Case Study: Lakeland Wonders Organisational Change Project

Assessment item 2 Case
Study

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
3. What type of organisational culture would you say is evident in the Lakeland Wonders
case? Justify your argument. (relates to Topic 4)........................................................................5
4. Prepare to map the stakeholders at Lakeland Wonders. Who are they and where do they
belong on the map as shown in figure 7.1 in your textbook? Justify each of the stakeholders’
position. (relates to Topic 5)........................................................................................................6
5. Discuss three major recommendations with justifications that you could provide to Cheryl
Hailstrom, the new CEO of Lakeland Wonders for the success of the change initiative............8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

Question1:
Describing the reasons for the organisational change project for Lake land wonders as well as
also analyse what change approach has been adopted by Cherry Hailstorm?
The CEO of Lakeland wonders company, Cheryl Hailstrom wants to initiate a change
with the company in order to enhance the operation capacity into offshore markets. The main
reason behind initiating this change is to enhance the competitive position of company by taking
advantage of manufacturing on large scales. This will allow the organisation to gain insight
about new technologies as well as cheap labour resources of the country like china. In addition to
this, the establishment of manufacturing units in the foreign countries like china will enable the
company to increase its market share which will directly leads to the greater generation of
profits. Moreover, the main reason for implementing this change by CEO of company is to
minimise the cost of its wooden toys products so that it can gather the attention of large number
of customer in the most effective manner. In order to implement the change within the firm, the
CEO Cherry Hailstrom has decided to invest more on adopting aggressive advertisement
strategies so that the the organisation can target the needs of customer present in foreign markets.
Apart from this, She also opined for building new packaging ideas in order to effectively draw
the attention of maximum number of customers.
The CEO has also said that optimising supply chain channels will allow the firm to make
faster deliveries to the customer even on holiday time and meeting their demands in most
appropriate manner. Most importantly, for initiating the change management initiatives, the CEO
will change her leadership style by putting more focus on persuading as well as motivating team
members to achieve change objectives in proper manner. In relation to this, she will also become
more open towards hearing the main problems of people and will also attentively listen the
diverse view points made by its team members. Moreover, she will also focus on linking the
objectives of team members with the vision of the firm by effectively meeting their expectations
and needs. Furthermore, the CEO will also lay its focus on improving motivation level of
workers by giving competitive salaries and rewards to the outstanding performers. She will also
makes sure to remove barriers of change by enabling team members to know what they loves the
most about their workplace. This approach will support the Cheryl to promote the feelings of
positiveness among the team members. For establishing the required change in Lakeland
wonders, the CEO needs to create the sense of urgency to the team members by telling them why

this change is critical for both the company and its team members. The construction of open
communication channels will be the useful tool for delivering the benefits of change to each
worker of the organisation. It will also allow team member to present their views in the form of
feedback leading to increase in their loyalty with vision of firm.
Q2. Critically apply either the PEST-based framework or the McKinsey 7S framework to
analyse the need for change in Lakeland Wonders case.
It is a tool which is used by the businesses to track the external factors of environment of the
market. This analysis provides information about the business direction, the position of the
brand, growth targets and risks which can arise in productivity of the organisation. The PEST
analysis on Lakeland Wonders is discussed below:
 Political Factors: These are the factors which are related to the influence of government
on the business. The political factors are tax policies, trade tariffs, Fiscal policy, etc.
Lakeland Wonders operates mainly in US which is a very political stable economy. The
company receives the benefit of not changing the strategies and policies at regular
intervals due to the stability of laws and regulations. This helps in focusing on a
particular aspect which leads to increase in the efficiency and quality of operations. The
organisation must examine all the political factors since every country possess different
political stability and laws. It should prepare for facing any situation outside the existing
market.
 Economic Factors: These factors are the identifiers of performance of economy and
directly impact the organisation on long term basis. These factors involves inflation rate,
interest rates, foreign exchange rates and economic growth patterns. These factors are
very essential for Lakeland Wonders since these make a direct impact on the demand,
profits, costs and prices. The company needs to take into consideration the economic
factors seriously in making planning to expand its business operations outside the
domestic market. The strategies are prepared after analysing the economic condition and
GDP of the nation where the business is thinking of expanding its operations.
 Social Factors: These are the factors which are related to changing trends, choices and
preferences of the customer's in the society. It has been seen that every business needs to
adapt to these changes in the tastes of consumers to be able to frame policies accordingly.
Lakeland Wonders realises the importance of innovation and diversification in wooden