Change Management Intervention at Myer Holdings Limited

This report discusses the change management intervention implemented at Myer Holdings Limited in Australia. It focuses on the restructuring of management to address issues caused by poor management and declining sales. The report also highlights the use of holistic models and the implementation of the McKinsey model to manage staff and promote effective teamwork and collaboration.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change Management
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report was prepared to demonstrate about the change management intervention
implemented at the business organisation named Myer Holdings Limited in Australia. The
company had been operating in multiple locations to cater the needs and preferences of
people and for keeping them satisfied as a whole too. The change management intervention
was done for ensuring restructure of management because of the deficiencies caused and
issues arisen from the poor management and misconducts done by the senior manager of the
organisation. The sales also declined, which also resulted in degrading the organisational
performance. The use of holistic model also brought major changes and allowed
identification of issues along with undertaking necessary actions to implement changes
effectively, furthermore meet the managerial requirements properly. To implement the
change management intervention, the restructuring of management had been possible, which
further improved the working conditions, culture and keep up with the latest trends. The
development of project leadership team, communicating the vision and engagement of staffs
further helped n development of culture that promoted effective teamwork, collaboration and
motivation of staffs to perform to their potential as well. The use of McKinsey model further
helped in managing the staffs, shared values and beliefs along with managing change in
leadership style to transformative or democratic leadership, which facilitate the corporate
culture and also ensured maintenance of values and ethics. This not only brought changes to
the organization, but also should be effective for improving the structure, systems and
enhance the performance and functioning of the organisation largely too.

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Table of Contents
Background................................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Intervention................................................................................................................................5
Need and Opportunities..............................................................................................................6
References................................................................................................................................10

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Background
Myer Holdings Limited is considered as an upmarket departmental store chain (Bailey
2017). It is headquartered in the region of Docklands, Victoria, Australia. The same was
debuted long back in the old ages of 1900, which determines it to be 119 years old now under
the surveillance of Sidney Myer. It is known to spread its trading wings across all the
different states in Australia as well as amongst one of Australia's two self-governing
territories. Long back from the day of its existence, Myer is recognised to have grown with
almost over 64 stores and more than 14,000 workers (Epstein 2018).

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Introduction
Myer Holdings Limited is recognised to deal with wide ranges of product concerning
the women and men wear, baby and children variety products and clothing, cosmetics,
accessories, footwear, fragrance, electrical products, entertainment products as well as food
and groceries (Jary & Wileman 2016). The same was known to merge with its rival business
store David Jones in the year of January 2014. However, the merger was on the terms and
conditions that both the store chains would be operating with their work on an independent
basis. The current brand ambassadors of the concerned industry are recognised as the Elyse
Knowles, and Josh Gibson signed in the year of 2018 (Edwards et al. 2018). Myer is also
known to engage several other known personalities as their fashion ambassadors.

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Intervention
According to the viewpoint of Haines (2016), the critical change related issues
recognised for the Myer was the restructure of its management system. In this connection, the
given report is focused on explaining the relevant and significant changes and features of the
mentioned issue and its intervention.
Management Restructure
As opined by Jenkins & Poople (2017), management restructuring term is an act of
reorganising the legal, operational, ownership as well as the employment structure of an
entire business firm. In this connection, the management restructure observed to be a
significant change that was urgently needed within the working structure of Myer Holdings
Limited. This was because it was found that the allegations towards sexual harassment were
made against Mark McInnes, the CEO of the company and the same was recorded to resign
from his position concerning the legal actions and considerations taken by the company
employee (Deresky & Christopher 2015). The CEO was alleged of making unethical
comments with regards to the sexual nature and advances. This brought to a need for an
immediate change of the appointment of a new CEO to the company. The battle between the
immediate resignation and the subsequent legal considerations led to the selection of Paul
Zahra as the new positioned CEO of Myer. As analysed with the help of the study that the
actions of the former CEO were both termed to be unethical and illegal. In this context,
researches showed that the alleged CEO responded positively to the situation. This is because
the CEO proactively after learning the consequences of the legal complaint, informed the
company on oneself and resigned on the same date. However, it was also examined that
McInnes learned that the public or media sectors would not have accepted the resignation and
thereby he initiated the process of receiving his fault and a punishment for the same.

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Moreover, the concerned management of Myer had undergone a restructure of the entire
managerial team of the company post to the incident that took place. In accordance with this,
it was analysed that the sales percentage of Myer had declined over the past few years since
the fiscal year of 2012. This also led to the changes in the senior level managerial
requirements of Myer. The statistical data in this context was recorded to be shown as a 20%
decrease in the profit percentage in the year of 2012 as compared to that of 2011. The profit
which was recorded as $160m in 2011 had broken down to a dramatic level of $100m in the
year of 2012 (Yang & Abeysekera 2018).
Need and Opportunities
As opined by Ansoff et al. (2018), there always lies a need as well as an opportunity
for any business firm to create change its working structure and implement effective and
efficient strategical plans and processes to the same. In this context, the report evaluates the
current needs and opportunities to make necessary changes in the Myer Holdings Limited
concerning its management restructure and with the help of the limitations of the study of
SWOT analysis.
SWOT Analysis
According to the viewpoint of Wheelen et al. (2017), SWOT analysis is a business
study undertaken by a business firm in order to identify and evaluate its internal strengths and
weaknesses as well as the external opportunities and threats that can create an impact in the
working structure of a business firm. In this connection, the SWOT analysis determining the
internal and external force field environment of Myer is specified as below.
Strengths

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As opined by Crawford (2016), Myer Holdings Limited is considered to be one of the
leading business firms in the industry of departmental store and has numerous strengths that
make it capable enough to thrive in the market conditions of Australia. This strength helps the
concerned company to protect its market share in the existing market competency as well as
in the new penetrating competitive market. The strengths of Myer, in this case, are specified
as below.
 Automation in the activity proceedings of Myer has led to consistency in the quality
of the products of the same. This brought to the up and down scaling of the demand
conditions of the market that overcame the risk of the decrease in the number of sales
in the year of 2012.
 By the concern of building expertise in the field of entering into a new form of target
markets and creating success out of them, Myer Holdings have been able enough to
bring their sales to a high paradigm and decrease the hamper caused to them in the
fiscal year of 2012.
 Recruiting highly skilled and talented labour workforce in the managerial team after
the intervention led to effective and efficient achievement of the desired goals and
objectives of the company.
 Affluent track record of innovating and developing a new range of products
concerning the market factor of product innovation led to an increase in the sales and
revenue generation.
Weaknesses
As stated by Hilty et al. (2016), the weaknesses of the Myer lies in the areas where
the same can improve itself and avoid the occurrence of future conflicts. In this context, the
inadequacies of the concerned company are specified as below.

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 The lack in the financial planning system led to the disruption in the current and
liquid asset ratio and therefore the decrease in the profit percentage of the company.
 The lack of the capability of merging with firms with a different form of work culture.
 The limitation of the compatibility of the organisation structure of Myer with the
current models of the business market and thus the expansion of the product segments
of the company which leads to profit earning for the same.
 The failure in the management of the healthy and ethical working environment for the
female working employees of the company and report of same being harassed being
recorded.
Opportunities
As opined by Santos, Pache & Birkholz (2015), opportunities are that beneficiaries to
an organisation that helps the same to gain a competitive advantage in the business market. In
this context, the potential opportunities that are leveraged to the Myer Holdings Company are
specified as below.
 The new and innovated technologies provide the concerned company with practising
the ideology of effective pricing strategies that will enable the firm to maintain and
sustain its peer customers.
 The lower inflation rate prevailing in the economic factor of the country enables the
firm to earn profit at a lower interest rate and lower the impact of the decrease in the
profit earnings that occurred in the year of 2012.
 Implementing the prior laws and orders in considerations with maintaining the ethical
environment in the working structure of Myer.
Threats

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As stated by Vernon (2017), risks are part of the external environment of a business
that affects the effectiveness of the same but has great chances to be turned into more
significant opportunities. The threats for the concerned departmental store are specified as
below.
 The operation of the company in different countries exposes the same to fluctuations
of currency especially in the volatile political climate of various countries across the
globe.
 The changing lifestyle and behavioural attributes of the customers towards the
strictness of health and safety.
 The shortage in the workforce and the changed managerial structure at an immediate
action led to a decrease in the efficiency of work in the organisation.
PESTEL Analysis
As opined by Sadgrove (2016), PESTEL analysis is a tool that helps a business firm
to analyse the external environmental factors that affects its plans and processes. In this
connection, the same is analysed with the help of the given table for the Myer Holdings Ltd.
Political  The unavoidable threat to the Australian departmental
business market getting disrupted because of the military
policies and threat of terrorism.
 The strict laws of regulatory and taxation policies.
Economic  The standard of the economic stability in Australia.
 The effectiveness and efficiency in the financial condition.
Social  The access towards the essential services needed to fulfil the
purpose of the departmental store needs.

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 The standard of education of the people.
Technological  The empowerment in the value chain supply.
 The evaluation and dissemination in the technological
innovations related to retail chain.
Environmental  The norms and laws towards the sustainability of the
environment.
 Altering the plans and priorities of the product innovation
ideology concerning the environmental aspects.
Legal  The strict law adhering towards protecting the data of the
customers.
 The laws and guides towards the health and safety of the
customer while dealing with sensitive products that the
customers consume.
Diagnosis
Considering the ever changing business environment and increased complexities along
with lack of ability to meet regulatory requirements, high competition and most importantly,
the poor management structure, as seen from above section demonstrated. Due to the poor
management structure, there have been multiple issues like decline in sales, failing to meet
the customers’ demands and expectations and even poor performances from the staffs
(Adeniji, Osibanjo and Abiodun 2013). Due to this, the business organisation named Myer
Holdings might fail to sustain in the competitive business environment and thus enabling
change would be essential for the company to enable change management in order to thrive
in business, furthermore ensure management of portfolio for the targeted initiatives that could

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draw essential benefits by aligning the complexities and issues of the organisation with the
external environment (Cameron and Green 2015). The Holistic organisation model has been
applied to achieve the goals and objectives within quick time and within the allocated budget,
furthermore strengthen the management performance and efficiency along with reduction of
costs that might be unnecessary. The Holistic diagnostic model of organisational model also
provided a great framework to assess the structure of the organisation and gained insight into
the efficiency of operations and processes, which further helped in advancement and gaining
success in business as well (Draghici, Popescu and Gogan 2014).
The holistic diagnostic model has been selected because of its efficiency in managing
good organisational behaviours, which can enable major changes to the management
structure, furthermore ensures reaching the targeted goals and objectives with much ease and
effectiveness. This kind of model has been applied at Myer Holdings to facilitate the change
management procedures and add value and benefits by overcoming the issues properly. At
first, the mission and the purpose of organisation would be demonstrated, which should be
followed by addressing the concerns and issues based on external influences (Duffield and
Whitty 2015). The organisational functions are broken down and then aligned to the
complexities that were addressed and also the impacts of those. Furthermore, priority has
been put on the initiatives required to implement necessary actions and resolve the issues
related to organisational structure as soon as possible. From the application of this model, the
issue was identified where the CEO was found liable of misconducts and had been
responsible for making unethical comments, which finally resulted in prioritising on the
management of change (Newman et al. 2014). The management of change is brought with the
entire restructuring of the management team along with the changes done for the senior level
managerial requirements, because of the lack of sales revenue experienced in the past few
years at Myer Holdings. The holistic diagnostic model not only helped in identifying the

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issues, but also allowed the company authorities to determine the needs for change, which has
been possible by restructuring the structure of organisational management, thereby, leading to
enhanced organisational performance and overcoming complexities too (Bogdanova et al.
2016).
The present organisational functioning was ineffective, not only because of the alleged
remarks made by the CEO of the company, but also because of the decline in sales due to
poor performance and inability to meet the senior level managerial requirements. A huge
change was to be done and thus the holistic diagnostic model has been applied to ensure
identifying the issues and complexities and then undertake approaches for the purpose of
enabling changes and improve the business functioning too, in terms of employee
performance to the potential and increase in sales too (Doppelt 2017). Due to this, there was
absence of a healthy and ethical working environment, which also contributed to the poor
business performance for Myer Holdings in Australia.
The need for change is evident and the Mckinsey 7S change model has been implemented
to improve the organisational performance. It can not only facilitate development of a
strategic plan, but will also allow the issues to be resolved by working as a team and in
coordination, furthermore bring effective changes all throughout the business functioning.
The components, especially the hard elements f the model include focus on the strategy,
which can create a roadmap and allow for selection of a new leader or manager, who can
present a roadmap and gain leadership edge. This would also facilitate the structure of the
organisation, which is another hard element and ensure management of everyday activities by
engaging the organisational memebrs together for accomplishment of tasks with much ease
and effectiveness. This can further enhance the functioning of systems, considered as hard

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element of the model, furthermore proceed on to the next step of managing the soft elements
as well including the shared values, style of leadership, staff management and skills.
With the selection of a new manager or leader, the shared values and beliefs are critical to
be managed for reflecting the organisational culture and ensure maintenance of codes of
ethics too. The leadership[ style that can be suitable considering the present scenario could be
the democratic or transformation leadership style, which should allow considering the
opinions and responses of the team members and ensure making proper decisions too. The
management of staffs or human resources would be possible much more conveniently, which
should also lay light on enhancing their skills and core competencies. This could be possible
by making arrangement of training sessions and assessing their needs for development to
bring organisational success.
Planning and implementation
After the alignment of all the relationships, the degree of complexity that has emerged s
also aligned with the requirements of complexity to ensure management of changes and at the
same time, mange identification of scopes and opportunities required to develop a clear
process for developing change, planning for execution and finally executing the approaches
and initiatives properly (Unsworth, Dmitrieva and Adriasola 2013). This should allow for
providing better customers’ services and even cater to their needs, furthermore, most
importantly, create an effective organisational structure that could comply with the rules and
regulations of the marketplace and mage better collaboration between the employees and
business partners too.
To plan and implement a change intervention for managing organisational restructure, it
is important to identify the needs of change at first. The needs include lack of management
structure and not being able to meet the managerial requirements at Myers. The proactive

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approach to restructure of the management at the company has been facilitated with the
involvement of market leaders who could follow the latest trends in the market and also
create new trends with the development of a strategic initiative (Kossek et al. 2014). The
company experienced sales decline due to the inability to meet the senior level managerial
requirements and lack of motivation and encouragement among the staffs too, which further
worsened the entire scenario. To implement the change intervention at Myer Holdings, during
the planning phase, the objectives are set at first with the assessment of budget to be required
for restructuring, manage communication, form a potential project team, recruit and select a
good leader or manager and set a time schedule too (Sikdar and Payyazhi 2014).
The restructuring of management has been possible at Myers by cutting down the staffs to
ensure integration across various channels and acquire skills and expertise to capitalise on the
shift in structural changes. The trading conditions also lead to various complexities and due
to this, the traffic at physical stores was recorded as much lower. The company not only
focused on meeting the senior level managerial requirements, but also developed a high
growth Omni channel business to serve the customers efficiently and at the same time,
improve the business performance and effectiveness largely (Doppelt 2017). The
implementation plan for change intervention has been managed with the following steps:
Development of a project leadership team
The need for project leadership is immense, which not only promotes improvement in
organisational structure, but also should include team memebrs who have the necessary skills,
knowledge and expertise to manage the project, furthermore facilitate the management
restructure and understand their own responsibilities.
Communicating the vision

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The communicating of vision and mission statement is necessary for understanding the
needs for change management, furthermore develop a strategic plan to improve the
management restructure. The mission and clearly defined goals should be addressed to the
staffs, which could resolve any confusions and misunderstandings and thereby incur less cost,
time and efforts during the change management at Myer.
Support to managers
With the selection of a new leader or manager, there might be uncertainties faced while
managing the changes and thus the employees should provide necessary support and improve
the delivery of messages and information with the help of their own actions undertaken and
based on their behaviours too (Adeniji, Osibanjo and Abiodun 2014).
Engaging employees
The engagement of employees should facilitate sharing and exchange of ideas, opinions
and responses, which could improve the ability to make decisions and strengthen the
communication process efficiency along with manage of change perfectly.
Shaping the culture
One of the most important phase of change management intervention could be the
formation of a good culture, which should promote diversity and also create better working
conditions, where managers and employees can work collaboratively and progress towards a
shared goal or objective to implement the change (Kossek et al. 2014).
Committing to quality over quantity
The focus on quality should improve the organisational standards and create scopes
for drawing in more clients too.

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Celebrating success after the change has occurred
With the management restructure, the organization must acknowledge the milestones
that have been achieved and enjoy the moment with the aim of not making such mistakes
again in the future, It should make everyone associated with the organisation to believe that
they can, understand that the change has been necessary, furthermore keep own self and
others motivated and encouraged to bring out their best for the organisation.
Findings
The major findings on the basis of holistic model used and implementation process,
are selecting a right manager or leader, management of staffs properly and managing goo
leadership style where the organisational memebrs can share their views and opinions before
making a decision. The maintenance of codes of ethics and working in team should be
facilitated as well with the management of changes brought through implementation and
planning proves, which could facilitate the formation of a good corporate culture, where
shared values, beliefs are managed and the organization aims to achieve success within quick
time too.

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Conclusion
The report was prepared to implement a change management intervention for
overcoming the issues that were faced by Myer Holdings and to facilitate the change
management process efficiency. The company faced decline in sales and also lack of ability
to meet the managerial requirements due to unethical misconducts. The company focused on
gaining the opportunities to generate revenue at a lower interest rate while at the same time,
managed the management structure for ensuring proper management of change and improve
the working conditions as well as business performance largely. The holistic diagnostic
model helped in gaining insight into the complexities and needs for change while the
planning and implementation enabled selection of right managers or leaders and ensured
smooth business functioning by facilitating communication process, decision making and to
attain better outcomes.

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Recommendations
 It is recommended to implement the change intervention for restructuring of
management and ensure improvement of business performance and efficiency
 The implementation of change intervention is recommended for selection of right
managers or leaders and form a collaborative workforce to make decisions properly
and smoothen up the communication process
 The use of McKinsey 7s model is recommended as well for focusing on the various
elements, both hard and soft, to ensure managing these aspects carefully that can
bring organisational success.
 The management of sustainability should also bring change management by
contributing to the positive impact on the environment and remain socially
responsible too.
 It is also recommended for Myer Holdings Limited to conduct corporate social
responsibility measures for becoming socially responsible by providing financial
support to non-profit organisations and even adopt environment friendly practices for
the production to create lesser impact on the environment.

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