Change Management Assignment: Implementation Of Change In Amazon
Question
Task:
Successful completion of the change management assignment will demonstrate a student’s fulfilment of the following learning outcomes: Consideration could be given to the following aspects: How was the culture of the organisation/industry taken into account when planning the change If the culture was the focus of the change, how was the existing culture planned to be managed and moved What impact did leadership have here Was the correct leadership style adopted IMPLEMENTATION: Was the change implemented using a suitable approach Was it compelling to those it impacted on –did they come along with it willingly –were key stakeholders considered What impact on business was there during the change and how was this dealt with What impact did leadership have here Was the correct leadership style adopted
COMMUNICATION AND SUPPORT: Was the change communicated effectively Were the stakeholders considered and supported effectively by the change leaders Were their (potential or actual) reactions to change managed successfully Was the change managed ethically/responsibly What impact did leadership have Was the correct leadership style adopted
CONCLUSION: Summarise key points to draw a conclusion relating to critical analysis of how the change has been implemented and led. In particular, students should conclude the analysis with final consideration of the overall impact the leadership has had on the change process. Answer Introduction The core purpose of the paper is to analyses the change management approach of Amazon. The critical discussion will cover the implementation approach analysis. Further, the communication and support fostered by the company will be discussed in brief. Based on the analysis, the suggestive strategies will be discussed in detail. Critical analysis of Planning for the change The planning phase of the change underwent a series of trial and error, bust and boom; Amazon has formulated a set of guiding principles and cultural practices to ensure the growth of the used machines (Rosenbaum et al. 2018). The first factor that neutered the successful implementation of change management included Amazon driving innovation from the top (Tucker, 2018). Jeff Bezos adopted strategic thinking by thinking of the prospects' needs and baking results based on these perceptions. Jeff Bezos personally refined the innovation roadmap that will facilitate achieving better results. Secondly, Amazon viewed the ideas as business assets.
Success factors and CEO transformational leadership style The CEO values unconventional concepts which enable technologies and allow operational efficiency. A stream of ideas is considered to fuel the growth of the business and create cultural alignment to respect and value ideas at multiple levels. Further, he ensures urgency is valued to speed up the execution stage. Jeff Bezos, in an interview, revealed his role as an "opportunity mindset" to each department, individual, outpost and business unit (Tucker, 2018). The Top management forces the employees to focus on three maxims: thinking longer terms, being willing to invent and obsessing over customer needs. The third crucial factor of effective planning includes moving first, experimenting consistently and failing fast. The Jeff Bezos change management strategy success was based on these five spheres mentioned below: It was the CEO visions that triggered innovation change management in the Amazon. The CEO maintained that the right culture and employee engagement is ensured to achieve innovation business model and culture in the Amazon workplace.
Involvement of internal key stakeholders Based on the mapping the senior managers, executives and potential leaders were selected to guide the change processes in the company. Further the assessment of every stakeholder desired commitment levels and influenceover the programs was analyzed. It was determined that the employees and managers have the maximum influenceover the change processes. The third step of engage and prepare stakeholders was confirmed by CEO coaching and restructuring of the business model that empowers employees to think creatively and produce innovative ideas(Tucker, 2018). The timely group meetings were conducted to inform employees of importance to be creative and accept failure. The CEO ensured the managers do not have the power to reject any idea and efficientsupervision and guidance was given(Tucker, 2018). This way the advocate for change and support to the employees during the change was facilitated. The last step of stakeholder management was fostered by conducting regular status update and creation of strategic planning, experimenting ideas in domestic headquarter and documenting the reasons for success and failures.
Amazon believes in a different approach by strategically using the customer databases and simulating and building business models. Amazon prefers measuring everything by using data to drive the implementation phase faster (Tucker, 2018).
Taking culture into consideration by encouraging creativity and risk taking attitude among employees
Lastly, the brand emphasizes clear thinking and fosters risk-taking culture within its workplaces. The company promotes creative tension rather than employees having a laid-back, harmonious attitude to ensure best thinking and employee efforts. Further, the company has structured the business in such a manner that takes away the power from managers to reject any idea and allows valuing potential ideas (Refer to appendix 1). By analyzing the planned approach of Amazon, it can be stated that the entity followed Kotler eight-step processes to foster change in the business settings. The major emphasis was on creating the urgency for change, fostering teams, setting strategic vision by Jeff Bezos, communications by top management and managers for gaining support, enabling appropriate actions, focusing on short term goals by constantly experimenting with new ideas, learning from past mistakes and sticking to the initial planning. Critical analysis of the implementation of the change Management of internal stakeholders to facilitate change Resistance dealt with transformational leadership style approach Appropriateness of transformational leadership style to promote innovation at workplace Impact of leadership on change processes and planning Ethical maintained in change processes Conclusion and recommendation References Gradinaru, C., Toma, S.G., Catana, S. and Andrisán, G., 2020. A view on transformational leadership: The case of Jeff Bezos. Manager, (31), pp.93-100. Appendices (Source: Tucker, 2018)
1. Critically evaluate the skills and values of global leaders generally and specifically in relation to leading change
4. Critical analysis of how a change has been planned, implemented and led in a chosen organisation. <
This coursework allows students the freedom to select a relevant case study organisation which has recently gone through change, and analyse how effectively the change has been undertaken. Please note, the organisation chosen cannot be the same as the one you are using for your dissertation.
INTRODUCTION: Brief background to the case study organisation and outline of the change undertaken (type of change/focus of change)
PLANNING: Has the change been well planned Is there evidence that environmental scanning took place to ensure it was the right change at the right time for the industry/ organisation –was it required What were the drivers for the change Who were the key stakeholders
According to the environmental scanning, it is stated in this change management assignment that the chief strength of the brand Amazon is the strong brand name. The brand has endured the position of second highest in Global brand ranking of brand valuation. The entity offers an inexpensive price range and is highly customer oriented. The entity values differentiation and innovation which allows fostering innovative product range and services such as Prime now, Alexa, Amazon Go and Withings Aura Smart sleep systems and many other electronic devices. However the brand incurs weaknesses due to an easily imitable business model, higher chances of product failures and flops and losing margins due to integrating free shipping facilities (Sadqet al. 2018). The opportunity areas for the company are by stretching the innovation model to create competitive products, backward integration to foster in-house production and increasing acquisition rate to reduce competition and increase market share. The threats posing the company are increasing cybercrime, aggressive competition and government regulation that can strain Amazon business expansion activities. Hence the viable option will be to incest in innovation projects to increase Amazon resource and competency level to survive in the fierce environment.
Technological Drivers for change
The Drivers of change mainly includes Social, technological, environmental, economic and political factors that impacts the business. In terms of Amazon the technological driver has the maximum influence due to dominating trends of rapid technological obsolescence and increasing efficiencies of IT resources which created the business opportunity. The technology was the primary driver of change based on which the attempts were made to enhance AI application and data driven approaches to meet customer demands. It is the primary reason Jeff Bezos invested in enhancing the technical capability, capacity and competency of Amazon. Based on technical drivers of change the features such as Prime now, Alexa and Amazon Go services were developed.
The employees were involved in each phase of change management by using communication plans which involved timely meetings and extracting the potential innovative ideas personally by the CEO. The employees were effectively engaged in the planning phase as they provided with creative ideas which was further selected by the CEO.The four key steps were followed which included stakeholder identification & mapping, stakeholder assessment, stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management. Jeff determined the potential internal stakeholder that can influence the project success and failure aspects.
Incremental type of change
The incremental change was considered in which the processes that further adjusts the status by fostering small changes was considered. Analyzing the planning phase the CEO focused on five areas fostering innovation from the top, considering business ideas as assets, promoting experiments, practicing customer led innovation and data driven practices and lastly clear thinking and fostering risk taking culture. Jeff Bezos looks for opportunities and searches the business areas to make Amazon more innovative (Gradinaruet al. 2020). He is known for effective planning and delivering the desired results driven by creativity.
The communication strategy was facilitated by communicating the core objective of innovation business model and inventing new devices by the top management and CEO. The customer databases were used by the CEO to communicate the target audience wants and needs. The key message was developed to focus on innovation and creativity to strengthen the competitive edge of the products. Jeff effectively communicated the resources and competency of the brand in fostering innovation business model. Jeff fostered five strategies which included empowering employees to be creative and acknowledging their ideas in team meetings. Further the technological resources, R&D activities and experimentation groundwork was set in the hometown headquarter. This way the employees and managers were given the freedom to be creative and experiment with new ideas(Tucker, 2018). The best potential ideas were selected and employees were supported with idea to take risks. Additionally, it was ensured the leadership support was given that was followed by Jeff by personally involving in each meeting by supervising.
Through communicating efficiently with the managers and employees group the resistance to change was eliminated. Further the risk taking culture was facilitated by CEO to ensure the elimination of employees fear and empower them to be creative(Zhang et al. 2018). This way through the use of effective leadership approach and communication the resistance to change was eliminated. The change leader Jeff Bezos hence used three strategies to eliminateresistance to change which are the following:
Transformational leaders stress focusing on meeting the intrinsic needs of followers. This intrinsic need includes visual stimulation, individualized consideration, charisma and intellectual stimulation. This way, the transformational leader engages in timely communication and interaction, which influences team spirit and teamwork to work the common goal onwards. This way it can be stated that Transformational leadership is the most appropriate style to foster innovation and change in the business spheres. CEO provided the required support by creating the business structure, culture and experimenting groundwork which are crucial to implement change process to eliminate fear of employees, motivate and inspire innovation and change in the business.
Jeff Bezos gives the potential chances to determine the suitable means and ideas through which Amazon can incur better development opportunities strategically (Chow, 2020). This way, the entity relies on employee support to foster better innovation development and technological advancement, ensuring a competitive edge in the business. According to the Forbes report, the change was considered successful as it stressed n bringing change from top management to bottom. TheCEO effectively derived the way of engaging employees, creating cohesive culture that removes the sense of fear towards change and empowers creativity and innovation practices at the Amazon workplace(Tucker, 2018). This way change was adapted by the employees, managers and board of directors which contributed to effective creation of innovation business model and breakthrough devices inventions.
The implementing of the change can trigger employees feeling pressured and facilitating poor behavior due to the feeling of fear. It is important that the change is encouraged with integrity and ingrained ethics in the management processes. The CEO of the company communicated with honestly which maintained transparency with the employees(Tucker, 2018). The timely meetings were conducted by engaging the employees to ensure that the common goal was perceived by everyone and make employees feel important. The employees were treated as an integral part of the change processes by valuing their opinions and ideas. The fear was removed by allowing employees to experiment with their ideas and managers’supervision was given. It is determined that extensive control system or bureaucracy can restrain innovation, group thinking and can cause conflicts. The extreme bureaucracy and control by the managers were eliminated toempoweremployee’screative thinking(Tucker, 2018). These way ethics were followed and risk of change were managed by the efficient leadership approach.
From the conducted analysis, it can be stated that Amazon has considered the Kotler eight-step model approach to facilitate change management. Through this approach, the urgency of change, cohesive culture and resistance to change were eliminated. Jeff Bezos vision and action planning helped in changing the business model and structure that values employees' ideas to foster innovation in the business. Additionally, the analysis revealed that the company highly values the technological focus of change in the business spheres. This focus of change has facilitated business feasibility by increasing Amazon's capability and capacity in the business spheres. The entity has used restructuring of the traditional business model by creating a business environment that helps employees adapt and be more proactive/engaged. Amazon's strategies to foster better change management are using change management workshops and training programs. This session will provide the employees with effective knowledge of the urgency of change and reduce the chances of resistance.
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Appendix 1: Forbes findings on Amazon five critical factors that ensure its success
