge departure of its senior executives. The focus is now highly shifted to the revival of the sick units through means of cost cutting. Furthermore, it is also to mention that Woolworths have very recently announced a cut down in about 400 executive jobs. Due to the implementation of the reorganisation plan in the company, Woolworths has also lost many of its senior employee support and now, it putting majority part of its savings in reviving the sales. This situation of Woolworths is making it lose its customer relationship, loyalty and marketing. Hence, there is a high need for Woolworths to adopt a policy that is determined and relentless in nature. In order to keep a pace with the changing business environment and to achieve in this long run, it is very necessary for Woolworths to bring back its former image as well as the faith within its senior executives. The management team of Woolworths is losing faith in it that is affecting the stability of the employees. With the same, Woolworths have recently faced a loss of about 1.235 billion dollars in the year 2016. This loss took place because of the failure in Big W business and the Master business. It is considered to be the biggest loss of Woolworths in last twenty years.
Strategies Adopted by Woolworths
The organisational development or the change management interventions refer to the sequence of a well-planned actions, events and activities that are intended towards helping a company to improve its effectiveness and performance. The two interventions that have been recently implemented within Woolworths are of the Human Resource Management intervention and techno-structural intervention.
The Human Resource Management intervention deals with the problem related to the social process like the things that are taking place among the employees of the organisation like that of communication, leadership, decision-making and group dynamics. There are several types of HR intervention- the group bases, individual based and intergroup based. In Woolworths there has been changes identifies in its organisational structure and hence, it is very important to understand the dynamics of the company. Human Resource intervention is a very important step towards making a combination of the overall efforts of the company due to the fact that it looks forward to its interest. In this intervention, the reward points are one of the significant and most used initiative by different multi-national companies in order to accelerate its sales. It is also to note that customer service is a very important aspect of human resource intervention and its focus is towards the overall growth and development of the firm instead of any particular segment.
Woolworths has implemented reward system within its organisation. It is considered to be the most attractive reward system for the organisation to hold its customers. The reward points of Woolworths lay emphasis on attracting more and more customers. Through this, Woolworths has generated a team of some loyal customer force who are there with the firm from a quite long period of time. The company has also launched several programs such as the orange bill in order to enhance its sale. These are some of the very catchy schemes that are been launched by the company for holding its customers. The strategy that Woolworths has been used is to reward every customers who spend many dollars to purchase their products from Woolworths. With the same, the organisation has also introduced many redemption schemes like Qantas points, money off shopping etc. for its customers in order to retain them as well as to attract more new customers towards its business. These strategies were proven to be very successful and helpful for the company in retaining its customers. It is natural fact that customers tend to buy those products that they get at huge discounts. Hence, the reward point has proved itself to be a good strategy for the Woolworths to pay back to its loyal customers and to generate a good consumer rally.
Challenges Faced by Woolworths
Techno-structural intervention
The Techno-structural interventions are the change programs that focus on the structure and the technology of the company and they focus on technological changes, environmental changes and global competition. It is flexible deign oriented and is highly adaptable in nature. Some of the most common examples of techno-structural interventions are that of structural design, downsizing, process reengineering, employee involvement, work design, team based organisation, total quality management and the quality of the work life programs. In case of Woolworths, it has also undergone technological changes in recent years. The technology has added value to the organisation as technology has always resulted in bringing people close to one another. In today’s highly competitive business environment, technology has become one of the most important element for success. The customers are highly inclined towards the company that are technologically upgraded and updated. Now is the era of e-commerce and in this era technology plays a crucial part in satisfying the needs and objectives of human beings. The organisation that is known to be technologically handicapped could not survive in any way in this long run. A large section of the customers in today’s world buy goods or products through online means. Hence, the firms that are providing smooth and easy flow of innovation and technology are considered to be the best ones by the people.
The selected diagnostic model of organisational behaviour in this case is of Problem-centric model/approach of diagnosing the change. This model is considered to be one of the key activity of managing the change in most appropriate manner. The problem-centric model is based on the conscious efforts in identifying the symptoms and the causes (Rosenbaum, More and Steane 2016). In this particular model, the emphasis is laid on creating different occasions for the dialogues for striving for capitalisation. All these values basically underlies on the orientations for the purpose of discussing the approaches for change (Lozano, Ceulemans and Seatter 2015). Furthermore, the problem-centric model of diagnosis is regarded to be logical empiricism that is dependent upon the philosophy of Positivism. The main orientation considers the relevance of the open system perspectives in order to conduct the diagnosis processes and activities.
This model of organisational behaviour was selected for the diagnosis process due to several benefits that it possess. It involved satisfying the final objective. This approach or model has taken into consideration the various different activities that are in relation with the change management in Woolworths emphasizing on the procedures and the processes. The present plans and strategies regarding business growth of f Woolworths prioritises matters like extension of the leadership in both its liquor and food business segment (Trevena et al. 2014). This in particular acts as the portfolio analysis in order to maximise the values of the shareholders. This in turn also allows the maintenance of proper records of accomplishment for the development of new and innovative growth business. Furthermore, it also helps in putting the activities in exact place while enabling the new generation of growth and development. The Problem-centric model helps the managers of the organisations in communicating some well-prepared change message for the Woolworths Limited for some better understanding of the different activities (Ceulemans, Lozano and Alonso-Almeida 2015). This model also helps in enabling effecting communication among the team members and this in turn allows transferring of single messages as well as it accompanies them by supporting the materials for the Woolworths limited (Jabri 2015). Furthermore, this model also explains the company how to move away from the current stages and the dangers for staying at that specific place.
Change Management Interventions at Woolworths
Review of the Intervention of Human Resource Management
It is very important for an organisation to focus on building a powerful internal alignment. All the resources that are available for the organisation must therefore be focused on creating some competitive advantages for it in order to give customers some sort of reasons to choose them over other brand to buy goods as well as employees to choose them from other organisations to work in. It is to note that survival is possible only when the organisation knows how to compete with its competitors. Although Woolworths is working well as per the assessment of last two years’ business practices of it, still it needs to match all its resources along with the available opportunities. This company needs to accelerate all its resources in order to establish a very good customer-company relationships. However, the most important thing to mention in this context is that making changes and innovation in the internal policies of the company is very important in order to bring in an actual change in the overall business (Kivimaa and Kern 2016). It is to mention that the current market position of Woolworths is very poor. Woolworths is losing its customers to other competitive organisation in the market (Weill and Woerner 2015). If it continue to conduct its business in this manner then within few years, it will be depleted. Hence, it is very important to incorporate good reward system and think about good reward strategies in order to attract more and more customers as well as the hold the older ones.
Woolworths is highly focused on providing best experiences to all its customers and this can only be done if it provide its services in better ways than it was actually doing. Its main focus should be on improving the overall experiences of the market. This is what Woolworths has realised later. Woolworths has implemented the intervention policies very carefully according to the recent changes in the market and in customer demands. The four frame models created by Dela and Bolman has helped Woolworths in understanding the prevailing situation that Woolworths was going through (Lowe, Plummer and Boyd 2017). As it is already mentioned that the primary aim of the organisation was and is still is to satisfy the r requirements and the demands of its customers, but the international competition is s still creating an obstacle towards the growth and success of the company is making it difficult to survive. It is to note that every other individual has his own skills, feelings and perception towards a specific thing. He has his own set of opportunities. This four frame model is therefore necessary to be focused on by Woolworths. Woolworths still need to focus all its business strategies on its customers along with its employees as well as because of the fact that the senior employees were leaving the organisation due to several reasons. The focus is now highly shifted to the revival of the sick units through means of cost cutting. Furthermore, it is also to mention that Woolworths have very recently announced a cut down in about 400 executive jobs. It needs to change them all in order to retain both its customers as well as employees and to survive in this business world. It should understand that the customer will buy a product only when they will find the products along with the services easy and interesting (Lai et al. 2016). The major change that this organisation has faced very recently is in its sector of senior executive and it has faced a significant drop down in the profit of 2016 that has made a very incredible difference in the overall business of the organisation. It has faced a huge internal structural change (Mitchell 2013). Most of its stores are closed as because of the fact that Woolworths was failing in performing well in the market. Hence, it is to state that Woolworths need to focus greatly on the techniques of saving instead of investing on the other places. It needs to focus more on its key strengths for the survival. The reward point of Woolworths could prove to be one of the major strategies in order to incorporate most of the changes.
Human Resource Management (HR) Intervention
Conclusion
Hence, through describing the major contribution of the organisational change in context to Woolworths, it can be said that for further growth of this business, alteration or change in the prevailing strategies, concepts and policies of Woolworths is very much essential. This paper has shed light on the change in management process of this company that is caused because of the recent events taking place in it. The ultimate goal for any business is to fulfil the demands of its customers while making profit. Hence, a continuous evaluation and change are essential for Woolworths for making sure that there is sustainability in this present competitive business world.
In order to ensure that Woolworths is more effective and efficient in the ongoing change management and for further improvements, the following recommendations are made-
- Woolworths need to implement a problem-centric model in its daily working activities. Instead of spending its total income on sectors other than itself, it should focus more on its savings in rejuvenating the sick units. Woolworths should call off all the units that are incurring significant losses and the ones that are not making any profits for the company.
- Furthermore, Woolworths should also focus on the creation of competitive advantage of itself over the other different significant brand present in the market. It should use all its resources for making huge profits and for building a long lasting relationship with its stakeholders, partners and the customers. A well-structured plan is necessary to implement for procure profits.
- With the same, Woolworths must establish its online presence to a great extent. It is very necessary for any business to make significant profits in today’s digital world that is highly dependent on social media. Majority of the part of society today buy things through online. Hence, Woolworths need to focus more on its online business and online product sales. It would help this company in adding new customers as well as for retaining the older ones.
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