Masters Marketing Report Sample

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Company Report: IMV Technologies

Introduction

This report is based on the case study of IMV Technologies that had come into existence after the merger of BCF Technology and ECM. The merger has been done to enhance the company’s capabilities in animal healthcare with the use of imaging products like X-rays and ultrasound. However, this has also resulted in employee dissatisfaction across the organisation that has affected the overall business efficiency and performance.

This report has analysed the problem areas in the company after the merger with the reference of relevant theories and models followed by recommended solutions for improvement. The recommended solutions are also supported with suggestions for implementing and managing change across the organisation.

Analysis/Findings

From the case study, it is evaluated that IMV Imaging presently employs 136 employees across all its facilities. Their areas of expertise include engineering, manufacturing, clinical education, account management, research and development. The organisation’s formation after the acquisition has changed the scenario of happy and secure employees of BCF technology.

The lack of employee engagement and consultation before the acquisition of ECM resulted in satisfaction among the existing employees. The incorporation of small and welcoming changes across the organisation resulted in the employees reducing and restricting their communication with the management team. The incorporation of new policies and procedures at the organisation without the consultation of the senior and existing employees created trust issues for the employees as they were very restricted from participating in decision-making without authorization. This has led to the employees feeling undervalued.

In contrast, the performance had also reduced along with the growing unrest after the announcement of the acquisition and transformation of BCF technology into IMV imaging. The lack of engagement in consideration of the employees in decision making leads to lower satisfaction and engagement levels of the employees that resulted in the reduction in output figures of the company. However, some measures had been undertaken in the organisation over the past three years with the introduction of performance measurement tools.

Some initiatives have been undertaken in the organisation to promote accountability among the employees regarding their job role for a sense of unity and collaboration. However, the issue of blame culture in the organisation remains prevalent due to poor communication within the teams and lack of collaboration among the departments even at the managerial levels. Organisational culture represents the collective values and practices used across the organisations for guiding the decision making and fulfilling the expectations of the employees on the other stakeholders across the teams (Martínez-Caro et al., 2020).

The present organisational culture at IMV technologies is based on hierarchy due to being highly process-oriented with a structured culture of control. This limits the employees’ creativity and innovation, leading to a lack of scope in participating in organisational matters and decision making. Despite establishing a chain of command of the organisation, some gaps exist that result in the increasing communication gap among the employees and the management.

The lack of short- and long-term goals assigned to the individual teams and departments also creates the issue of lack of collaboration and communication in the organisational departments and teams. Despite the organisation continuing to implement new strategies and tools for improving performance and productivity, these measures have widened the employees’ understanding as they fail to fix the underlying cause of the issues resulting in low productivity. Many factors have contributed towards employee dissatisfaction and undressed including A reduction in flexibility and consideration in decision making.

A TROPICS Test is used to assess soft and hard problems within an organisation that requires change after identification. This includes determining the factors including perceptions, interests, control, resource, objectives, time scales and source (Rosenbaum, et al., 2018). The perceptions of the employees within the organisation were found to be soft.

This is due to the lack of consensus on the ongoing problems within the organisation. The time scales in the organisation are also found to be served due to not being defined properly resulting in a lack of direction and motivation for the employees. The resources aspect of the test is also soft due to the uncertainty among the management to use the right practices for improving productivity.

The objectives are also soft in the organisation due to not being specified and quantified for the individual employees and teams. The impressed aspects are soft due to the definition of the issues and determination of the limitations. There is also a lack of control make it a soft attribute of the test as external agencies have been introduced for controlling and managing the merger of the two companies.

The source, in this case, is hard due to the problem within the organisation due to cultural and leadership issues. Multiple attributes of the test being soft indicate the future challenges and difficulties that might be faced by the organisational management of IMV technologies while implementing the change. This has been further illustrated with the reference of force field analysis of the company to identify the driving forces and restraining forces of change within the company.

Figure 1: Force Field Analysis. (Swanson & Creed, 2014).

 

Lewin’s force field analysis is a framework used for distinguishing the factors in a situation driving towards the desired state of change along with the factors that oppose the driving forces (Swanson & Creed, 2014). The framework facilitates decision making for improving the acceptability of change within an organisation.

The existing organisational metaphors of change lies in the cultural system and machine of IMV technologies. The major organisational changes include acquisition and merger with another organisation to expand the organisational expertise and domain of work in addition to some alterations in the policies and procedures.

The driving forces of change in the organisation include the new budget structure due to the merger and new business opportunities and for the employees across new roles. The resisting forces remain aligned with the cultural system of the organisation that influences the employees to go out of their comfort zone along with a feeling of breaching the psychological contract.

The cultural system of the organisation content opportunities for learning and growth along with the scope of sharing feedback and opinions. However, the organisational machinery remains focused on being organised and productive with a clear organisational goal and direction for the employees. Hence the driving forces for the organisation include new productivity measures and more objectives at individual and team levels.

The cultural system incorporated strong connection and trust among the employees of the former organisation that was accompanied by their belief of being valued (Burnes & Bargal, 2017). This had created the resisting forces of change in the form of reduction in learning opportunities for the employees and the termination of the prior relationship. The employees’ bias towards the merger and the lack of willingness of the workers to adapt also the other restraining forces.

Analysing the organisational changes and alterations of the processes and practices in the hierarchy, it is established that the company follows autocratic leadership. The motivation and engagement levels of the employees have been affected negatively due to the autocratic decision-making without consideration of the perspectives of the workers and the lack of regard for their reactions (Bakari, et al., 2017).

The social identity theory represents the source of pride and self-esteem of the team members while working in groups. The group mentality and self-identification nature among the organisation’s employees have resulted in understanding the employees along with low performance (Rosenbaum, et al., 2018). This is also attributed to the managers’ low levels of engagement and blame culture.

Figure 2: McKinsey’s 7S model. (Hayes, 2018).

Companies use McKinsey’s 7S model to implement change effectively across the organisation. The model represents multiple organisational variables integral to its operations and strategy execution (Hayes, 2018). The model’s components include the structure and strategy of the organisation along with the assistance and skills.

The organisation’s staff and style and shared values are also an integral component of the framework. The organisation is found to have a hierarchical structure with a top-down approach to communication. This has to be changed to integrate a diverse approach for improving interconnectedness among the departments with the strategy of engaging all the employees to achieve the collective organisational goals.

The organisational systems are ineffective due to the lack of communication among the workers and improper collaboration among the departments resulting in productivity delays. The skills of the management employees need to be improved for listening to the problems of the employees’ problems to improve engagement and enhance productivity.

The introduction of performance measurement tools in the organisation has increased uneasiness among the workers while igniting a rejection for accountability. The leadership style at IMV technologies is autocratic and needs to be changed to a participatory process for involving the staff in decision making (Bakari, et al., 2017). There is a lack of shared values within the organisation due to not having common goals and targets, resulting in the lack of driving force for performance and motivation.

Proposed Solutions

From the McKinsey 7s analysis it can be identified that the staff is uneasy in terms of the introduction of the performance measurement tool and that bringing the team together and developing training is making the staff face an unfavourable and unrest situation. The proposed solution can be to implement the bottom-up approach of communication that focuses on analyzing specific characteristics and the micro attributes among the elementary level executives of the organization.

The approach identifies profitable solutions, scopes, and opportunities through the peculiarities of the organisation’s attributes and the valuations compared to the market. To implement the bottom-up approach, the organization’s managers and the elementary level employees will need to consider the demographic data, daily activities, and individual stakeholder power consumption information.

It is predominantly translation exercises that need to be carried out with a series of transformations to mitigate the issues in the work practice (Barcelona et al., 2018). It will satisfy the business mandate and help the stakeholder in increasing productivity. It can be identified that the major issues that are impacting the organization currently are less productivity and low motivation among the employees.

Apart from that shift in the culture within the organizational level can also be identified along with the negative impact of the change at an individual level. As it can be identified that the new system after the merger did not align with the technology skills, values, and style as a consequence a lack of interconnectivity has caused a ripple effect across the other areas of the business operation. It has also resulted in the productivity of the organization.

Considering information around the operational and organizational dynamics will enable the business manager to accurately adjust different elements. The bottom-up approach can align with the action plan and bring the key elements of the company’s business operation back into the alignment (Holmemo et al., 2018).

Currently, the employees are not able to be infused with change management. To bring down the resistance from the employee, it is recommended to have a positive opportunity for reconsideration. This can be intended by the managers in association with the change initiated based on evaluation and acting accordingly as a survival mechanism with psychological empowerment and ownership mentality.

Figure 3: Psychological Empowerment and Ownership.

Evaluation of Solution

To navigate the appropriateness of the solutions intended to bring change within the organization and motivate the employees, the individual’s innovation response behaviour can be used as a significant framework. Regarding evaluating the proposed solution above the innovation, response behaviour can be developed that will distinguish between the modes of evaluating the change management.

In response to the implementation of the bottom-up approach the managers of the organization can act as promoters rather than opponents. Based on the theory of planned behaviour the barriers for passive novelty impeding behaviour or active novelty impending behaviour can exhibit innovation response behaviour and influence the individual’s intention (Schipper et al., 2017).

On that account, the role of an active promoter is more significant and appropriate for the provided scenario to support the employees through the change process. In contrast to the level of involvement, the active novelty supporting behaviour is recommended rather than the passive novelty supporting behaviour. Henceforth, a higher level of involvement with the role of a promoter among the managers can be the most effective way to evaluate the solution (Pittig, 2021). It will explicitly account for the socio-political dynamics within the organizational environment and also associate with the managerial issues associated with successful implementation of innovation within the organizational realities.

Figure 4: Role-Involvement framework.

Recommendations for Implementation and Management of Change

The Kubler Ross change curve is recommended to manage and implement the change. Change in the organizational environment is an inevitable part; therefore, formulating and planning to produce positive results require appreciation, acceptance, and incorporation in different levels of the organization.

The Kubler Ross change curve is a reliable tool for understanding the effectiveness of change in different stages that can be effectively used by the business managers of BCF and the health of the workforce to adapt to the change and move towards organizational success. It is also known as the 5 stages of grief, consisting of various emotions experienced by employees while accepting a change. The 5 stages include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Maniscalco et al., 2019).

Although the change in the business operations is well planned and framed by the managers, change within the people or the employees of the organization with the improvement for the system is also important. Consequently, adapting to change for the workforce can give the organisation an improved employee motivation.

The managers by the traumatic behaviour among the employees can identify the individual transformation at the elementary level. It can involve a lot of prestige issues or even power loss. To deal with the personal transition along with organizational changes, the company managers will also be needed to deal with the anger and bargaining from the employees (Williams and Braddock, 2019).

The easier it seems among the employees and stakeholders to go with the flow of the change in the company the easier it will be for the organization to implement the change. In this aspect, the managers will need to deal with anger, which further passes away, and the employees start to think about the best thing left in the situation that paves the way for bargaining.

Trying to negotiate in the situation and compromising help the workplace environment to come to a sustainable solution. In the next stage of the Kubler Ross change curve, depression among the employees is observed where the employee tends to feel negative emotions sadness, and fear. Signs of indifference, zero excitement, and reclusiveness can be identified.

Lastly, people tend to realize that the change within the situation will not make the grief fade away (Malone, 2018). The employees will either accept the change completely or resign from the situation. The resignation attitude will not create a healthy workplace environment; therefore, people resisting change need to be motivated at this stage. Exploring the new opportunities is further followed where the employees embrace the future scope for personal and professional development.

References

Bakari, H., Hunjra, A. & Niazi, G., 2017. How Does Authentic Leadership Influence Planned Organizational Change? The Role of Employees’ Perceptions: Integration of Theory of Planned Behavior and Lewin’s Three Step Model. Journal of Change Management, 17(2), pp. 155-187.

Barcelona, M.A., García-Borgoñón, L., Escalona, M.J. and Ramos, I., 2018. CBG-Framework: A bottom-up model-based approach for Collaborative Business Process Management. Computers in Industry, 102, pp.1-13. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166361517305213

Burnes, B. & Bargal, D., 2017. Kurt Lewin: 70 years on. Journal of Change Management, 17(2), pp. 91-100.

Cameron, E. & Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page Publishers.

Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. 3 ed. London: Routeledge.

Holmemo, M.D.Q., Rolfsen, M. and Ingvaldsen, J.A., 2018. Lean thinking: Outside-in, bottom-up? The paradox of contemporary soft lean and consultant-driven lean implementation. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 29(1-2), pp.148-160. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14783363.2016.1171705

Malone, E.D., 2018. The kubler‑ross change curve and the flipped classroom: moving students past the pit of despair.

Maniscalco, G.T., Ziello, A.R., Panetta, V., Guarcello, G., Improta, G. and Florio, C., 2019. The application of Kubler-Ross model in Newly Diagnosed Patients with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. Archives of Depression and Anxiety, 5(2), pp.47-51. Available at: https://www.peertechzpublications.com/articles/ADA-5-141.pdf [Accessed on 13 December 2021].

Martínez-Caro, E., Cegarra-Navarro, J.G. and Alfonso-Ruiz, F.J., 2020. Digital technologies and firm performance: The role of digital organisational culture. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 154, p.119962.

Pittig, A., 2019. Incentive-based extinction of safety behaviors: Positive outcomes competing with aversive outcomes trigger fear-opposite action to prevent protection from fear extinction. Behaviour research and therapy, 121, p.103463. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796719301494 [Accessed on 13 December 2021].

Rosenbaum, D., More, E. & Steane, P., 2018. Planned organisational change management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 31(2), pp. 286-303.

Schipper, P., Henckens, M.J., Borghans, B., Hiemstra, M., Kozicz, T. and Homberg, J.R., 2017. Prior fear conditioning does not impede enhanced active avoidance in serotonin transporter knockout rats. Behavioural brain research, 326, pp.77-86. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432817300074 [Accessed on 13 December 2021].

Swanson, D. & Creed, A., 2014. Sharpening the focus of force field analysis. Journal of change management, 14(1), pp. 28-47.

Williams, M. and Braddock, M., 2019. AI case studies: potential for human health, space exploration and colonisation and a proposed superimposition of the kubler-ross change curve on the hype cycle. Stud Humana, 8(1), pp.3-18. Available at:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin-Braddock/publication/331791109_AI_Case_Studies_Potential_for_Human_Health_Space_Exploration

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Case-Studies-Potential-for-Human-Health-Space-Exploration-and-Colonisation-and-a-Proposed-Superimposition-of-the-Kubler-Ross-Change-Curve-on-

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