Organizational change is usually a sensitive matter, which poses a great challenge to the business/corporate leaders. Despite the challenges facing an organizational change, the step to realizing success in any encounter ought to be treated with the seriousness it deserves. Change is also a factor, which is not avoidable in any societal setting since it is uncontrollable by any factor. It implies that despite all forms of resistance, change always takes place in any social or business setting. Some of the factors, which may trigger change, are as follows: technology advancements, market trends, economic change, or changes in the labor requirements or skills.
The company aims at preserving and maintaining the cultural and ethical standards set out in the society in all its adventures. This task is not easy since most corporate responsibilities are taking over the enterprise conquest. The company also should have a model or structure meant to ensure that their activities are in line with the organizational development requirements.
Challenges of the Organizational Change
One of the major challenges facing organizational change in the company is the stakeholders’ nature of resisting change. Research findings indicate that people find it hard to adopt new changes in society setting, whether the change is good or bad. This case can also be attested to my company, Xerox Company, which in the early 1980s adopted a similar organizational change. This new system worked so well, but stakeholders later dropped the initial core values of the organization. It implies that if one has a negative attitude towards a certain factor, he or she may choose not to adopt the same and vice versa.
Slow pace or speed of transition of the research studies indicates that it always takes long for people to change or transit from one face to another. It can be so because of negative attitude, strict measures, or rules laid out by an organization or firm to its employees and clients. Such rules may discourage the employees to change or adopt the new organizational structure put in place. Another vital challenge, which may face the company in its quest to adopt and smoothly run the new structure, is financial needs or requirements for running and putting up the structures, according to stakeholders. For instance, in any organizational running and operating the new organizational structure can be attested to huge financial requirements. It may be a major challenge for most organizations, which opt to adopt a new structure.
Another vital challenge facing the company in its new organizational structure is the increase in the number of its competitors. An organization, such as Canon International, is also likely to digitize its services. It implies that Xerox will face competition in the printing business sector and in the computer systems business. The company is also venturing into a new field, which is already flooded with older players in the market. It calls for the company to put measures, which will ensure that it performs as per the market demands by satisfying the needs of the customers.
Possible Solutions to the Challenges
The current business fields call for new technology and strategies to ensure that one effectively penetrates the market. With the new model, the company will find it a bit challenging to penetrate the market. The dedication and policies of the company’s staff will also enable them to penetrate the market. With good marketing strategies, the company will be able to penetrate the market without much difficulty.
Divided loyalty can be applied in the case, where individuals put their individual needs ahead of the company’s needs. This behaviour or factor is a selfish move, which can affect performance of the organization since employees will only be concerned with achieving their personal goals at the expense of the company’s objective. From the discussion above and from the case study it is evident that Xerox is a multi-million dollar company that is distributed all over the world. In addition, an international company is well distributed over ten countries in the world. Organizational change has been shown to entail an adaptation of most suitable work practices and structures, which will ensure the sustenance and improvement of the organization.
Organizational change in the company can be seen through the development of a model of organization, as discussed earlier. It suggests that planning is vital for any successful change to be felt in an organization. Planning helps predict expectations and the analysis of outcomes to aid the decision-making. In other words, planning eases and justifies the decisions involved steering change within the structures of an organization.
From the discussion conducted throughout this paper, it is evident that organizational change is dependent on a few elements, whose analysis is critical, in order to construct a solid model of organizational change. These elements include observable and somewhat predictable factors, on which the growth of the company is dependent. The elements that have been scrutinized in the case of Xerox International are political, social, technological, and economic elements. These elements affect the company and, therefore, were integrated in determination of the organization’s improvement model. All the steps involved, however, have to meet both the international and internal code of ethics. It ensures that any change that will be made in the organization neither infringes on the rights of any employee nor is centrally to any legal stipulations.
Of course, as we can observe from our case study, organizational change is subject to a lot of resistance. It is but one of the myriad of challenges identified above. It means that, like in the case of Xerox, it is crucial to determine the challenges associated with an organizational change model and design it in a manner that annuls these deficiencies. The improved model should include a method of making employees receptive to the new changes that the organization will make. It will be achieved through different educational sessions and conclusive training to increase the competence of employees in implementing the new changes.