A Case Analysis on: Change in Bookbarn's Operations

Running head: A CASE ANALYSIS ON: CHANGE IN BOOKBARN’S OPERATIONS
A CASE ANALYSIS ON: CHANGE IN BOOKBARN’S OPERATIONS
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Author Note

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Transformation is always an essential process, in any technology or business sector.
For the business sector, it involves the alteration of fundamental elements like processes,
people, systems and technology, across the overall unit (Vukšić, Bach & Popovič 2013). It
further achieves qualities to effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction to the stakeholders.
There may be several reasons why an organization demands to initiate change in their
business environment.
In the respective case study, the importance of inheriting transformation into the
business processes of Australia-based office stationary supplier, Bookbarn has been observed
to be questioned. Accordingly, this study aims to provide key in-sights on the factors of-
identification and analysis of the underlying problems, their relation to hard or soft problems,
defining the stakeholders and problem owners, analysis of the current models (tools and
techniques) and, evaluation of soft system methodology. Also, a descriptive figure (Rich
picture) is also presented.
Identification of the key problems
 Inefficient administrative structure: The increasing sales volume was not
identifiably and efficiently handled by the respective employees. It was mainly
due to the manual ordering system’s usage.
 Manual ordering system: The use of manual ordering system increases
involved costs to employees, their workload and execution time. This
traditional method is ineffective in the modern world.
 Outdated Resources: Use of old and ‘out-of-date’ price lists and catalogues,
makes a constant degradation, due to no updates on the current rates of
different materials, while the process of business remains the same. This

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affects the fulfilment process of the ordered items. Moreover, the Delivery and
Warehouse department are held responsible for this problem.
 Lack of IT officials: Clara’s statement of introducing an IT department was
an intelligent idea, however was opposed by many officials. The lack of IT
experts in the organization, creates direct impact on the exposure, customer
satisfaction, collection of various information and sales of the company.
 No handling of high orders: The ever-growing market is unpredictable, as
customer’s demands raises, significantly. Accordingly, the received orders
need to be handled properly. This is important to be executed, however, is
lacking in Bookbarn’s management processes.
 Resistance to change/Conflicts of Interest: As stated by the HR manager and
other officials statement’s expressions, it was evident that the introduction of
new information systems would not be familiar to all. Moreover, employees
with little knowledge of the computerised systems are opposed to inheriting
such functionalities, perhaps will inhibit them. This raises an issue of
resistance to change, and creates conflicts of interest between the involved
individuals.
 Competitive threat: There is a significant amount of competitors who use
fully computerised ordering systems to initiate their operations, and also use
the online platform for further flexible service methods to their respective
consumers. This is threatening to Bookbarn’s prospective, due to their
primitive techniques, are less efficient to the competitors.

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Analysis of the key problems
For corrective understanding and treatment of the respective problems, the
implementation of Russel Ackoff’s framework is crucially useful. According to the Ackoff
(1994), four ways of solving a problem are-
 Absolution- Ignoring the problem, while hoping for it to settle in the future.
 Problem Resolution- Investigating the previously executed solutions to search for a
resolution which can maintain the current issue.
 Problem Solving- Searching the ‘Optimal Solution’, in a business environment.
However, its effect is debatable as firstly, it is the best option to opt for, yet, has
temporary and inefficient problem mitigation in a dynamically problematic
environment, where problems are different and continued.
 Dissolving a problem- This method, specifically involves a ‘design’, which describes
the new designing processes, to identify and inhibit the errors in the system.
 Manual ordering system:
Approach to the
problematic situation
Justification
Absolution: The staffs and customer may take a while to initiate the order. The
problem can be resolved by ignoring the effect of slowness of the
procedure, and hoping for the issue to be resolved, automatically.
Consequence: This may lead to becoming a bigger problem
which can affect the business performance. The problem is not
guaranteed to be resolved or improved. Upon ineffective
mitigation, the business performance may get affected.