Organisational Change Management Report: ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

This report delves into the concept of change management within the context of Composants Perfectionnés, a French car component manufacturer. It explores the need for organizational changes driven by economic downturns and increasing competition in the car manufacturing industry. The report identifies the required changes, including structural adjustments like workforce reduction and strategic shifts to streamline operations. Furthermore, it addresses the challenges inherent in implementing change management programs, such as employee resistance, past failures, workplace conflicts, and communication gaps. The report provides practical solutions to overcome these challenges, emphasizing employee engagement, careful planning, conflict resolution, and effective communication strategies to ensure successful organizational transformation. The report also provides references to support its claims and analysis.

Organisational Change Management
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE –
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Organisational Change Management
Question 1  Conduct research on “Change Management”. Explain the concept Change
Management in the context of Composants Perfectionnés.
Answer 1  Change management is a planned intervention that is implemented by business
organizations to transform their processes, operations, structure, technology, etc. in order to
become more effective and to cope up with the changing market trends (Hayes, 2018). The
spread of globalization has given rise to a fierce competition amongst business organizations
that have also become vulnerable to rapidly changing internal and external environment
factors. These factors, like technology, society, political, environmental, legal, etc. can
undergo a change rapidly and can force a business organization to implement workplace
changes in order to remain efficient.
Composants Perfectionnés is a French car component manufacturing company that has two
plants in France and additional plants in Spain and UK. The company has been able to
perform well since its foundation but the recent economic downturn has had a huge impact on
the demand, which has made it difficult for the company to survive in the market. The
prevailing condition is forcing the company to make changes in its structure by downsizing
its workforce and also shutting down some of its subsidiaries so that it could cope up with the
change that has been experienced in the industry. A major external force that has driven the
need for the organisation to change is the economic condition of the countries where the
company operates. The management of the company is now planning to cut down its costs by
streamlining its operations and limiting its manufacturing to some of the selected subsidiaries
as it would help the company in dealing with the fall in demand for its products and also to
remain competitive in the market for a long period of time.
Question 2  Based on your answer in Question 1, what are the changes required by
Composants Perfectionnés in order to face the growing competition in the care
manufacturing industry?
Answer 2  Since the spread of globalization and liberalization, the care manufacturing
industry has undergone a dramatic change. Major car manufacturers have bene reaping the
benefits of trade policies and have expanded their operations overseas, which has increased
the competition between business organizations. In order to face the growing competition in
the car manufacturing industry, the changes will have to be implemented by Composants
Perfectionnés are discussed below:

Organisational Change Management
Structural changes:
Structural change is a major change for a business organisation that allows a company to
reduce the size of its workforce by terminating job positions that do not offer much value to
the business. As discussed in the case study, the management of the company is dedicated to
reduce the size of its workforce and shut down a few of its subsidiaries in order to cope up
with the decreasing demand for the company’s products. Structural changes will also allow
the company to set new priorities for the remaining employees by preparing fresh job
descriptions and specifications. Overall, a structural change will allow the company to remain
profitable by reducing its operational costs (Neffke, Hartog, Boschma, & Henning, 2018).
Strategical changes:
Strategy is a future oriented course of action that is aimed at the achievement of a desired
goal or an objective. Strategic changes are the most commonly occurring changes in the car
manufacturing industry because of the changing technology, customer preferences,
competition and innovation (Ingram, n.d.). Composants Perfectionnés is no exception and
will have to introduce a number of changes in its organisational strategy. A change in the
strategy would allow the company to streamline its operations and restrict its manufacturing
process to only those subsidiaries that are more productive and efficient. The new strategy of
the company will allow it to make a good use of economies of scale and bring about a
considerable decrease in its production costs.
These are the two major changes that the management of Composants Perfectionnés will
have to implement right now while there can be other changes required to be implemented
too in the future, if an internal and external factor drives the need to.
Question 3  What are the challenges in implementing change management and how to
overcome those challenges?
Answer 3  There can be a number of challenges to a change management program, which
can make it difficult for human resource managers to deal with an organisational change.
Some of the challenges to a change program are discussed below:
Resistance to change
One of the greatest challenges to a change program is the resistance that the employees offer
to a change program. Resistance to change is a feeling amongst the employees that makes

Organisational Change Management
them oppose a workplace change if it has the probability of affecting their jobs. Further, it is
also a natural tendency of human beings to resist changes in their lives. To overcome
resistance to change management, human resource managers can try to engage the
employees. Further, the management should also try to remove any kind of ambiguity as it
can lead to the development of a fear in the minds of the employees.
Failure to change in the past
The failure of an organisation to successfully implement a workplace change can reduce its
ability to implement a change in the future. A failed change can lower down the morale and
motivation level of the employees and they might not show any degree of openness to a
change program in the future. To overcome this challenge, human resource managers should
make it a point that a change program is carefully designed, planned, implemented and
executed so that the chances of its failure are negligible (Powers, 2018).
Workplace conflicts
Workplace changes can evoke a wide variety of emotions in the employees of an
organisation, which can sometimes lead to stress, frustration and negativity. This can make
the employees take out their frustration on each other, which might lead to workplace
conflicts between the employees who want to change and between the ones that are resisting
a change. Such situations should be carefully handled by the human resource managers and
conflicts should always be resolved so that the change program can be implemented
successfully.
Communication
Lack of communication is another challenge that can lead to the failure of a change program.
To deal with this challenge, human resource managers can identify change agents and can
form coalition teams that would act as a channel for communicating relevant information to
the employees at the right point of time. Further, keeping the employees involved in the
change program also ensures that communication does not become a challenge to the change
program (Smith, 2018).

Organisational Change Management
References
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Ingram, D. (n.d.). What Happens When an Organization Changes Its Strategy? . Retrieved
from Chron: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/happens-organization-changes-its-
strategy-2690.html
Neffke, F., Hartog, M., Boschma, R., & Henning, M. (2018). Agents of structural change:
The role of firms and entrepreneurs in regional diversification. Economic Geography,
94(1), 23-48.
Powers, R. (2018, September 19). How Change Management Creates Challenges - And
Opportunities . Retrieved from Tinypulse: https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/how-
change-management-creates-challenges-and-opportunities
Smith, C. (2018, August 16). Challenges Faced By Leaders During Change Management .
Retrieved from Change: https://change.walkme.com/organizational-change-
management/