Managing the change process is a big step for M&S. Recently; M&S has made a massive change by introducing their new green issues programme. They made a big change in their product categories and create a big change for adapting new policies. Change management needs to consider about the potential challenges and some key barriers. M&S can reduce their barriers by increasing the customer’s relationships and by creating common objectives for gaining the competitive advantage. M;S need to involve their skills employee in the change management process and use them to gain the success. This study critically several areas of change management process and identify the factors of creating success for M;S with the help of using theories and examples.
Introduction: Managing the change is a big issue for any organisation when they are going to expand their business operations. Change is a continuous process and organisations need to have a continuous plan for overcoming the barriers of change process. An effective change management programme can find out the potential problems and create more options for developing new opportunities (Boddy, 2010).
There are several types of changes may occurs in any organisation such as technological changes, cultural changes, changes in the processing system or changes in the buying habits of the customers. Depending on the nature of the changes organisations need to take several types of change management programme for evaluating the change management process. On the basis of M;S this study considers the change management issues.
Organisational Background: Based on M;S this research will critically evaluates the change management process of M;S. In the year 2011, M;S has introduced their Plan-A programme which has created a massive change for this organisation. M;S has created a five year eco-programme for creating environmentally friendly products and making their contributions towards their satisfaction of corporate social responsibilities (M;S, 2011). This plan-A programme considers some important issues such as becoming carbon neutral or considering no waste to the land fill. It also thinks about the people’s living styles and creating people’s interest towards using something good. It also creating good relationships with the supply chain and creating good life styles for the customers (M;S, 2011).
Under this Plan-A programme M;S has also considered some important issues such as improving the continuous process of the eco-programme and measuring the customer’s demand accordingly. It has invented a social development programme for Uganda and made an appraisal of helping 15,000 children to provide the quality services. It has made a tight plan for saving 55,000 tons of CO2 per year and recycled 48 millions of clothing hangers (M&S, 2011). In order to fulfil the customer’s demand towards the organic food it has increase their production into tripled and made their big contributions towards making the fair trading issues. M;S also taking some key initiatives for creating the socially acceptable brand and provide more value to the customers. It tries to create a good image of the company towards the customer’s mind (M&S, 2011).
This plan-A programme is sending the positive image about the company in the competitive market and it is also creating customer’s attraction. M;S has made a research on identifying the customer’s concern towards the green issues and found that 11% of the total populations are darkly green that means they will not buy the products if that is not environmentally friendly products, 27% of the total population is slightly green it means that they always look for the environmentally friendly products and if they found something than they will be happy to accept that. In addition, 38% of the total populations are slightly concern about the green issues and 24% of the populations are not interested of any green issues or environmentally friendly products (Jobber, 2010).
From this survey it was show that almost three-quarter of the British population is concerning about the green issues or taking care of environmentally friendly products. These people are concerning about satisfying the social demand and thinking about which is creating a big interest in consumer’s mind and influencing the consumers to buy the products more. Change management plan of M;S is considering creation of new interest for customers and thinking more about the creating the customer’s relationships. It is helping them to gain the competitive advantage and increase the social relationships with the organisation.
By creating the good image in the consumer’s mind M;S is accelerating their sales and creating new market opportunities (Jobber, 2010). This study critically evaluates several factors which are making the change for M;S and explores the challenges of the change management by using theory and models. Ideas from this study can help the managers to evaluate a successful method for managing the change.
Factors of change: Before evaluating the change management process it is important to identify the key factors that are creating the change for M;S. There were two major factors which are creating the change for M;S such as:- a) Internal Factors: Different types of internal factors are creating the change for M;S including the structure of the organisation, changes in the technological process, organisational culture, interest of the employees, decision made by the top level management of M;S.
Because of increasing customer’s awareness top management of M&S is aware of the changing demand issues and they made a massive change in their internal organisation. Because of these internal factors they have change the inside decoration and try to be green in several aspects (M&S, 2011). Changing in the company policies are also affecting M&S to make some changes in the process of delivering the services.
b) External factors: In addition, to the internal factors there are some external factors which are also influencing the M&S to make the change. Increasing social awareness programme made the changes in the buying habit and creates a big influence for M&S to make some changes. In addition, government new regulations regarding the green issues, social development programme from external organisations, pressures from the environmental protections agencies or labour laws made a big change for M&S to create some changes in the product design. Because of changing consumer’s demand customers are now looking for environmentally friendly products and they want to give some donations for social work. M;S also taken some social development programmes where customers can make their contributions (M;S, 2011).
External factors which are affecting the M;S to create some changes can be evaluated by using the PESTLE factors. For example, some economic factors are also influencing M;S to create some changes including the income status of the customers; recession and income status are also affecting the consumer’s buying behaviour and creating direct influences in consumer buying process. To some extent technological changes such as digital advertising, social networking, improving the communications medium is also influencing customers to make some changes for M&S (Jobber, 2010).
Change Management Models: Ads discussed earlier, there was a big change for M&S when they are introducing their environmentally friendly products. It was a big challenge for them for setting up the new system and to gain accessibility to the process. M&S needs to evaluate some of the change management models and need to create an effective planning for managing the change such as: Lewin’s three stage change management model: According to Lewin’s there are three several stages which can help them to create an effective change management plan.
a) Unfreezing: At this stage, M&S will try to find out the key factors of change management such as identifying the reasons that are creating the change, creation of a change management plan such as the resources requirements to implement the change process. For example, M&S has increased their digital advertising plan for creating customer’s interest and to increase more sales. At this stage, they need to think about the costs of implementing the change process such as creation of the financial planning, identifying the factors that may create customer’s interest and some factors which are creating the interest of the customers towards making the change process (Jobber, 2010).
b) Movement: At the second stage, customers will move into the change management process such as they will be influenced towards making the change. At this stage, some customer’s motivational forces such as creating customer awareness programme, digital advertisement, personal selling process and some other key factors will be considered to maintain the change process. They can also introduce some new technology or technological development for creating the interest towards the consumer buying process (Peter, et al., 2008). They also need to develop the skills of their employees and need to improve their capacities for providing the quality services. In these types of situations providing the quality services is important to create the change process in the organisation.
