Promoting Innovation

In the current business scenario, it is important for the business organizations to cope up with the intensity of innovation and technological development in the market in order to maintain their competitiveness. This paper discusses the need for technological change and how it can help New Clinic in overcoming current gaps. Strategies for promoting organizational change and mitigating resistances are also discussed.

Running head: PROMOTING INNOVATION
Promoting innovation
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
In the current business scenario, it is important for the business organizations to cope up
with the intensity of innovation and technological development in the market in order to maintain
their competitiveness. However, implementation of the technological change is difficult and
complex due to the reason that it involves changes in the existing organizational processes
(Fisher & Shell, 2014). Currently, I am working with New Clinic, Dubai, which provides
healthcare and checkup services in small scale. Currently, they are having only one facility in
Dubai and catering to limited market area. However, the challenges for them are increasing with
the increase in the level of competition in the market. Currently, I am working in this
organization as an operation executive and thus it is my responsibility to look after different
options in gaining competitiveness for the business (Monahan, 2013). It is recommended by me
that New clinic should implement online booking system in place of their current manual
booking system. This will help them to provide more effective services to the patients.
This paper will discuss about the need for the technological change and how the
recommended change will help the New Clinic in overcoming the current gaps. In addition, this
paper will also discuss about the process of promotion of the organizational change among the
employees. Strategies for mitigating the resistances will be identified and evaluated. A few
recommended steps will be stated, which will further help in effective implementation of the
change in the future.
Identification of the need
New clinic is a small scale healthcare provider in Dubai and offers treatment for minor
health issues along with offering doctors clinic services to the patients. However, as of now the

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booking process of appointment is entirely done by manual way. Thus, it is more time
consuming and patients have to wait for longer time in getting the appointment. In the current era
of online services, this is quite backdated with majority of the healthcare services in Dubai are
offering online booking services for their patients (Eason, 2014). It should also be noted that
customer convenience is also increasing with offering the online services. In accordance to this
need, it is recommended that New Clinic should implement online based booking process. This
will reduce the waiting time for the patients along with the proper allocation of the appointments
according to the vacancy. Thus, the organization will have less probability of getting vacant seats
in their daily operation (Grant, 2014).
Promotional strategy of the change
A few steps will be followed in promoting the change among the employees and in this
case, the Kotter’s 8 steps model will be used. Promotion of the change is important among the
employees due to the reason that employees are the major stakeholders in change management
process and thus their consent is important for the long term success (Contrafatto & Burns,
2013). According to the Kotter’s 8 steps model, the first step is to create the urgency among the
employees regarding the change. This is due to the fact that the employees should have the
awareness about the advantages that should be gained by them from the implementation of the
change (Small et al., 2016). This will ensure that they will have genuine need for the change. In
addition, positive awareness will further help in promoting the change among all the internal
stakeholders. It should also be noted that feedback of the employees should always be garnered
in the implementation of the change process to have the more real world effectiveness.

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The stated model of change also focused on involving the employees from the initial
stage of designing the change process. Thus, all the stakeholders will be included from the initial
process of the change (Small et al., 2016). This will create awareness among the employees from
the very first stage it is getting automatically promoted among the internal stakeholders in the
organization. The effectiveness of the change management process will be further amplified with
the help of proper cooperation and coordination. This will include the identification of the leader
in the change management process including the team members (Chappell et al., 2016). The
more effective will be the level of cooperation and coordination among the team members, the
more will be the generation of the positive word of mouth, which will further enhances the
promotion of the change process in the organization.
Kotter’s 8 steps model also stated about the importance of developing vision for the
change. This is also important due to the reason that development of the vision will help the
involved stakeholders in promoting the objectives and the advantages to be gained from the
initiated change (Mishra, 2013). Development of the vision will also help the involved
stakeholders to maintain a specific approach in the due course of action. In addition, the
maintenance of singular approach will further help in defining the objectives of the change
process among the employees. However, it should also be noted that effectiveness of the
communication of the vision also determines the degree to which the change process will get
promoted among the employees (Calegari, Sibley & Turner, 2015).
Identification of the resistances
It is identified that a couple of middle level managers are resisting to the change initiated
change process. One of their major reasons of resistance is probability of job loss. This is due to

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the reason that initiation of the newer technology including the online booking services will
cause loss of jobs of the employees currently employed in the booking process (Bateh, Castaneda
& Farah, 2013). Thus, according to them, this technological change should not be initiated and
implemented. Another reason identified for the middle level managers is the lack of skills and
expertise of the employees in coping up with the changing technologies. In addition, it is also
being stated by them that difficulty to be faced by the employees in getting matched with the
new implemented changes will demoralize them and attrition rate will get increased (McKay,
Kuntz & Naswall, 2013). New Clinic will also find it difficult in investing more capital in
changing the infrastructure in accordance to the new changes, which will further cause incursion
of added cost. Thus, it can be concluded that the middle level managers are having some of the
relevant reasons for resisting to the changes (Georgalis et al., 2015).
Mitigation of the resistances
One of the major strategies being initiated to motivate the middle level managers in the
change procedure is the communicating the benefits to be gained by them. As discussed in the
previous section, the managers are having the majorly negative perception of the change process,
which should be changed in the first stage (Hon, Bloom & Crant, 2014). The managers will be
communicated about how they will get benefited from the implemented changes, which will in
turn increase their engagement in the change process. In this case, they should also be
communicated regarding the financial benefits to be gained by them. This is also important due
to the reason that financial benefits are the most effective way in motivating the internal
stakeholders. In the previous section, it is also identified that the middle level managers are
resisting to the changes in having the perception that it will cause job loss for the employees
(Garcia-Cabrera & Garcia-Barba Hernandez, 2014). However, they should be communicated that

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employees currently employed in the booking process will not be laid off rather they will be
given training to cope up with the changes. Thus, the existing employees will be retained.
Providence of the proper training and development programs for the employees will help in
enhancing their skills and expertise. This will enable the employees to effectively cope up with
the changes and thus they will be motivated and engaged in their workplace.
The managers have also resisted about the fact that huge investment will be required in
changing the infrastructure but it should be communicated to them that probability of positive
return on investment will be more for the organization. This is due to the reason that initiation of
the technological change will help the organization in getting long term effectiveness and
catering to larger number of patients. Thus, the profitability will get increased to the firm and this
should be properly communicated to these managers (Burnes, 2015). Thus, it can be concluded
that if the major issues of the managers can be mitigated then they can be made more motivated
in the change process. In terms of the providence of the financial incentives for the managers,
reward and recognition should be initiated. This is due to the reason that if the managers can be
awarded for their performances along with the recognition in the workplace, then they will be
more motivated in working with the change process. The major reason for any resistances from
the side of the internal stakeholders is the perception that they will have less importance in the
organizational affairs. Thus, in the implementation process of the change, it should be noted that
the managers are given proper importance in accordance to their hierarchy level (Sharif &
Scandura, 2014).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that initiation of the technological change for New Clinic is important
for gaining competitive advantages. In this paper, the need for the technological change is being
discussed along with the advantages to be gained from the initiated change process. It is
identified that New Clinic is mainly facing the issue in offering the upgraded services to the
patients compared to their competitors. Thus, it is recommended that they should implement
online based booking system in place of their manual booking system. However, on the other
hand, it is also identified that a few resistances can be emerged and in accordance to these
resistances, a few strategies are also being discussed in this paper. It is expected that these
strategies will help in motivating the middle level managers in involving in the initiated change
process. Furthermore, it is also discussed about how the change process will be promoted among
the employees. In this case, Kotter’s 8 steps model is being used to identify the different ways of
promoting the change process among the employees. The following section will discuss about a
few recommended steps that will help in maintaining the favorable environment for the
continuous process of change.
Recommendations
It is recommended that all the internal stakeholders across different hierarchy levels
should be involved in the decision making process of the organization. This is due to the reason
that success rate of the change process will be more only when all the internal stakeholders are
being involved in the process. This will ensure that employees from the lower level are also
having the idea about approach of the change and thus future probability of resistances will be
low. In addition, it is also being recommended that change management process should be

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initiated based on the mutual benefits of all the involved stakeholders. This is due to the reason
that any of the internal stakeholders will get motivated towards the change management process
only when they will have benefits from it. Thus, the more will be the benefits for the involved
stakeholders in the change process, the more will be their involvement in the process.
It should be noted that in order to have proper change management process in place,
focusing only on the internal stakeholders is not enough but also the entire organizational
process. Thus, it is recommended that the organizational processes and practices should be made
flexible enough to cope up with the change in the external business and market factors. This is
due to the fact that if the employees are aligned with the flexible organizational process and
structures, the less will be their difficulty in coping up with the change. In this case, this should
be noted that market orientation is also important due to the reason that it will help in aligning
the change process with that of the external market trends and requirements. This will in turn
increase the effectiveness of the entire change management process.

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