Analysing Drivers of Change and their Impact on Aldi's Operations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the drivers of change and their impact on Aldi, a prominent supermarket chain. The report begins with an overview of Aldi's operations and change processes, followed by detailed SWOT and PESTLE analyses to evaluate the internal and external factors influencing the organization. It then assesses the specific drivers of change, such as technological advancements and evolving consumer preferences, and their effects on Aldi's strategies, operations, and overall performance. The report further explores how these changes affect leadership styles, individual employee behavior, and team dynamics. It also examines the application of Lewin's Change Management Model to minimize the negative effects of change and ensure a smooth transition. The second part of the report focuses on leadership and change management, including a force field analysis to identify factors supporting and opposing change. It offers recommendations for meeting Aldi's objectives, discusses barriers to change, and evaluates the success of implemented changes. The report concludes with an assessment of various leadership approaches and their effectiveness in managing change within the organization. The report uses information from various sources to provide a detailed understanding of Aldi's change management strategies.

Drivers of change and
organisation impact

Table of Content
Contents
PART 1: Drivers of change and organisation impact......................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................1
Overview of the organisation and its change process..................................................................1
SWOT and PESTLE Analysis of the Aldi...................................................................................1
Evaluation of driver and impact of change..................................................................................3
Evaluation of change affects the Leadership, individuals and team behaviour...........................3
Impact of change is minimized with the applied model..............................................................4
Evaluation of change in long term effect by minimising effects of change................................5
Part 2: Leadership and change management...................................................................................6
Force field analysis to support and opposition of change............................................................6
Recommendation with the help of force field model to meet the objectives of Aldi..................7
Barriers to change and it influences on the decision making and leadership..............................8
Accomplished change and how successful was it.......................................................................9
Advantages and disadvantages of different leadership approaches dealing with change............9
Evaluation of different leadership approaches and change management..................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

PART 1: Drivers of change and organisation impact
INTRODUCTION
Having a dynamic environment change is necessary. To sustain in the market with ever-
changing environment change is must for any organisation. Leading the change is creating the
change for people by revealing new possibilities by changing in the strategies with effective
utilisation of resources to win the marketplace (Lambertson, 2018). This reports is divided into
two parts first is drivers for change and how it impact on the organisation and about leadership
and change management. Change drivers are an internal or external pressure of the organisation
that affects to change the organisation performance. Change can be in the strategy, plans,
operations, services and products.
Overview of the organisation and its change process
Aldi is a supermarket chain which is owned by two German family founded by two brothers
Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946. It has over 10000 stores in a 20 countries. Change is must for
every organization to deal with the dynamic environment and sustain in the market place.
Recently Aldi is also changes its operations by reducing the use of plastic in their regular
operations and to maintain the good relations with the customers during this pandemic it also
start curbside pickup for them, where the customers can collect their orders from their
convenient locations.
SWOT and PESTLE Analysis of the Aldi
SWOT Analysis of Aldi
Strength
Aldi major strength is its low price; it is a discount store where it offers products at low
price to the customers in compare to other retail supermarkets. It has strong ecosystem where it
added elements like shopping convenience, proper assortment of the products, and low waiting
time for the customers (Teoli, and An, 2019). It also has high customer support because it offers
wide range of products at an affordable price, where they save a lot.
Weakness
Its weakness is that it has low margin so it has to depend on the sales volume and it also
involve in the unethical practices like price discrimination and survive in the market Aldi need
high productivity where its employees has to work in a multiple shift and they are paid less.
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Discount stores are preferred for low and medium income groups, high income groups people are
not penetrate in spite to be in market from the centuries.
Opportunities
Customers preferences and purchasing power are growing, they are willing to pay more
for the premium products so discount stores can sell good quality products at high charges
(Moxen, and Strachan, 2017). Using of new technology with the differentiated pricing strategy in
the new market enable firm to maintain its loyal customers and create value to the firm.
Threats
Aldi face so much of competition in the market where competitors enter in the market
with effective discount policies where its customers are shifted and also rising in the cost of the
raw material is the threat for the Aldi.
Pestle analysis
Pestle analysis of the Aldi
Political
Conflict between the countries affects the sustainability of the firm. After the Britain
leave European Union prices of the fresh food rises which leads customers to shift to the
discounted stores like Aldi.
Economic
Effect of Brexit leads prices high in the UK, where the customers are shifted to
discounters resulting in Aldi to growing at its fastest rate (Dalirazar, and Sabzi, 2020). With the
inflation in the grocery market, Aldi gave discount which is favorable to the customers to find
cheaper products.
Social
Aldi is currently the highest paid supermarket to over 3000 staffs, which lead to better
standard of living and satisfactory to the employees. They also offer facilities like proper
healthcare, better food that benefits the society. It also starts campaign for the children to teach
benefits to eat healthy foods.
Technological
With the increase in the technology it also started using ecommerce platforms to serve
both online and store customers, and with the help of social media platforms it gave information
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to its customers about offers. Company also invested insulated panels and roof mounted system
to enhance their office space and storage.
Legal
Aldi faced legal disputes regarding not finding olive leaves in the oregano products and
accused for not paying for a negative hours (Gupta, Gupta, and Gupta, 2019).
Environmental
Aldi is keeping carbon emission as low as possible and reduces the use of plastic in the
operations. It also introduced new technology to save energy.
Evaluation of driver and impact of change
Change is must for every organization. There are various change drivers that focuses on
the development of the organization. Aldi is also changing its operations with the changing
environment to sustain in the marketplace. It changes in its technology with the changing in the
preferences and need of the consumers; it started adapting the digital means to improve its
productivity by using ecommerce platforms for online and stores customers, and to gave
information about latest schemes and discounts it offer company uses its social media platforms.
It also started investing in insulated panels and roof mounted system to enhance their office
space and storage. From the technological changes it gave a positive impact on the organization
to reach wide customer base.
Company also invested in changing its social aspects, with the changing in the need or
wants of the customers, Aldi started reducing uses of plastic in its operations and adapting the
recycle products for the packaging and in day to day operations. Where whole world is affected
form the pandemic, Aldi tries to keep safe to their customers by starting curbside pickup for their
customers, where their orders are delivered to their convenient location, where customers feel
safe and comfortable; this helps to company to build trust towards customers by offering
products at discount (Svedäng, and et.al., 2018). With the change in the technology and
customers purchasing power is getting high with the company gave the products at discount the
national economy of the country is also increasing. Overall impact of the change in the Aldi gave
positive impact towards its productivity and it helps to sustain in the competitive market place.
Evaluation of change affects the Leadership, individuals and team behaviour.
Change is an inevitable for every organization, it necessary for every business to change
its policies, strategies, operations etc to sustain in this dynamic environment. With the change in
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the organization the leadership, individuals and the team will affects as it affects their
performance, quality of work and they might be not comfortable. Leadership will affects directly
by dealing with the resistance, to adopt the change leader has to listen and encourage the people
to adapt the change (Mensah, 2020). It might happen the even leaders are not familiar with the
change happen in the organization and then they don’t encourage the employees. Leaders can
effectively work with the change in the organization with the new technologies which reduces
their burden of work. Aldi gave the proper training with the change in the technology to the
leaders so that they can work effectively and motivate the employees as well.
Every change has pros and cons in the organization, individual employee can also feel
both the aspects towards the change. It brings the effective ways of working for the employees,
and opportunity to shine and reduced their burden of work but for some individuals it may affect
reducing their productivity towards their work, their morale can get reduced, their individual
can’t get achieved. This can be solved by giving the proper training and gave the information of
the change in accordance with how it will help them (Day, Crown, and Ivany, 2017). With the
change in the technology individual work can affects so that Aldi provide the best training to
them and motivate them. The team can be affected with the change as their enhancement in the
productivity of their work. While individual team members who are not motivated towards the
change where their efficiency of the work get decreased it directly affects the efficiency of the
team work. With the change leader and team members coordination can also affects as change is
not accepted by all the members and it affects the performance of the work and lack of
coordination occurs from this the work can’t be done on time. Aldi interact with the team
member and inviter them to take the decisions in adapting the change.
Impact of change is minimized with the applied model
The factors impacting the change in the ALDI are new opportunities that are brought with
the new business, the organization need new expertise for the new strategies to be implemented.
This is a whole new challenge for the staff and if the staff is not provided with the proper
expertise it can result in the loss of the firm. The competition is also high outside and with the
change in ALDI, the firm needs to stay connected to the external competition and have proper
studies or else ALDI can lose the brand name and reputation. Likewise there are many changes
in the technology, government policies, economy and social change that need to be considered as
they have the potential to affect the company negatively.
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With the ever changing world necessities it is important for the organization to change
accordingly. Organization can adapt change by managing it who affects through the change.
Lewin’s Change Management Model
With the help of Lewin’s change management model organization change can be managed
easily and understand effectively by all the members of the organization. According to the Lewin
3 steps is necessary to make change successfully (Halkias, and et.al., 2017). To successfully
implement the change organizations superiors has to effectively plan the execution of change by
considering following points:
Stage 1- Unfreezing
This is critical stage for the change and the unfreezing means that the people are made
more willing for accepting the changes for the betterment of the organization. The staff is made
to move out from their comforting zone and have to go through the transition situation. The
motivation for changing is improved for the people in this stage.
Stage 2- Change
In this stage the real transition takes place that is the implementation of the change is
done in this stage. The staff in the firm has to accept the new ways of doing the things. The stage
requires careful planning, communication, involvement of the staff for accepting the change. The
stage is not easy due to the uncertainties of the people.
Stage 3- Freeze
In this stage the staff members are in much more stable state and have accepted the
changes pretty well. The staff accepts this as their new part of life and makes new relationships.
The new behaviors and changes at the firm are strengthen by recognizing and rewarding the staff
for their transition.
The Lewin’s Model of Change helps in minimizing the negative effects of the change on
ALDI. The model helps the firm by planning properly and adequately for the transition for
eliminating the minimal negative effect. The stages clear all the misunderstanding that may arise
before attaining the next stage of stability.
The model when applied to ALDI:
Unfreeze
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In this stage company encloses the readiness of change, by preparing to understand and
accept the necessity of change. During this process the current state assessment is undertake to
identify what needs to change and why. The leadership needs support from the key people
management and also through stakeholder analysis and management for change. Then the
planning is done to develop persuasive message to communicate the change to the organization.
ALDI incorporate the unfreeze process by communicating with the staff. The firm communicates
with the staff before making any change for helping the staff in the change process, this also give
the staff time for addressing the change to themselves.
Change
After the unfrozen step people are ready to move towards the transition sets and make the
required change. This is difficult for the people, as there is uncertainty of the future and they are
new to changes and need time to understand and adjust towards the change (Pawar, and Charak,
2017). This can be manage by communicated effectively how to perform and influence them by
communicate the benefits and effectiveness of these change. To adapt the change seniors has to
solve the quires regularly, engage their participation and encourage their action. The
implementation of the changes at ALDI is done by changing the process of that is discussed with
the staff and this is very difficult for the staff to change their ways of doing the things in new
ways. The firm provides trainings for the staff for helping them learn the new ways of doing the
things.
Freeze
This step is where the desired changes is done, ensure that changes are accepted by
utilized all the time and it includes in the organization cultures. Implementation of this stage
feels stability and confident in the employees and they form new relations and they become more
comfortable in new working environment. The implementation is done and now the firm makes
sure that the changes implemented at ALDI are kept stable by doing frequent assessment of the
changes in the company.
Evaluation of change in long term effect by minimising effects of change
To be constant change in the organization helps to sustain in the ever changing
environment and helps to be competitive in the market place. The external and internal factors
that affects the organization performs is analyzed which helps to change in the organization for
the long learn. Aldi’s strength of its discount supermarket where it has wide customers base and
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if it slightly change in its operations it not affect major and it helps in the long run, with its
opportunities where the customers purchasing power is growing it can change with selling the
goods at some high prices with good quality where its weakness can also overcome by increasing
its margin in the products. To know the external factors this effects the change in the
organization to sustain in the long run by changing in the technology by using e commerce
platforms for the online and store customers. All are suffering from the pandemic, where all the
organization has to change which are good for both the customers and to organization itself, Aldi
also change in its operations by using curbside pickups where the orders of the customers are
delivered to their convenient locations so that customers can easily pickup their orders and
consume it effectively and company can also run their business effectively.
From the change in the organization leaders, individual and team members are affected in
both ways positively and negatively, so to minimize the effect of change in the organization to
manage the change proper planning is required. For that with the help of Kurt Lewin model of
change is implemented by the organization so that change in the organization can be
communicate effectively so that everyone in the organization can adapt the change positively and
encourages them to work effectively with the change. It also helps to enhance their productivity
and achieving in their personal goals. It is recommended that company has to reduce its plastic
waste in its operations and use recycling packaging products, and use of quality products in the
stores where high income person can also focused by the organization and their margin of
product is also increased.
Part 2: Leadership and change management
Force field analysis to support and opposition of change.
Force field analysis is a framework use to make decisions particularly regarding the change
management. This assumes the favours and forces against the decision. It pays to use effective
decision making decisions techniques by improving the quality of the decisions by increases the
chances of decision to success. It is used to gain the overview and assess strength and sources by
all different forces that affect the organisational issues. There are many forces that impact the
decisions making for change are cost of the decision, ongoing impact on the productivity of the
organisation and opportunities and benefit that are presented (Hlalele, 2019). The larger the
impact on the business of changes the more the weight on for or against the decision.
Various forces which are favor in the changes are –
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Improved in the customer response time
With the increase in the customers responses time with the increase in the technology to
deliver the good on time and gave relevant information about their products with the help of
effectively change in the organization.
Higher margin
Customers’ purchasing power is increasing where they spend more for the good quality
of products, company can sell good quality products to the customer which are high in rates and
subsequently company can sell it at high margin.
Customers want new products
Customers taste and preferences are getting change with the change in the technologies,
social aspects organizations has to be change in their production process and produce new
products according to the needs and wants of the customer (Hayes, 2018).
Forces that are against the changes are
Need of new skills
With the change in the organization, it required new skills to adapt the changes and
employees get frightened to adapt the change and learn new skills which they might don’t
understand and affect their work performance and can’t implement the skills on the new
technology.
Cost
To implement the change in the organization it need cost, for Change Company financial
condition is to be good just because for change in the organization it need high cost
(Mazurkiewicz, and Poteralska, 2017).
Impact on workload
To implement the change in the organization effectively it need time and the workload of
the employees get increased and they might not feel comfortable to do extra work and effectively
do the work and grasp the workload.
Recommendation with the help of force field model to meet the objectives of Aldi.
To meet the objectives of the change in the organisation various factors are affected. To
adapt the recycle products in the organisation for the packaging instead of using the plastic helps
the environment and the recycle packaging cost is high as compare to the plastic. With the
increase of the customer awareness towards the environment the change in the organisation
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towards reducing the carbon emission and reduce the use of plastic is important. To increase the
productivity of the organisation at the time of the pandemic and increase the market share Aldi
has to use the ecommerce sites for online selling and use of social media platforms to gave
information regarding the discounts offer gave by the company to the customers (Laker, and
et.al., 2019). With the increase in the technology where the purchasing power of the customers
are getting high company can also change in its pricing policy by giving good quality products
by increasing in the prices of the product through increase in the margin and also focuses on the
high income group people. With the increase in the price of the product its margin is also
increases which helps in increases the sales initiatives and directly affected the productivity of
the organisation.
Barriers to change and it influences on the decision making and leadership.
With the turbulence in the business environments, there are rapid increases in the changes
of business activities. To change in the organisation an effective decisions are done by the
leaders and the managers (Rao, and Arora, 2018). Various barriers are affected to the decisions
making and leadership of the organisation. Some barriers are
Lack of employee involvement
It is the most common barrier for change which affects the leadership and decision
making. Employee doesn’t feel safe and have fear of change. Employee has to participate in the
decision making regards the change process so that they can adapt the changes. Aldis Leaders
don’t involve the employee in the decision making affects the change management and the
productivity of the employee get Detroit.
Lack of effective communication strategy
It is commonly believed by many organizations and leaders that by just giving a message
to the organizations people about the change and they will effectively adapt the change but this
strategy is always in vain. Aldi invest on the top down communication where the subordinates
are not motivated and they move from the desired work which they have to perform.
Organization culture shift planning
Sometimes the superior has no idea that changes can affect the people on the
organization, they plan to change the organization culture in context of the organization benefits
only. They focuses on the job responsibilities, planning administrative structure, work area
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responsibility and work reporting structure (Hayes, 2017). Planning team fails to make decisions
which are based on the feelings and institutions of the employee.
Current state of the organization
Aldi can introduce the change without understanding the current state of the organization.
Such organization can’t realize the understand the current blueprint of the organization and will
cause the barriers to change in the organization.
Prioritization problem
With the change in the organization there is so much of stress is involved on everyone to adapt
the change and work on it and stress is not good for the well being of the employee where the
leaders can lack in their decision making regards the change and don’t motivate the employee
how to work in the stress.
Accomplished change and how successful was it
Change is necessary for every organization to sustain in the market with the ever changing
in the needs and wants of the customers. Aldi also focused on the different aspects of the
organization where change is necessary. It introduces to change in the packaging of its product
by reducing the unnecessary layers of packaging and reduce the use of plastic in the packaging.
Aldi starts with eliminating all the problematic packaging that is black plastic, PVC and EPS
from the food range by 2020, then it started its own label products packaging by the reusable,
recyclable and compostable products which are environmental friendly and it also get successful
in its everyday packaging 92 percent own label products packaging is now recyclable (Laker,
and et.al., 2019). It also reduces plastic packaging lids by 50 percent from the everyday products
like fresh cream, pot yogurts, and ready to drink coffee by saving 34 million pieces of plastic.
Aldi also change its transport packaging of fresh meat by reusing the creates instead of using
plastic wrap and currently started using of plastic waste from the recycled content and working
hard to increase these. Its aim is to use 70 percent of the recycled content by the 2021.
It also changes started using ecommerce sites for selling to the online and stores customers
(Rao, and Arora, 2018), this help to attract the wide customer base this help in enhances their
business growth. With the use of social media platforms all the customers are aware of the
current schemes and discounts offered by the company, by which customers interact and with the
use digital media they order their products and with the help of curbside pickup which was
recently introduced by the Aldi, customers can receive their orders to their convenient locations
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