Task
The world we are living in today is full of immense changes. One of the tasks required to be performed by organization leadership is to lead organization in a certain way in order to ensure that the whole organization is dedicated to change. The leadership should also ensure all the support mechanism are there in order to sustain the change.
This paper the student is tasked with doing research on industries that are currently experiencing marketplaces and demographic changes. Example of these industries are publishing industry, entertainment, bookstores, brick and mortar.
Once the student has choose one industry from above you are then required to explain how would you apply Kotter’s eights steps toward leading change within that organization.
Sample paper
Leading Organizational Change
Brick and Mortar Industry
The world is experiencing growth and expansion of e-commerce. This has resulted to a constant decline of sales in brick and mortar stores, in different parts of the world, as e-commerce makes most products available to customers at their convenience. According to PEW research conducted in 2016, about eight in ten American shop for their products online, with about 15% of people in the country purchasing different products online every week.
The number of online shoppers in the U.S. has increased from 22% as recorded in 2000, to 79% as recorded in 2016, which is a growth of 57% in a span of 16 years (Smith & Anderson, 2016). Consequently, a number of brick and mortar stores have been forced to close down, or change their way of doing business, to remain viable in the market. For instance, Toys “R” US is one of brick and mortar stores that were forced closed with emergence of e-commerce. Other struggling brick and store companies include those in shoes, toys, music and electronic appliances market among others (Richter, 2018).
Kotter’s eights steps
Kotter’s eight steps are used in this section to address the issues brick and mortar stores are experiencing with emergence of e-commerce. The first step would be realization of unfavorable upcoming situation and moving in urgency to counter the situation. In this case, the company is supposed to recognize the growing decline of sales, and move fast to identify the cause and the measure to be taken. The organization leaders should be swift to convince other stakeholders on the need for adapting the new technological trend, to remain competitive in the market.
Having agreed on need for change, the leader will need to establish a strong team that can lead the organization to change its operations, to integrate e-commerce services. The identified change will be based on clear vision of increasing sales, by targeting global customers through e-commerce, and with strategy of developing e-commerce platform and shipping mechanism. The organization leaders will also need to establish a blog and social media platforms, to use to communicate the company vision with its customers.
Read Also: Goal-Setting Framework (MGT 460)
Traditional ways of communication that were previously used to access customers should also be used to communicate new organization vision, to ensure that all customers have the needed information. The organization will then introduce training program where workers in the marketing and sales department will be taught on operating ecommerce business, and employing the best advertisement mechanisms and work efficiency, to win more customers and to build trust. Leaders will also define short-term milestones or goals to cultivate positive attitude and to motivate those in sales department to work even harder (Burke, 2008).
The organization will guarantee sustainable changes by cultivating innovative culture. This will ensure that the organization leads in change in the market, and that it is never caught up unaware as before. The leaders will also strive to ensure that the organization does not give up in the initial stages of introduction to e-commerce market, but instead, workers are always determined to win, by making sales and building more market shares, by expanding the company targeted market. The desired outcome would be revival of the sales rate, to surpass any past record in the company. The best supportive mechanism in e-commerce would be enhancing shipping services, and maintaining high quality of products and services, to win a huge number of trusted customers (Burke, 2008).
References
Burke, W. W. (2008). Organization change: Theory and practice (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Richter, W. (2018, May 19). Here’s which brick –and-mortar retailers are getting hit the hardest. Business Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/brick-and-mortar-retailers-getting-hit-the-hardest-2018-5?IR=T
Smith, A., & Anderson, M. (2016, Dec19). Online shopping and e-commerce. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/19/online-shopping-and-e-commerce/
