• Change management is an aspect of management focusing on ensuring that the business responds to the environment in which it operates
  • Four key features of change management
    • Change is the result of dissatisfaction with present strategies
    • Essential to develop a vision for a better alternative
    • Necessary to develop strategies to implement change
    • There will be resistance to change

Internal Causes of Change

  • Arise from factors within the control of the business
    • Decisions taken by management

External Causes of Change

  • Arise from factors outside the control of the business
    • As a result of changes in the external environment

Forces for change

Internal forces

  • Desire to increase profitability
  • Reorganisation to increase efficiency
  • Conflict between departments
  • To change organisational culture

External forces

  • Customer demand
  • Competition
  • Cost of inputs
  • Legislation and taxes
  • Political
  • Ethics and social values
  • Technological change

Incremental vs Radical Change

Incremental

  • Small adjustments made gradually
  • Usually over a long period of time
  • Changes in order to reach a particular goal
  • Does not alter working practices in any significant way

Radical (step change)

  • A way to achieve the same goal but in a much shorter time
  • Has a significant effect and long-term effects on workplace practice
  • Requires careful management of the change process
  • Can have significant and distressing impact on employees

Disruptive change

  • An irreversible change to products, processes and markets; a change that alters the future completely from what it was before.
  • Disruptive innovation helps create new markets and disrupts existing markets.
Examples
  • Media Streaming
    • Netflix
    • YouTube
    • Spotify
    • Amazon Prime
  • Grocery Retailing
    • Ocado
    • Graze
    • Amazon Pantry
  • Travel and Accomodation
    • Expedia
    • TripAdvisor
    • Airbnb
  • Fashion Retail
    • ASOS
    • Net A Porter
  • Consumer file storage
    • Dropbox
    • Google Drive
    • Microsoft OneDrive
    • Apple iCloud