Discuss about managing change………………..

Introduction

Section A

Gold Touch Wholesales Company

Gold Touch Wholesales Company is an American public limited company listed in the American Stock Exchange and one that opened its operations 10 years ago. It is an organization that purely deals with homecare products, detergents, cosmetic and all forms of baby products. It focuses on more than one product and has a geographically wide coverage for its products. It has since then been expanding its operations to the international market. The company has its sub branches spread all over the United States and other countries world wide.

I was recently employed in the organization and asked to undertake a project feasibility study on Gold Touch Wholesales Company. The Company has been undergoing a lot of problems lately which made the Company experience a reduction in prices for goods and services and loss of customers.

Key information that needs to be addressed is as follows:

As a company, you should make long term plans which will assist you in making reliable predictions. It is proper to draft a sound strategic plan that focus on details for measuring delivery and establishing of immediate actions not medium to long term plans.Furthermore, you need to arrange for communicating methods and forums to enhance immediacy in decision making and reviews (Kalyani 2011). It is also essential to encourage the participation of interested people so as to allow their input to be gained and their expectations and commitment to be secured.

Delegation of power and responsibilities will empower individuals to make crucial decisions at the local operating level and thus make recommendations which can be approved instantly. Moreover, there is a need to remove autocracy and interference within the organization which acts as obstacles to establishing a sustainable and successful culture. There is also a need to establish an environment of trust through two-way feedbacks and open door policies. There is need to listen without interfering or defending any of the feedbacks even when they are critical views or notions. Lastly, failure is inevitable whenever employees and the management work towards implementing change. Individuals should accept failure as an inevitable part of learning and sending positive views to consumers (Agboola, 2011).

After taking notes from interviews and questionnaires from employees and managers it is clear that Gold Touch wholesales is in dire need for change. Some of the issues that were dominantly addressed include:

Most employees argue that, there have been increased failures and unplanned consequences occurring in the company and no one has been addressing these issues because there have been fears related to job sacking. Monotonous activities and programmes have led to a lack of improvement in design and implementations thus the same brand of products have been circulating in the market. Team members have no time for learning, planning and reflecting on how they should come up with new brands. In addition, Gold Touch Wholesales has suddenly lost the initiative to attempt something different that would help them come up with new ideas and goals in the near future. Evidence has it that, the Leadership of the company has been inconsistent and in a way it has de-moralized most of the staff members and employees in the organization. Some employees have raised concerns on how they have been kept in the dark since a majority of the projects and payments have been made without their consent.

Other possible reasons for Gold Touch Wholesales organizational change were as follows:

Even though Gold Touch has been expanding its territories it is experiencing tough foreign regulatory requirements from competing companies existing in the outside countries. This has a long term effect on the production of goods and services. Moreover, Restrictions on monetary terms has been a major challenge on the company’s functioning systems. It has been hard to operate or even link with outside branches due to these monetary restrictions. In addition, administrative layers of Bureaucracy which act as buffers and censors vital information have been a common practice in the company over a long period of time. This has led to insufficient information been passed on to the direct service level. At the same time, Kirst-Ashman, Karen and Hull (2001) are for the idea that an organization may opt for change when the client’s needs change. Customers vary in tastes and preferences thus they tend to be attracted more to a product that is of high quality than a previous one which had lacked the required qualities.

Section B

According to Thompson (2003a), it is important for any company or enterprise to conduct a project feasibility study. Feasibilities studies are important since they indicate whether a company will progress with the proposed ventures of change or not. If the company finds it crucial and that all the requirements are quantifiable, then it can be at liberty to draft a business plan which now puts all the ideas and thoughts presented into reality. It is advised for any enterprise or company not to proceed with the project plans and changes if the venture itself is not satisfactory. According to Aziz (2007) and Wang et al. (2000), the crucial merit of a Project Feasibility Study is that managerial experience of the any company enables it to quickly implement projects and with a desirable quality. Project Feasibility Study touches on issues and areas related to the target market, technical advances, organizational requirements and financial overviews.

Project Feasibility Study Outline

This project feasibility study will help your organization in locating obstacles, determine the viability of the project concept and devise necessary changes to be done in your organization. The success and future of any organization will entirely depend on how well the manager handles change. The Means of managing change depends on a company’s growth and success. Organizations can achieve sustainable organizational excellence through evaluation of products and services, target market and other factors.

Product or service

The following criterion has to be applied in order to evaluate your products or services.

Use simple language when it comes to describing your company’s products or service. There is need to give the company a product mix since it focuses on more than one product.

Give descriptions on how the consumer would purchase and make use of the service or product. Detailing of your products or services will help the user judge the effectiveness of your market and position plans.

Give descriptions on raw materials or key ingredients that are to be used in the new product and detail how the company will source these raw materials according to their availability.

Give descriptive plans on how to upgrade your product or how you should expand your product line. Ensure that your product and services are not an imitation or a copy of your competitors by establishing methods on how to make them differ.

Target Market

The following criterion has to be applied in order to evaluate your target market.

Give descriptions and definitions about the target market thus it will help in distinguishing between customers and end users.

Give clarifications on how the end-user and customers would benefit from the products and services, their reasons for buying and how they are purchasing the products and services. Establish your opportunities and strengths to determine the level of projected market demand versus the actual market demand. From your projected needs, find out whether the products and services are fulfilled.

Establish the market size of your targeted users and where they are located and find out more if the target market is expected to expand in the future.

Evaluate your competing scale or graph by identifying your competitors in the market and examine if they are a mature industry or not in relation to their pricing. Get to know learn more about their strengths and weaknesses since it will help you know where to grade yourself in the market environment.

Examine your competitor’s reaction upon your entrance in the market and look for ways on how to gain a market share. It will help you to analyze the opportunities and threats of your competitors and devise better ways of improving products and services.

Find out what industry the target market is in, the key players, how frequently they purchase the products and their purchasing power for this will play a big role when it comes to pricing of goods and services.

Determine the demographic factors such as the level of education, religion, gender, age and ethnicity. It will assist you to know the consumers’ tastes and preferences thus you will be in a position of retaining a consistent graph in quality and quantity of products and services.

Evaluate the psychographic factors and relevant behavioral factors such as shopping behavior and the frequency of product purchase.

Marketing and sales strategy

The following criterion has to be applied in order to evaluate your Marketing and sales strategy

You need to find out whether the company has any strategic partnership or is in the process of forming one. Ask yourself whether you provide necessary market access. By doing so, it will help you to lay down your rights and responsibilities.

You should find out the nature of your distribution strategy and the methods you use in selling products and services to your clients. Furthermore, establish ways of selling for example you can sell through internet, direct mail or other social networks such Skype.

You must ensure that you provide a projected mark-up expectation, commissions and profit margin and an inclusion of other expected compensations.

Give a description of the pricing justification, strategy and the required gross profit margins.

Ensure that you give a description of the intended terms of payment for your customers by spelling out issues such as warranties and their impact on the user.

You should ensure that you quantify the marketing budget for the first year since it will help you in knowing your company’s performance.

Competition

The following criterion has to be applied in order to evaluate your competitors and competition in the market.

Give a description of indirect and direct competition with regards to the targeted markets by conducting a strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) analysis. In addition you should make a list of all key barriers to market entry and establish methods of getting rid of these barriers.

Ensure that you describe your product’s uniqueness in comparison to your competitors. In this case, consistency is crucial so as to maintain customers’ loyalty.

On top of this, you should state the degree of complexity and ambiguity of your product so as to make it impossible for the competitor to imitate your brand.

Give a description on how your competitors would react upon the launching of your product. It is important to know their reactions so that you would be in a better position to improve on the flaws of your product. In addition, you should also estimate the time it might take a competitor to copy your product or service.

Financial overview

The following criterion has to be applied in order to evaluate your financial overview.

List down your sources of finance and the uses, applications of these finances.

Give a brief description of the total start-up costs that you require in order to begin your new operations. For example find out the capital costs of equipment, plant and land. Also include other costs such as accounting and legal costs.

Evaluate your operating costs and the daily costs involved in running your business for example, utility costs, rent, electricity bills, and water bills. This will assist you in determining the cash flow requirements.

Be in a position to describe your revenue projections and how you will determine your pricing arrangements. This will help you in estimating your break-even points.

Clearly state your possible sources, your possible lenders and general limitations and terms of borrowing.

Advantages of the project feasibility study and change process

The project feasibility study will help the team members and the managers to focus on the project objectives and outline the alternatives. This feasibility study will assist in the change processes and progress as the business tends to narrow its alternatives. Furthermore, as the organization undergoes an investigative process, it will be in a better position to identify new opportunities. The study will also help managers be in better positions of making decisions whether to undertake the project process or not. In summary, the company will also be in a better position of securing funding from other monetary sources and lending institutions.

Disadvantages of change process

According to Agboola (2011), Change may not be easily accepted by all and thus it needs to be managed. Not everyone is excited about change and so most of the employees may not like the idea of change since they assume that changes come with huge responsibilities ahead. He adds that as changes occur in the organizations, deviant behavior among people become rampant.

Adapting to the new environment may take a long time. Most people are unwilling to work in new or hostile environments since they were familiar with the previous ones. Therefore, some opt to shift and look for new places of work.

Recommendations

According to Kalyani (2011), for an effective and efficient working environment, managers need to enable, develop and encourage teams to be actively participating in other areas of the organization so as to get rid of monotony and boredom in one given sector of the working unit. In order to enable an effective information management and establish active team working capabilities, there is a need to optimize information and communications technology (ICT) systems.Moreover, to implement accountabilities and method, agree short term action plans and review priorities, there needs to be arrangement done on how to establish workshops and seminars.Furthermore,in order to accelerate the development of people to contribute to a culture of empowered dynamism, adjustments in training and recruitment programmes have to be made. Employees need to embrace change and as the managing board you should welcome their inputs so that they will better accept and appreciate the reasons for change.

In conclusion, change has become the key aspect of any organization since we are in highly competitive environments where innovations are consistent and competition is stiff. Therefore, no company can afford to remain stagnant as others progress because this will lead to them being knocked out of the competitive market.

References

Agboola, A. (2011) managing deviant behavior and resistance to change. International Journal of Business & Management, Vol.6 Issue 1, (p242.)

Aziz, A. M. A. (2007) Successful delivery of public-private partnerships for infrastructure development, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management-ASCE, 133(12), pp. 918–931.

Kalyani, M. et al. (2011) human resource strategy: A tool of Managing Change for organizational Excellence. International Journal of Business & Management, Vol. 6 Issue 8, (p280-286).

Kirst-Ashman, Karen K. & Hull Jr., Grafton. H. (2001) Generalist Practice with Organizations and Communities. (p 165-220) Belmont, CA, Wadsworth/Thomson.

Thompson, A. (2003a).Business feasibility studies: dimensions of business viability.Perth, Best Entrepreneur.

Wang, S. Q., Tiong, R. L. K., Ting, S. K. and Ashley. (2000) Evaluation and management of

Political risks in China’s BOT projects, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management-

ASCE, 126(3), pp. 242–250.

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