Change Management: Need of the hour

Change Management: Need of the hour

INTRODUCTION

Change management is managing the process of implementing major changes in IT, business

processes, organizational structures, and job assignments to reduce the risks and costs of change,

and to optimize its benefits. Change management is focused on the issues of managing the

resistance and discomfort experienced by people in an organization when new processes or

technology are introduced. (Managing Enterprise Content Glossary, retrieved October 5th, 2009)

Change management has been defined as ‘the process of continually renewing an organization’s

direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal

customers’ (Moran and Brightman, 2001: 111). According to Burnes (2004) change is an ever-

present feature of organisational life, both at an operational and strategic level. Therefore, there

should be no doubt regarding the importance to any organisation of its ability to identify where it

needs to be in the future, and how to manage the changes required getting there. Consequently,

organisational change cannot be separated from organisational strategy, or vice versa (Burnes,

2004; Rieley and Clarkson, 2001). Due to the importance of organisational change, its

management is becoming a highly required managerial skill (Senior, 2002). Graetz (2000: 550)

goes as far as suggesting ‘Against a backdrop of increasing globalisation, deregulation, the rapid

pace of technological innovation, a growing knowledge workforce, and shifting social and

demographic trends, few would dispute that the primary task for management today is the

leadership of organisational change.’ Since the need for change often is unpredictable, it tends to

be reactive, discontinuous, ad hoc and often triggered by a situation of organisational crisis

Burnes, 2004; De Wit and Meyer, 2005; Luecke, 2003; Nelson, 2003). Although he successful

management of change is accepted as a necessity in order to survive and succeed in today’s

highly competitive and continuously evolving environment (Luecke, 2003; Okumus and

Hemmington, 1998), Balogun and Hope Hailey (2004) report a failure rate of around 70 per cent

of all change programmes initiated. It may be suggested that this poor success rate indicates a

fundamental lack of a valid framework of how to implement and manage organisational change

as what is currently available to academics and practitioners is a wide range of contradictory and

confusing theories and approaches (Burnes, 2004). Guimaraes and Armstrong (1998) argue that

mostly personal and superficial analyses have been published in the area of change management,

and according to Doyle (2002) there is even evidence to suggest that with only a few exceptions

existing practice and theory are mostly supported by unchallenged assumptions about the nature

of contemporary organisational change management. Edmonstone (1995: 16) supports this

observation when stating ‘many of the change processes over the last 25 years have been subject

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to fundamental flaws, preventing the successful management of change’. Even though it is

difficult to identify any consensus regarding a framework for organisational change

management, there seems to be an agreement on two important issues.

Firstly, it is agreed that the pace of change has never been greater then in the current business

environment. Secondly, there is a consensus that change, being triggered by internal or external

factors, comes in all shapes, forms and sizes, and, therefore, affects all organisations in all

industries. While there is an ever-growing generic literature emphasising the importance of

change and suggesting ways to approach it, very little empirical evidence has been provided in

support of the different theories and approaches suggested (Guimaraes and Armstrong, 1998).

The purpose of this article is, therefore, to provide a critical review of theories and approaches

currently available in a bid to encourage further research into the nature of organisational change

with the aim of constructing a new and pragmatic framework for the management of it. In order

to do so the article has adopted Senior’s (2002) three categories of change as a structure with

which to link other main theories and approaches.

`These three categories have been identified as change characterised by the rate of occurrence,

by how it comes about, and by scale. Although total quality management (TQM), business

process re-engineering (BPR) and other change initiatives embrace several of these

characteristics (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2004; Pettinger, 2004)

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OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study is to gain an overview of change management

To understand what are the most important parts of change management according to the

literature

The following research question is answered: What is the importance of change

management for ICT project management?

To understand the reasons why change is needed today in the organisations

To know why managing change is important

To know the benefits of change management

To know significance of change management

To understand what role does change management play in an organization

To recommend strategies to implement change management in an organization

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LITRETURE REVIEW

A study on change management (Baekdal T., ed. al., 2006) says that there is a cultural change

taking place in the modern companies. The daily lives are becoming project oriented. Teamwork

has become important but still people today need to do work in their individual way. So we need

to alter our expectations and make our values like information, responsibility, awareness,

tolerance and teamwork more flexible and make them ready for the change. Working project

oriented for a specific task and working project oriented all the time is creating a management

problem in the companies. Change management deviates from traditional projects in the way that

it is more about people. Higher efficiency comes not from working harder, but from within.

Higher efficiency comes from inner-energy, self-motivation, self-worth, and complete

understanding for the entire process. We need to focus on this if we want to change or improve

the company.

Change management should focus on creating an environment in which the change can be

implemented (Kemp & Low 2008). This definition gives a basic starting point when trying to

understand the concept and planning change management practices. Price & Chahal (2006)

explain that change always requires a strategy. Implementing something new, such as an ICT-

system requires change as well as a strategy for it. To bring about effective change, change

management is needed. Although an extensive amount of literature exists on change

management, rather few of them provide a practical set of tools for it. According to Hughes

(2007), many scholars avoid giving explicit tools for change management because one set of

tools is not likelyto fit all situations. The author also makes a distinction between change

management tools and change management techniques. Hughes says that the environment of the

company has an effect on the tools and techniques to be used. By environment the author means

matters such as organizational and national culture, size of the organization, geographic location,

and in some cases even gender issues.

Change provoked by the outcome of the project can mean a number of things. It can be divided

into two larger entities: technological changes and cultural changes. Technological changes are

changes in systems and tools and this means that people must familiarize themselves with new

tools and ways of working. This can often be tackled by effective training and support. However,

cultural changes are more difficult to cope with. Cultural changes can mean changes in the

customs or the organization itself. Cultural changes can change management styles, attitudes,

standards, adaptability to change and power equilibrium. These kinds of changes easily create

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resistance and the issues must be effectively handled by the project manager. Tools for reducing

resistance include such as: user participation, effective communication, support, leadership and

commitment from the top. (Milis & Mercken 2002)

Customs organisations operate in a complex environment of constant change. They are required

to respond to the promotion of economic development and to comply with regional, national and

international obligations. To accommodate changes in these areas, it is important to determine ‘a

certain management type’ to implement change processes. As well, it is critical to identify the

most significant characteristics of change management theory. In defining change management,

the three constituents identified by Nickols (2004) – the task of managing change, a body of

knowledge, and an area of practical application – are regarded as being the most relevant to this

particular investigation. Having addressed the first two of Nickols’ constituents in part one of

this article, the last is now addressed and draws as well on Kanter’s (1999) approach. (Jansson J.,

n.d.)

Recent analyses of organizational change suggest a growing concern with the tempo of change,

understood as the characteristic rate, rhythm, or pattern of work or activity. Episodic change is

contrasted with continuous change on the basis of implied metaphors of organizing, analytic

frameworks, ideal organizations, intervention theories, and roles for change agents.

Episodic change follows the sequence unfreeze-transition-refreeze, whereas continuous change

follows the sequence freeze-rebalance-unfreeze. Conceptualizations of inertia are seen to

underlie the choice to view change as episodic or continuous.(Weick K. & Quinn R., 1999)

According to By R. (2005), it can be argued that the successful management of change is crucial

to any organisation in order to survive and succeed in the present highly competitive and

continuously evolving business environment. However, theories and approaches to change

management currently available to academics and practitioners are often contradictory, mostly

lacking empirical evidence and supported by unchallenged hypotheses concerning the nature of

contemporary organisational change management.

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APPLICABILITY FOR ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Reasons for Change

Changes in the organization may be driven by external or internal factors.

External factors like market conditions, state of the economy may cause the organization to take

decisions such as adding another product to the existing line or shutting down a particular

operation.

Technological innovation too may lead to changes. For instance increased automation may lead

to an issue of surplus manpower, which is a big change for the organization to tackle.

Internal factors may include changes in certain processes to make them more efficient or a

change in the organizational culture due to a takeover or merger.

Why Managing Change is Important

The importance of change management stems from the fact that change can and does affect the

organization at different levels and in different ways.

For instance, when the company has to respond to major external changes in the political or

economic environment, it may even necessitate altering the organization’s short and long-term

goals. This is a serious matter and the senior management may need the assistance of

independent change management consultants to manage the change effectively. The importance

of appropriate change management strategies in such a scenario extends to the very survival of

the organization.

In situations when the change is not so critical (but equally big), such as changes in a process or

introduction of a new product, the importance of change management lies in communicating the

changes adequately to the employees concerned. The idea is that if people are made aware why a

particular change is being implemented and how it will benefit the organization (and hence them

too), they are more open to accepting the change and learning to work with it. This reduces the

learning curve significantly.

Without good change management strategies in place, implementation of the change becomes a

nightmare.

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Benefits of Change Management

Working through a list of benefits of change management can be a really useful process and is a

step I insist those tasked with planning change should take. Why? Well, often we get so deep in

the planning process that we lose sight of the forest and only see the trees.

Reading through a broad list of benefits, such as those listed below, can spark really useful

thoughts and ideas about the change process you are working with.

You can use it as a checklist to hold against your planning.

As you run through these benefits of change management have a pen and paper nearby so you

can write down ideas that come to your mind, or areas of the change you'd like to pay more

attention to. You can ask "in what ways does this benefit correspond to my plan"?

The greatest importance of change management is that it provides conceptual scaffolding for

the people, the process, and the organisation implementing change. It is a framework used to

support and understand the change and its effect on the organization and its people.

Benefits of change management to the organization:

Change is a planned and managed process. The benefits of the change are known before

implementation and serve as motivators and assessment of progress

The organization can respond faster to customer demands

Helps to align existing resources within the organization

Change management allows the organization to assess the overall impact of a change

Change can be implemented without negatively effecting the day to day running of business

Organizational effectiveness and efficiency is maintained or even improved by acknowledging the

concerns of staff

The time needed to implement change is reduced

The possibility of unsuccessful change is reduced

Employee performance increases when staff feel supported and understand the change process

Increased customer service and effective service to clients from confident and knowledgeable

employees

Change management provides a way to anticipate challenges and respond to these efficiently

An effective change management process lowers the risk associated with change

Managed costs of change: change management helps to contain costs associated with the change

Increased return on investment (ROI)

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Creates an opportunity for the development of "best practices", leadership development, and team

development.

Benefits of change management for individuals / staff:

Effective change management supports a smooth transition from the old to the new while

maintaining morale, productivity, and even company image

Provides management and staff support for concerns regarding changes

An efficient change management process creates the correct perception of the change for

staff and public

Helps to plan efficient communication strategies

Minimizes resistance to change

Improves morale, productivity and quality of work

Improves cooperation, collaboration and communication

A carefully planned approach to change reduces stress and anxiety and encourages people to

stay loyal to the organization

Increased employee acceptance of the change

Personal loss/gain to individuals is acknowledged and addressed

Change management reduces disruptive aspects and emphasises positive opportunities in the

change process

Further benefits of change management:

Careful planning helps to ensure that the change process is started and managed by the right

people at the right time

Planned change management allows you to include specific tasks and events that are

appropriate for each stage in the change process

Change management ensures that customers, suppliers and other stakeholders understand and

support the change

Significance of Change Management

1. Understanding environment (society, government, customers)

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It is important for organization to understand, assess and gauge the dynamics in its external

environment in order to envisage and establish an appropriate relationship with various actors

like government, customers and society. Therefore managers by knowing the subject of change

management can better be prepared to understand whatever is going on in the environment.

2. Objectives, strategy formulation & implementation (to develop competitive advantage)

Second is consequent upon knowing the impact of change at extraneous level on its own internal

dynamics, and the foremost is objective setting and seeking competitive advantage.

3. Employees (trained, high performing work practices, reliable organisation)

The employees are the recipient of change plan. One such perpetual concern of senior managers

is to make organization highly reliable, therefore employees ought to be trained and high

performing one in today's hyper competitive world.

4. Technology Issues

Technology is considered the engine of growth in today's world. Perhaps the greatest challenge

for contemporary organizations is the acquisition and integration of technology in its strategy,

structure and process. As such the concern of top managers is how to avoid organization being

obsolete and how to cope and absorb the impact of changing information and communication

technologies which have decisively influencing production and consumption behaviour?

5. Globalization

The management of international economic and political forces what is today known as

internationalisation and globalisation is yet another important factor influencing decision making

of organization. No organization or nation can stay independent and indifferent to whatever is

happening at international (political) level. For instance the impact of September 11 events have

been tremendous on the economies and organizations of developing countries like Pakistan.

Similarly supra national institutions are becoming more assertive over nation states not only in

political terms but also on social issues like child labour and gender issues. So government and

states are considered somewhat less sovereign in imposing their will over their subjects

(individual and organizations) against the ever increasing and complex interdependencies

amongst states. For example the compulsions and legal provisions of international treaties like

WTO and ISO certification regimes have decisively influenced the organizations and economies

of the developing world. Hence imperative for managers, CEOs and entrepreneurs from smaller

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or larger organizations alike, of different sectors of economy, is to understand the complexities

of globalisation and its impact on organization' business.

Role of Change Management in an Organization

Change management plays an important role in any organization since the task of managing

change is not an easy one. When we say managing change we mean to say that making changes

in a planned and systemic fashion. With reference to the IT projects we can say the change in the

versions of a project and managing these versions properly. Changes in the organization or a

project can be initiated from within the organization or externally. For example a product that is

popular among the customers may undergo a change in design based on the triggering factor like

a competitive product from some other manufacturer. This is an example of external factor that

triggers a change within the organization. How the organization responds to these changes is

what that is more concerned. Managing these changes come under change management.

Reactive and proactive responses to these changes are possible from an organization.

Change management is done by many independent consultants who claim to be experts in these

areas. These consultants manage the changes for their clients. They manage changes or help the

client make the changes or take up the task themselves to make the changes that must be made.

An area of change that needs attention is selected and certain models, methods, techniques and

tools are used for making these changes that are necessary for the organization.

When there is a process in an organization it is not an easy task to make changes to this process

immediately. Sometimes a single organization may have varied business entities and changes in

an entity may be reflected in another entity. In such organizations changes are not so easy. There

are different types of organizations which have many branches across the world with varied

cultures. Implementing a change in such organizations is a task by itself.

The change process can be thought of a process which stops the current process, makes the

necessary changes to the current process and the run the new process. It is easy said than

implemented. Stopping a current process in some industry is fatal for that organization. Hence it

has to be done in steps which have the minimal effect in the process. These changes cannot take

place for a longer time in the organization since that may also be a disaster for the organization.

The involvement of the staff concerned is also very important for the change process to be

smooth.

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The change process could also be considered as a problem solving situation. The change that is

taking place could be the result of a problem that has occurred. You should know that a problem

is a situation that requires some action to be taken positively to handle that situation. This

positive action is known as problem solving. The change process could be problem solving for a

particular situation. In this process there is a move from one to state to another so that the

problem gets solved. The change process is leaving the current state and moving to the final state

through some structured organized process.

Managing the changes in an organization requires a broad set of skills like political skills,

analytical skills, people skills, system skills, and business skills. Having good analytical skills

will make you a good change agent. You should evaluate the financial and political impacts of

the changes that can take place. You should know that following a particular process at that

instant would fetch you immediate financial effects and start that process so that the change

process is noted by the management. The workflow has to be changed in such a manner to reflect

the financial changes that are taking place. Operations and systems in the organization should be

reconfigured in such a manner that you get the desired financial impact.

Hence change management plays an important role in an organization. This allows the

organization to give a reactive or a proactive response to the changes that happen internally or

externally. Knowing the change management and its process would help an organization and it s

processes to be stable.

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CONCLUSIONS

The constant growth in world trade, globalisation processes and security requirements are putting

pressure on all stakeholders to adapt to the changing conditions. Nowadays, customs

organisations are facing very real challenges as their performance has a significant impact on the

flow of trade and revenues. It follows, therefore, that finding effective tools for handling changes

is one of the keys to survival in a rapidly changing world. There is a range of management

theories that deal with change processes and offer various perspectives.

Change management differs from other management systems by adopting a holistic approach to

the problem of change. Reform efforts must be based on the internal and external conditions of

the organisation. Change management strategies range from the empirical-rational, normative-

reductive, power coercive and environmental. The choice of strategy depends on the target

group, the degree of people’s resistance to change, timeframe, expertise, and other factors.

Strong and qualified leadership, deep conviction, motivation, patience and flexibility must

endure and are needed to manage the sometimes messy and turbulent process of change as well

as to handle any resistance to that change.

Change efforts stand or fall by their leaders. A clever and skilled leader has the ability not only

to achieve good results in business performance but also to effectively manage the human

aspects of change. Based on basic human needs, strong motivation is one of the most effective

tools in achieving sustainable results.

It is evident from this article that change is an ever-present element that affects all organisations.

There is a clear consensus that the pace of change has never been greater than in the current

continuously evolving business environment. Therefore, the successful management of change is

a highly required skill. However, the management of organisational change currently tends to be

reactive, discontinuous and ad hoc with a reported failure rate of around 70 per cent of all change

programmes initiated (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2004). This may indicate a basic lack of a valid

framework of how to successfully implement and manage organisational change since what is

currently available is a wide range of contradictory and confusing theories and approaches,

which are mostly lacking empirical evidence and often based on unchallenged hypotheses

regarding the nature of contemporary organisational change management.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Make broader use of theoretical approaches and practical methods of change management

with regard to both the administration of customs and taxation.

Elaborate an implementation strategy that includes motivational elements. This depends on

the people in charge of implementation learning how people are influenced by the

comprehensive changes demanded by the new customs strategy.

Launch a uniform information campaign about the new customs strategy. Since the new

customs strategy entails changes that will influence the whole organisation to a certain

degree, all staff members must receive adequate information.

Estimate the time needed for implementation tasks and relieve persons responsible for these

tasks from their regular work assignments accordingly. This will also raise levels of

motivation as it will send a clear and distinct signal that implementation tasks are accorded

high priority.

Calculate and plan the time for regular follow-up meetings with every group as well as joint.

Information meetings with all persons in charge. This information should be passed on to

those people who will implement the results achieved by change leaders in practice.

Design and launch training for team building so that all those involved work towards a

common goal. Start from the top; Top managers must provide an example in this respect.

Design and launch methods that can influence trade and the wider public in order to achieve

the preventive effects desired. Dealing with preventive issues is one of the most complicated

tasks in customs business.

Develop methods to deal with resistance to the change process and train change managers

accordingly. This is a frequent problem in situations relating to comprehensive changes:

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people working in the organisation oppose the changes because they will disrupt their regular

working routines and create insecurity.

Start benchmarking programs to obtain a broader view of stakeholders’ needs and

expectations. In other words, collect external opinions about Customs’ performance and

make use of others’ experiences from large-scale reform efforts. These reference points can

also be used to measure the value and quality of the customs strategy.

Reduce the old-fashioned, bureaucratic decision-making system and introduce delegation of

power to middle managers. Routines should be reformed and replaced by an improved

system of delegation and follow-up.

Analyse and select the most appropriate methods for the various tasks required by the new

customs strategy. There are essential differences in the methodologies for implementing legal

changes and those that influence attitudes and values in the provision of service and

prevention.

Analyse and identify the most appropriate models of organisational schemes and

management, bearing in mind the different nature of the tasks to be performed by Customs.

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Change Management: Need of the hour