Unilever company deals in the production of household products and services. It had just introduced a washing detergent into the market called Sunlight washing detergent. After giving it several tries and allowing the consumers to give comments about the detergent, the company decided to change and produce a better version of the product and so they had to undergo the culture of change.
Organizations have to keep on embracing change to improve productivity and expansion of the business. For change to occur the organization must put several factors into consideration; current consumer level of satisfaction, finance resources, impact on society, skill, competitors and law requirements. Managing change refers to what an organization needs to put in place when developing and planning change. If an organization does not manage change they may end up not implementing change at all or implementing poor results that may reduce productivity. (Akin, 2006)
The organization had to use several strategies to implement and manage change. There are four main strategies prepare, plan, asses and execute. When preparing the organization deals with preparing everyone for change. The organization would be responsible with training the sponsors, the team of employees, managers and supervisors on ways of managing change. The organization should assess its readiness by looking at its internal and external business environment before implementing change. Does it have enough resources for implementing change, are the employees on board with this process and will the organization benefit from the change or will it suffer great losses. (Fisk, 2008)
The organization should use the planning strategy. When it comes to planning the organization should assign resources to cater for the change of a product. It should come up with a way of getting feedback from the consumers which will assist in coming up with adjustments to produce the best desired product. By doing this they would be getting useful information on the production level of their product, what is lacking and what should be added. (Fisk, 2008)
The third strategy is assessing. Build a rapport with the employees by celebrating successes and reinforcing change. The organization could create awareness about the need to change by developing a vision statement. The statement in the vision should help the organization in keeping track with the goal of managing change. The vision should be covered by the goals of the organization so that at the end of the change process they can be able to assess if they achieved what they wanted or not. The organization should encourage the sponsors to have an active participation during the change process.
The fourth strategy is execution. Execution can be carried out through many ways one of them is through continuous communication with the employees to help in management of change. The company should provide training to the employees concerning the new product. The technology behind it could be complicated and this would require the use of an expert to train the staff. The staff could also take a course on change management by a consultant to go through the implementation of change successfully.
Another way of getting information is by learning from experts. The management could volunteer to get cross training from a company that has implemented change and succeeded before. They could learn a few pointers and use them in their own company. (Akin, 2006)
After the change process was over, Unilever company had achieved most of its goals and the product was getting good publicity from the market with the help of good marketing and feedback from the consumers. The consumers were pleased with the new and improved detergent, it was kind to their hands, lathered easily and it protected the colors of their fabrics.
The way in which the change was carried out was similar and consistent with the intentions of change. The company wanted to produce a product that was consumer friendly, environmental friendly and at the same time bringing in profit and increasing production. The company was able to achieve this by the use of strategies for implementing change.
The company focused on its goals and at the end of the change process, it had produced a product that had mild chemicals making them harmless to the skin and achieving the consumer friendly objective. The packaging of the detergent was done by paper that could be recycled and the use of mild bases making it environmental friendly.
Positive feedback from the consumers means positive sales and this enables the company to achieve profits at fair pricing of the product. Through implementation of change the company/ organization has been able to improve its effectiveness.
References
Akin, G., Dunford, R., & Palmer, I. (2006). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach. (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Fisk, P. (2008). Business genius: A more inspired approach to business growth. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Capstone.
Schabracq, M.J. (2007). Changing organizational culture: The change agents guidebook. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons
