Today, organizational change has become an adaptive approach to strengthening and accelerate organization’s desired achievement. For businesses, change is a game-changer that allows them to survive the dynamic competitive environment. Consequently, the fluid state of industries and the market for products have become a major reason for auditing change and deciding when to undertake them. In reality, the transition from one form of business to another or changing mode of operation is not a walk in the park. Of many organizations that attempt to alter their operations, a few become successful.
The paper seeks to examine various ways of communicating change and importance of pursuing change as a process. Lewis (2000) states that while change is often seen as a relief and pose definite prospects for an organization, approaching it in a strategic manner is cost effective and desirable. Verizon Wireless solution is a classic example of a multinational company that made an excellent transition from electronics and gadgets, manufacturer and distributor to wireless and internet service provider. Certainly this was a radical change that completely changed the company’s structures, capital, and business operations.
Executing such changes requires a clearly spelled out steps. Without a guided process, change process will result in resistance, chaos and this damage company’s position within the old and new ventures. Verizon Wireless Communicating Change Strategy Verizon Wireless in its strategic plan embedded the intrusion and threat that was posed by the larger competitors. Namely, Apple, Samsung, and Sony are some of the companies that were introducing competitive products to the market (Baker, Goudie, & Hutton, 2010). Resulting in a severe decline of the company’s electronic.
After series of market analysis it became overt that while the company could still push the competition, it was not much profitable as compared to venturing into wireless solution business and internet services. This was a newly area with full potential to grow even healthy. The need for change was therefore identified and appropriate steps initiated. One of the fundamental roles of the organizational management team is to lay down the needed resources and manpower to facilitate the change process. However, this must be done within a legal and accepted framework.
However, because employees will always resist change, there is a need to involve them. This has a way of turning around their royalty and thus improves the change acceptability. Before planning the change, there should be communicating channels. Communicating change timely to various is an essential aspect of that will overhaul the process positively to the benefit of the organization. The Verizon Wireless change process has been premised on this concept. The analysis is done on what impact regarding structural and functional unit changes that would be significantly impacted.
These departments are then analyzed regarding areas of competencies and ability to undergo meaningful change. Currently, Verizon Wireless change process continue to face a myriad of challenges despite its successful initial stages (Krause, 2015). One of the notable changes that would be evident once the process of strategic business change is the total phase out of the gadgets and electronic hardware that is currently being wiped out. However, handling the loyal customers for these electronics would pose a serious challenge to the business.
Thus, there is a need to impress the current customers and still build a positive image of the prospective enterprise. Iceberg Model Chesbrough, (2007) observes that the Iceberg Model provides a robust framework that is premised on the understanding concept of organizational competency. In this model, it is believed that one-ninth of the iceberg is above water while the rest is submerged beneath the water. This implies that understanding change process and organizational competency is an enormous process. It implies that only a few aspects are visible.
The knowledge and skills required by appear obvious, however, the whole hog of values, self-image, traits and cultural issues are deeply embedded within the change process and these must be taken into consideration. Using a four-tier analysis model, this theoretical concept concurs with the need for understanding every aspect of the change process. Contextual Analysis The primary reason for change within a business or an organization is to understand the overarching goals of the change process within the context of existing environmental factors.
For the Verizon Wireless solutions, there is a need to highlight critical issues to the employees. The reason for this phase is to build concurrence of the direction of change, promote acceptability and initiate an interactive and collaborative communication channel for the change (Cavalcante, 2014). Recently, Verizon transition from electronics and gadget business has been cited as the most aggressive approach towards understanding the dynamics of the market competition.
Cultural change requires the establishment of key relationship structures that encourages a free flow of communication, expression of concern and a mutual way to reinforce the competence of the change. Consequently, there has been a contextual analysis of functional units. The electronics manufacturing, sales, and marketing units have been slowly merged to create a larger and competent online marketing unit. Changing roles of various departments, in this case, is inevitable. The business has been substantially changed to fit the new market trends. It is notable that the contextual analysis so far has been incredible.
Having the employees understand the reason for change is the most desirable element that drives an innate feeling and attitude to change. However, the employee’s turnover is an inevitable eventuality. Nevertheless, building cultural and functional change within the new environment has been often marked by chaotic and shake up of the entire organizational model. Two crucial issues need to be addressed in this phase of communicating change. Firstly, there should be structural shake-up that allows the creation of units that will drive and sustain change. These units should have team leaders.
Building teamwork during this phase and encouraging collaboration and communication helps cement the need and contextual reason for the change process. This involves removal of segmented channels of communication and team leaders of each group through meetings and observation should provide ongoing communication to the change management. Audience Analysis Notably, all groups of the employees in more ways will be affected by the change process. There is a compulsory need to ensure there are adequate communication and feedback system that encourages smooth transition while executing structural change.
For Verizon Wireless solution, the role of employees in facilitating the actual change cannot be underscored. Specifically, this company is on the verge of collapsing all its work and venturing into internet solutions and software retailing. Traditionally, there are various departments that include sales and marketing, manufacturing, procurement and logistics among others. The transition from electronics to internet service industry will certainly shake up the entire structure of the business. Thus, it is important to understand these aspects.
Because of the overarching impact of the change process to the employees’ daily duties, there is the important need for communicating to employees about every aspect of the change process. In essence, the success of the entire change process depends on whether there are acceptability and culturally competency among the employees. One way that Verizon needs to approach its audience is to ensure that there is adequate skills audit. The company needs to understand the cadre of employees and how their expertise will contribute to building a competent change transition.
In reality, it is actually the same employees who will facilitate and work with the new business structures and operations. Thus, failure to audit whether they possess the right skills and knowledge to ensure adequate transition and positive impact on the new industry is a recipe for organizational failure. Another important aspect of the Iceberg Model is the demand to have all employees to be represented by the change (Baker et al. , 2010). Dealing with the organizational change is not an easy task. It requires fairness, representation and ability to bring together different skills to build a multi-disciplinary team.
When these groups are brought together, it enhances the attitude and the acceptability of the change process. Subsequently, Verizon Wireless requires conglomeration of various key leaders including unit managers and utilizing these groups to build a robust and collaborative way of communicating and executing business restructuring. One study observes that the issues of resistance, high employee’s turnover, and general organizational lethargy are occasioned by non-inclusive change and poor communication channels.
