Change Management Report: Kotter's Model and ERP Implementation

This report provides an in-depth analysis of change management within business organizations, emphasizing the importance of adapting to the dynamism of the globalized market. It highlights change management as a systematic approach to handling organizational changes, crucial for overcoming resistance, ensuring continuous improvement, and achieving long-term goals. The report focuses on Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, detailing its three main stages—generation, consolidation, and anchorage—and explaining each step's significance in successful change implementation. It also discusses the practical application of these principles, including a personal experience with ERP system adoption. The analysis underscores how change management supports business organizations in enhancing their operations and achieving strategic objectives such as profitability, competitiveness, and customer satisfaction.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Title : Change Management

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The high dynamism of the globalized market makes change initiatives inevitable for all
business organizations around the world. The dynamism of the globalized market is
characterized by rapid changes in consumer taste, regulations, competition strategy, and
technology. Business organizations are required to adopt change management strategies to
ensure that changes are executed correctly. Notably, change management occurs as the
systematic utilization of knowledge, resources, and tools for effectively handling the change in
organizations. The strategy supports the management of organizations' human and technical
components, hence enabling them to accomplish their goals. Today, the radical organizational
transformation makes change management crucial in overcoming change resistance, ensuring
continuous improvement, and preventing aftershocks.
Change management features a structured approach aimed at ensuring that changes in
organizational systems occur successfully. The strategy also enables business organizations to
orient their operations to long term goals of profitability, competitiveness, employee retention,
and customer satisfaction. In the 21st Century, businesses implement changes to ensure their
continuous penetration into the globalized market. The globalization of operations enables
corporations to achieve continuous expansion by supporting their operations in different nations
(Moran & Brightman, 2001). Successful change initiatives are dependent on the management’s
capacity to overcome change resistance. The change management process prevents change
resistance by creating awareness and acceptance of change in organizational workplaces. Change
management facilitates the establishment of an organizational culture that accepts change and
maintains long term goals.
Change management occurs as a comprehensive concept that enables organizations to
solve complex problems. The strategy enables organizations to implement continuous

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improvement to ensure their continuous alignment of operations with their long-term goals
(Paton & McCalman, 2008). Hence, continuous improvement exists as a component of the
change management that ensures stability and continuity of operations after change adoption.
The integration of continuous improvement with change management initiatives enables
organizations to overcome change resistance. Continuous improvement also enables
organizations to focus on change initiatives with long term goals. The continuous improvement
approach facilitates the improvement of operations hence boosting efficiency and performance.
The approach also contributes to the reduction of costs and risks, thus increasing profit margins.
The change management process is supported using different models. Currently, Kotter’s
8-Step Change Model occurs as the most important change management model. The model
ensures that change management occurs successfully through avoidance of associated pitfalls.
The eight steps of Kotter’s model are normally clustered into three main stages, namely
generation, consolidation and anchorage. The generation stage consists of the first four steps of
the Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, including urgency establishment, guidance coalition creation,
change vision development, and change vision communication (Stragalas, 2010). The first step,
urgency establishment, involves convincing key stakeholders about the need for change. In the
globalized market, changes are necessitated by changes in technology, competitive strategy, and
consumer taste. Organizations also implement changes to exploit major opportunities, avoid
risks, and address problems. The second step, guidance coalition creation, involves the formation
of a team for empowering the change effort. In this step, leaders encourage team members to
collaborate in achieving common goals. The step also allows change leaders to attract skilled and
talented employees by displaying commitment and enthusiasm.

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The third step, change vision development, entails the establishment of a vision to give
the change initiative a sense of direction. Therefore, the vision enables leaders to orient change
efforts with the long-term goals of the organization. Team leaders create change visions to boost
team members' motivation, which increases their productivity and innovation. Furthermore,
change visions support change leaders in coordinating team activities to prevent a deviation from
the established goals (Webster & Webster, 2012). Effective visions also enable change leaders to
collaborate with their subordinates in the making of effective decisions. The fourth step, change
vision communication, involves dissemination of the vision statement information. Effective
vision communication should feature a two-way communication strategy, enabling team
members to discuss and ask questions about the visions. The communication strategy ensures
that all team members understand the vision statement.
The consolidation stage consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh steps of the Kotter’s 8-
Step Change Model. The fifth step, broad-based change empowerment, involves the elimination
of obstacles to successful change processes. The step enables leaders to implement change vision
by transforming structures that undermine the developed visions. In this step, change leaders also
empower team members by boosting their skills, knowledge, and confidence regarding
engagement in the change implementation. The sixth step, generation of short-term goals,
enables change leaders to boost the change momentum (Galli, 2018). The short-term goals
normally boost the commitment of team members to the change initiative. The seventh step,
gains consolidation and change continuity, involves assessing the results to determine the
effectiveness of the change process. The step also involves the adoption of continuous changes to
facilitate the accomplishment of long term goals. Finally, the eighth stage is contained in the
anchorage stage. The eighth stage involves the institutionalization of new strategies to facilitate

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the establishment of a line between the adopted behaviors and organizational goals. The process
involves the integration of new norms and values into the organizational culture. The strategy
enables change leaders to change attitudes and behaviors of their subordinates hence boosting
their performance.
Change management, therefore, ensures that changes occur successfully in a business
organization. I have gained firsthand experience in the change management process through my
organization. Recently, my organization has adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) with its
system to enhance resources management. Specifically, my organization has benefitted
significantly from the change vision development (third step) and change vision communication
(fourth step) of Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model in the implementation of the ERP system. The
vision system has promoted the team’s commitment to the ERP system adoption initiative. The
integration of the ERP system with the organizational system has enabled the organization to
boost productivity and enhance its employees' satisfaction. ERP adoption is a change initiative
that will enable my organization to accomplish its long-term productivity and competitiveness
goals.

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References
Galli, B. J. (2018). Change management models: A comparative analysis and concerns. IEEE
Engineering Management Review, 46(3), 124-132.
Moran, J. W., & Brightman, B. K. (2001). Leading organizational change. Career development
international, 6(2), 111-119.
Paton, R. A., & McCalman, J. (2008). Change management: A guide to effective implementation.
Sage.
Stragalas, N. (2010). Improving change implementation: Practical adaptations of Kotter’s model.
OD practitioner, 42(1), 31-38.
Webster, M., & Webster, M. (2012). Successful change management—Kotter’s 8-step change
model. Leadership Thoughts.