Understanding and Leading Change: Impact on Tesco and Asda

This report discusses the impact of change on Tesco and Asda, including drivers of change, internal and external factors, leadership and employee behavior, and long-term implications. It also includes an application of force field analysis and evaluation of barriers to change.

Understanding
and
Leading Change

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
PART 1............................................................................................................................................4
Objective / Scope/ Nature of both organizations / location and in which market it operates?...4
Drivers for change and type of organisational change that has affected.....................................4
Internal and external factors/forces of change............................................................................5
Leadership & Behaviours of employees and key stakeholders...................................................7
A critical evaluation of the long term implications of drivers of change within each
organisation.................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion and justified recommendations should aid in effective planning for change and
applying impact analysis.............................................................................................................8
PART 2............................................................................................................................................9
An application of force field. .....................................................................................................9
Analysis to determine both driving and resisting forces. ...........................................................9
Include a critical evaluation of the force field analysis in the context of meeting organisational
objects.......................................................................................................................................10
A critical evaluation of different leadership approaches...........................................................10
Models of change management to deal with change................................................................13
Illustrated by application to examples from a range of organizational contexts.......................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Organisational change is a process which brings changes in the methodology of the
organisation, its structure, strategies etc. which can be due to internal factors and external factors.
Adaptation of change is important for the organisation in order to ensure survival and
competitive. Change can be forced by external drivers such as technology, political and legal
factors, environmental factors etc. as well as by the internal drivers such as change in managerial
positions, authority and responsibility etc. For this report the organisation taken into
consideration is Tesco Ltd. which is a large scale retailer in UK. The report is prepared to create
an understanding of impact of changes on the strategy and operations of the organisation, how
the changes influence the behaviour of the individual and team performance. Also the
identification of the barriers for change, their positive and negative impacts in organisational
context is important to introduce and implement change. Various model helps in effective
implementation of changes when applied with various leadership approaches. These model and
approaches are discussed in the report from the organisations point of view.
PART 1
Objective / Scope/ Nature of both organizations / location and in which market it operates?
Tesco plc is a British international groceries and general marketing retailers
headquartered at Welwyn Garden City, England. It is the third largest retailer in the world that
are measured by gross revenue and it is the ninth largest in the world that are measured by their
turnover ratio.
ASDA is a British supermarket chain headquartered at Leeds, England. The management of
business was established in the year of 1949. It has been sold such acquisition at the time of
1990s to focus on the supermarket. It was listed that the London Stock Exchange at the time of
1999 when it was acquired by Walmart with the cost of £6.7 billion. Asda was the second largest
supermarket chain in the field of the United Kingdom.
Drivers for change and type of organisational change that has affected
Change has various impact on the structure, employees, strategies, polices of the
organisation. It is a continuous process and a broad field where approaches to adapt that changes
may vary from organisation to organisation. It becomes very important for the organisation to
adapt change as it helps the organisation to be a leader, attain competitive advantage, keep

employee motivated as it provides opportunity for development and improves the efficiency of
the organisation (Al-Haddad and Kotnour, 2015). A few examples of change and their impact on
strategy and operations is taken in context of Tesco and Asda.
Change in TESCO and their impact
Change Due to increasing unemployment the demand for the goods of Tesco is
expected to decrease to meet up with the issue Tesco is creating
employment by opening new stores also they have to open new store
because government promote large retailers to create job opportunities.
Impact on
Strategies
Strategies of the organisation was to focus on the existing business by
providing variety of goods at comparatively lower cost but due to change
they need to shift their focus towards expansion by opening new stores.
Impact on
Operations
This change is a developmental change because it will improve the
existing customer level as store will be easily accessible, thus their
inventory requirement, funds requirement etc. will increase.
Drivers of change This change in Tesco is because of political pressure and also due to
economic factors as due to unemployment demand will decrease
(Tescoplc, 2019).
Internal and external factors/forces of change
Change in ASDA and their impact
Change Due to technological advancement and increased use of technology by the
consumers, Asda need to shift towards online sales and self service
checkout to improve customer services. Also due to dietary habits of the
people they had to increase the range of foreign products such as Indian,
Mexican etc. because people want to try new and different foods.
Impact on
Strategies
In order to make these changes adaptable they have to plan for training of
the employees which will affect the existing strategies. Also the Asda has
to follow both market penetration and product development strategies as
they are introducing new products in the existing market and innovation in

the services for the existing products.
Impact on
operations
They will have to adopt information management system and other data
management system as they moved online and adoption of advanced
system for self service checkout which will affect the current working
style of the employee.
Drivers of change This change in Asda is because of technology change and also because of
sociocultural change.
Internal Drivers are those which arises within the organisation and can be controlled by
the company. Various internal driving forces that affect leadership, team and individual
behaviour are :
 Task Structure : The team is formulated to achieve a meaningful purpose and
accordingly their tasks are divided but change in the task structure can affect the
performance. When opening of new stores, planned task and their structure changed with
new which were recruiting new people and new store management that affected the
performance of the teams (Antonakis and Day, 2017).
 Communication : Due to poor communication in organisation the change becomes
mandatory as it make system inefficient to give clear instructions to the employees which
can affect the performance and thus influences the individual behaviour as it can create
chaos and conflicts (Rothwell, Stavros and Sullivan, 2015).
 Organisational Environment - Every organisation has a environment, culture and
values which is developed by the leaders. When new stores opened in Tesco, employees
took the change as an opportunity for both, the company and themselves because of
strong leadership.
External Drivers are those which cannot be controlled by the organisation and depends
upon the external environment conditions such as political, social, environmental etc. They
influence the behaviour of individual, leaders and team performance, this can be understand by
the following points :
 Political and Legal Factors : Changes implied by the government and the laws
regulating can compel an organisation to bring change. This can affect the performance

of the team as all the team members may not be capable to accept that change. In Tesco,
to meet up with the political pressure new stores opening and new products were
launched which was taken as a positive change by the team as they were capable enough
for adopting such change (Burke, 2017).
 Technological factors - The advancement of technology is crucial for every organisation
which can change the way of working. When Tesco adopted self check out system,
electronic shelf labelling, this affected the individual behaviour by making them more
satisfies and attracted as it reduced the time of standing in queue, organised shelf etc.
Adoption of technology is facilitated by changing leadership styles and making the
employees comfortable with it as in Tesco the leaders effectively implemented this
change.
Leadership & Behaviours of employees and key stakeholders
The need to adapt changes depends upon the perspective of the organisation which can be
to gain competitive advantage, to capture market and many more. Various drivers of change that
forces change in the organisation are alteration in legislation, internal factors of the organisation,
political changes etc. which can bring different type of change such as developmental, planned or
unplanned, transformation or transactional. In both of the above mentioned case there is a
developmental change as it will leads to increase the scope of the organisation by increasing
customer base, improved services and providing job opportunities.
Management has a crucial role in understanding the need of change and its impact as
change can bring both positive and negative impact. Decisions are dependent upon the extend to
which the change will influence the culture, leadership, team performance and individual
behaviour. The drivers of change can be internal and external.
A critical evaluation of the long term implications of drivers of change within each organisation.
Change is important for the organisation but the impact associated with it are more
important to understand. Various negative impact which are faced by the leaders is resistance by
employees towards change which can lead to employee turnover, shift of focus etc. for which
various measures need to be considered.
 Involving people in change process : Involving employees of the organisation in the
process motivates them to adapt change as Tesco did. They considered their people,

provided training to them to adapt the change which helped them to make their customer
comfortable with the self service counter change (Dugan, 2017).
 Proper understanding of the organisational culture : Organisation culture is important
to understand as the behaviour of the employees depends upon that culture. Also
understanding of flow of information and factors that influence the most is crucial. The
culture in Tesco is friendly, flexible, decentralised which make their employees efficient
enough to adapt the change.
 Effective Leadership : Leadership helps the management to implement change. They
communicate the opportunities, implications of the change which motivate the employees
to adapt it. As leaders they create a vision and set example before others as in Tesco
leadership played a important role in accepting number of new people with new stores in
different geographies (Lawrence, 2015).
Conclusion and justified recommendations should aid in effective planning for change and
applying impact analysis.
To plan and implement the change there are so many models and theories, one of the
popular and important model is Lewin's change management model which was applied by Tesco.
The model helps to implement change in three stages : Unfreeze, in this organisation prepare
themselves for the change and explain people about how it is beneficial. Change, in this stage
actual changes take place and put into action by the leaders through proper directions and
communication. Refreeze, as change is already accepted in this stage everything starts going
back to their place making people comfortable with the change (Fischer, 2016). Similarly, Tesco
implemented the change by introducing it to the people and they accepted it comfortably as they
were provided proper training and guidance.
Need and importance of change in the organisation need to be identified and on the basis
of which planning for the change is to be done by identifying various drivers of the change
which can be internal or external. Various theories and model helps to implement change
effectively. As Lewin's change management model facilitated Tesco in implementing change.
Detailed identification of positive and negative impact of the change helps an organisation to
decide whether to accept the change or not. The recommendation to Tesco for effective
planning and applying change are :

 The organisation should analyse all the factors which can be internal or external as both
has direct influence also the resources with the organisation should be identified.
 Core competencies of the organisation should be kept in kind and how efficient are the
competitors are and their prospect move, as they swap the benefits from the company
easily.
PART 2
An application of force field.
Five force model consist of driving forces and restraining forces. To implement a change
driving forces need to be more dominating than the restraining forces. This model can be used by
the organisation to identify stakeholders, balance of powers etc. This model helps to understand
the pressure for and against the change. By using this model, Tesco can efficiently implement the
change by understanding the opportunities and threats from the change (James and Frank, 2015).
This affects the decision as management may feels the change important but after analysis by
this model it actually may not be.
To implement change successfully understanding of different barriers is important. The
change plan can be adjusted as per the management requirement to overcome the hurdles created
by the barriers. Barriers has a negative effects as it create a gap between existing practices and
what company wants to achieve by implementing change.
Analysis to determine both driving and resisting forces.
Various barriers to change and their influence on the leadership decision-making are :
 Lack of employee involvement : This is one of the most common barrier where
employees resist the change as they have a fear of change which can be resolved by
involving the employees in the change process. Leaders in Tesco effectively managed the
barriers as they considered their employees as part of change process. They welcomed all
the suggestions and their opinion which made the employees comfortable and ready to
adjust with the change (Hayes, 2018).
 Lack of communication strategy : The communication becomes barrier when top
management directly announces the policies of change instead of making people
comfortable by discussing the benefits they will get. This makes leadership decision-
making difficult as employees resist change forcefully.

 Unknown current situation : This barrier create gap when management does not
analyse the current situations and implement change. Such implementation leads to
failure. This can makes leaders unable to convince people as the situations may not be in
control of the organisation (Hornstein, 2015).
 Organisation complexity : The barrier of organisation complexity arises where they
follows complex processes or the products they deal in are complex. This complexity of
organisation makes change process complex. Tesco does not deal with complex products
but deals with a variety of products which became challenging for the leaders to train
people for advanced technologies.
Include a critical evaluation of the force field analysis in the context of meeting organisational
objects
The force field analysis model helps in efficient decision making as it gives summary of all the
factors related to the change which can be in support of the change or in opposition of the
change.
Illust
ration 1: Force Field Analysis Model
(Source : Force Field Analysis Model, 2018)
It also helps in effective communication to make staff aware about the changes
implications. Tesco can utilise the model as it will help them to overcome complex situation.

A critical evaluation of different leadership approaches
Leadership is a process which is crucial to implement change as they have the ability to
influence and convince people to accept change. They areas that are covered under leadership are
creating awareness about the change and their benefits, making them comfortable with the
change by providing training, tools and techniques to manage change, also they make people
understand strategies of the change and develop plans to put it into action. Various leadership
styles that are useful in implementing change are :
 Transactional leadership : Transactional leadership is that responsive style of
leadership which consider formal structure of the organisation and believes in
motivating through rewards and punishments (Renko , 2015). The style is known as
telling style as followers has to follow the instructions given to them. This is generally
used in military operations, large organisations etc. but does not fit in the situation
where innovation is required. This leadership style is suitable for Tesco in situation
where change affects the entire organisation. When Tesco opened new stores and
recruited new people this style was appropriate as it involves a large fund and by giving
directions they can get results from the team on time regarding various decisions related
to openings of new stores and managing inventory along with new products (Kaufman,
2017).
 Transformational leadership : Transformational leadership is a proactive style which
focusses on motivating, inspiring and encouraging the people for change and the leaders
do it by setting up example. This provides an opportunity to the employees to utilise
their potential by providing them space to grow. Transformational leadership can be
applied at any level, departments, divisions or even any type of organisation. It creates a
vision for the employees to align their goals with the organisational goals which are to
effectively implement change. The leaders of Tesco uses this leadership style while
implementing change when the involving people of the organisation is must such as
when they introduced the techniques of self service counters, electronic labelling,
introduced clothings, their involvement of people while planning and implementing was
important as employees in outlets are directly in contact with the customers so their
suggestions regarding the strategies to make customer comfortable becomes important
(Meuse, 2016).

 Democratic leadership approach: This is the most beneficial leadership approach as it
increase the involvement of the subordinates in the decision-making process. This will
have direct positive impact on the employees mind as it inspire the free flow of ideas,
thoughts and conflicts. As Tesco wants to implement some changes in their working
processes so in this case this approach will provide great profit to them as it motivates
the employees to do their efforts towards the common goal so that they overall
performance of the company can be increase (Johnson, 2016). But on the other hand, it
might delay the decision-making process as because every employees have varied
thoughts, opinions, and ideas
Models of change management to deal with change
(Source : Kotter's 8 Steps Change Model, 2016)
The Tesco used Lewin's model for planning and implementing change but also by
applying Kotter's change model Tesco can implement change along with leadership approaches
in a better way. The Kotter's eight step model helps to understand the response towards change
by different stages which helps the leaders to immediately take action as per the situations. The
stages in the model are : In this stage of Creating Urgency people are make aware of the need of
change and their support will be created, then by Building the team leaders encourages
employees to contribute and cooperate. Leaders Create vision which help others to understand
Illustration 2: Kotter's 8 Steps Change Model

the objective of the organisation and the time period in which it has to be achieved and thus they
Communicate the vision seeking the opinions and concerns of the people. In the next stage Get
things moving, the focus is to remove the hurdles which can be the barriers to incorporate and
implement the change by inspiring people for the vision. Now by Focusing on short term goals
and achieving them, employees will be motivated to achieve the long term and ultimate goals.
Then inspire them to Not to give up as the process will bring changes in the organisational
culture also. Lastly, the change becomes part of organisation when Incorporation of change is
done in the organisation. This is how leadership helps in implementing changes by applying
various models (Nelson‐Brantley and Ford, 2017) .
Illustrated by application to examples from a range of organizational contexts.
The change can easily and effectively become part of the organisation if they are
implemented considering various models and the leadership styles. Leaders contribute a lot in
making people comfortable with the change by creating vision and making them aware about the
benefits to the individuals. Tesco has applied change model with leadership style which helped
them to replicate all of their plans into actions.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that in today's world understanding the requirement
of change has become very important for the businesses in order to survive. Various drivers of
change and their influence on individual behaviours, team and decision making should be
analysed. The change can be implemented in a better way when leaders actively take part into
the process by applying various models such as Lewin's model and Kotter's model of change
management along with leadership styles, thus this help to manage the barriers of change which
can have both positive and negative impacts where negative impacts need to be managed by
using various measures to minimise.

REFERENCES
Books And Journals
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Burke, W. W., 2017. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
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Fischer, S. A., 2016. Transformational leadership in nursing: a concept analysis. Journal of
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Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Hornstein, H. A., 2015. The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management. 33(2).
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James, H. H. and Frank, V., 2015. Cultural change management. International Journal of
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Johnson, G., 2016. Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.
Kaufman, H., 2017. The limits of organizational change. Routledge.
Lawrence, P., 2015. Leading change–insights into how leaders actually approach the challenge
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Meuser, J. D. and et. al. 2016. A network analysis of leadership theory: The infancy of
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advanced nursing. 73(4). pp.834-846.
Renko and et. al., 2015. Understanding and measuring entrepreneurial leadership style. Journal
of Small Business Management. 53(1). pp.54-74.
Rothwell, W. J., Stavros, J. M. and Sullivan, R. L. Eds., 2015. Practicing organization
development: Leading transformation and change. John Wiley & Sons.
Online
Tescoplc, 2019. [Online] Available through :<https://www.tescoplc.com/>