Repsond to…

According to Palmer, there are five potential internal drivers for change which are grow, integration and collaboration, corporate identity, an new chief executive, and power and politics. (Palmer, 2017, pg 85) During an organization, we went through a new leadership change and he wanted to come in and change the entire company as whole, from the outlook that we had as a business to the way we did business. When he came into the organization, we were on the verge of bankruptcy in 2012. Now we were are one of the best companies to work for due to this change in leadership. The internal pressure was that the board was pressured to bring somebody in that can have a positive impact on the organization and the external pressure was that we were about to bankrupt and have to find new ways to drive growth.  During this time that the new CEO came in, it was a very tough transition especially with the major culture change that he was implementing. Not only did he change the culture, but he changed the brand as a whole. This way he was able to develop a customer focused business and get the customers what they wanted. Instead of doing business transitions, he made his changes around what the customer needs and wants were. Through this method, he was able to bring the organization to stand on its two legs again.  Change is usually affected by multiple rationales instead of only one I believe. 

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. (2017). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (3rd ed.). Retrieved from https://redshelf.com/

Respond to… 

While I was in college, I worked for a company called Half Off Clothing Store as a sales manager, where I tried to implement an organizational change that would initiate an inventory management system. This change initiative would alter the way our in-store sales floor and online sales departments handle merchandise, inventory, and how we keep track of them. The company’s previous way of dealing with merchandise included the store’s owner buying new merchandise from manufacturers and when the merchandise was in-store, he would only tag and price the clothing and place them on the sales floor, in the storeroom inventory, or list the merchandise online for sale. The company did not utilize a database or inventory management system previously, so we really did not have any form of accounting for the merchandise and inventory, except for at the beginning of each year when we would perform a manual, store wide inventory.

I tried to initiate a new inventory system which would utilize a barcode system by placing a barcode sticker on every sale item that was on the sales floor, the storeroom, or listed on one of our online sales portals. Additionally, all items would need to be updated when their location in the store was changed or when the items were moved or sold. Also, all the employees would be responsible for being familiar with or being trained on the new inventory management system. At first, the owner of the store was on board with my new initiative. But being that all merchandise would be required to be labeled with a barcode and entered into our computer’s online database, my co-workers and my boss realized that this would cause them hours upon hours of additional work to accomplish store wide. The initiative would prove to be too big of an undertaking for our small company to handle at the point in time when I was attempting to initiate the new system.

Undertaking this change initiative would have allowed the business to have a more accurate inventory. Additionally, the new system would have created real-time tracking of all merchandise on the sales floor, in storage, being sold online, and merchandise being sold or being delisted because of defects or damages. If the initiative had succeeded, the company would have experienced an increase in productivity due to efficiency being increased. All staff members would have been able to have online access to the inventory database. This would have helped them to search a certain item, style, size, or color of clothing item or accessories to see if we had it in stock. The new system would have also aided in the reordering process. In turn, the new system would have saved countless hours and would have alleviated the need for more than one employee to have to search for merchandise, which would free up the staff to get more done and work on different projects or tasks. The checkout process would have also been expedited with this new inventory system, which would require employees to scan the barcode into the system and make the adjustments of sale or other movements to the inventory database. Also, of benefit would have been a more accurate representation of our store’s inventory which occurs in real-time and would be up-to-date when our annual inventory needs to be done.  Furthermore, the company would have been able to minimize the loss of sales. This would lead to customer retention and loyalty in making sure that items that we feature online are in stock and available for customers to purchase at their leisure. According to Ellram (1996), “the effectiveness of inventory management systems is directly measurable by how successful a company is in providing high levels of customer service, low inventory investment, maximum throughput and low costs” (Imeokparia, 2013, para. 2).

There were internal and external pressures exerted by this change. Internal pressures took the form of high stress, staff turnovers, low morale, the introduction of new product or technology, and inadequate computer skills. There was also resistance to change by those who had been with the company for quite a few years, including the store’s owner, who authorized the implementation of the new inventory management system. This made implementing change more difficult as the head of the company was lacking the initiative to try the new system. In this instance, external or environmental pressures were in the form of new technologies, which present Half Off Clothing Store with an opportunity to grow, become more streamlined, and be more productive. Externally or environmental pressures can present opportunities as well as threats to any organization (Palmer, Dunford, & Buchanan, 2017).

Multiple rationales were utilized in this situation. The change rationale and the implementation of a new inventory management system would have benefited all of the company as a whole, including its employees, customers, vendors, other stakeholders, and the company’s bottom line. According to Lorenzi and Riley (2000), “when the culture is focused on constantly improving the meeting of customer needs, the rationale for rapid and frequent changes becomes much clearer to those in the organization” (para. 55). This change initiative would have massive implications on several operational as well as functional facets of the company. Increases in employee productivity, real-time inventory updates in the inventory database, streamlining checkouts and register payments, enhanced customer service, efficiency and money-saving factors of inventory ordering and purchasing, happy and satisfied customers who return, increased sales and profitability, loss prevention, and several other reasons that implementing this change initiative of an inventory management system. In addition, there are multiple levels of those involved being on-board with this initiative and seeing it through to completion.

References

Imeokparia, L. (2013). Inventory management system and performance of food beverages companies in Nigeria. IOSR Journal of Mathematics, 6(1), 24-30. Retrieved from http://www.iosrjournals.org/

 (Links to an external site.)

Lorenzi, N. M. & Riley, R. T. (2000). Managing change: An overview. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 7(2), 116-124. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

 (Links to an external site.)

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. (2017). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (3rd ed.) [Electronic version].