Australia Post Case Study: Challenges and Strategies

This report analyzes the Australia Post case study, examining its responses to a dynamic business environment. It addresses key questions regarding the company's operational environment (calm waters vs. white-water rapids), identifying both external forces like market changes and technology, and internal forces such as organizational strategy. The report evaluates Australia Post's change strategy concerning structure, technology, and people, and discusses potential resistance to change and stress among employees. The importance of innovation for Australia Post is highlighted, emphasizing its customer-centric approach and competitive advantage. Finally, the report explores lessons other organizations and managers can learn from Australia Post, focusing on customer-centricity, continuous innovation, and employee development. The report references several academic sources to support its arguments.

Running head: BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
Australia Post has been in operation for a long time, however, they have facing several
challenges due to the rapid changes that have been occurring in the environment around
them. They have been operating by delivering mails and parcels for a long time, but the
changes have pushed them to find innovative ways through which they can continue their
services with the help of the internal and other digital forms of communication. Australia
Post has gone through many changes since its inception, from the management of the
company to the way that they function. Therefore, to maintain their foothold in the market it
is important for them to support different innovative techniques which will help them to gain
a competitive edge over other organisations in the same industry. This assignment will review
the case study and answer certain questions which are based on the case study.

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Question 1: Does Australia Post face more of a calm waters or white-water rapids
environment? Explain.
Calm waters environment sees the organisation as a ship which is crossing a calm sea.
The people on the ship knows about the trip that the ship is making since they have made this
trip several times. The changes that occur comes in the form of storms which occasionally
arrive and disrupts the normal process that the events are going in (Dent 2013). There are
three steps to calm waters which are unfreezing, implementation and refreezing. On the other
hand, white water rapids sees the organisation as a raft which is being navigated through
raging waters and the change is continuous in this situation (McCarthy 2013). Australia post
faces white water rapids environment as they are more inclined towards facing unpredictable
changes in their technologies and its environment. The company has gone through several
changes and advances in the field of technology and have adopted any new and innovative
ideas for technology which would help them to face the continuous changes in the external
environment. The main aim of Australia Post is to innovate new ideas which can help them to
advance in the field of technology so that they can develop methods to satisfy a large
customer base and gather a competitive edge.
Question 2: What external and internal forces are impacting on Australia Post?
The external forces which create an impact on Australia Post are their market place
and the technology that they use. Australia Post used the traditional marketplace during their
earlier operations which is sending letters through courier companies. However, due to the
changes that occurred in the market and the new innovation that came, Australia Post adopted
the new market strategy which was through e-commerce (AlGhamdi, Nguyen and Jones
2013). Secondly, technology have changed the market scenario, from handwritten letters to
sending parcels through Australia Post. The internal forces which create and impact on

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Australia Post is their organisational strategy. The strategy that is adopted by Australia Post
help them to change continually and adhere to the new changes that have been occurring in
the market. Since, they are a customer centric organisation, their aim is to develop themselves
and adopt strategies which would help them to give better services to their customers. Certain
changes that have been adopted by the company are around the clock parcel lockers and e-
commerce (Lachapelle et al. 2018).
Question 3: How would you evaluate Australia Post’s change strategy – what is being
changed when it comes to structure, technology and people?
The change strategy of Australia Post is based on the new changes and the
evolvement of the environment. The organisation incorporates those changes in its operations
which would help them to get better results. The changes are made according to the different
innovations and upgrades that occur. The structure of Australia Post has changed from letters
to email. They earlier used to deliver letters from one address to another. They have changed
this strategy by adopting the new technology of email services. They have started postal
services, e-services, distribution & express services and retail services (Wang, Jie and
Abareshi 2015). They have changed their technological sector by incorporating new
technologies for services such as transportation, payment and collection. These technologies
tend to make their work easier and more efficient. They have also established 24*7 lockers
for their parcels so that none of the parcels gets lost or stolen. Additionally, they have started
attaching electronic labels which would help them to easily identify the parcels that are being
dispatched so that there is no mix up in the deliveries. The changes in the people of Australia
Post are made by hiring workers who are skilled in the work that is demanded by the
organisation (Kiumarsi, Jayaraman and Mohd Isa 2015). The new employees are also guided
and helped by the experienced workers and this helps to create a positive environment and
work culture which enables a high level of productivity.

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Question 4: Would you expect some resistance to change occur when it comes to the
introduction of these changes and the changes to the company’s culture? Could stress
also be an issue at Australia Post?
There would definitely be resistance to the changes that would be introduced in
Australia Post. The resistance would occur due to many reasons. The employees who have
been in the organisation for a long time might find it hard to adapt to the changes since they
have worked in the traditional way for a long time and are comfortable to the old way of
working. The changes that have occurred might not stick for a long time with the organisation
since none of the changes would be constant (Kunze, Boehm and Bruch 2013). Due to the
dynamic nature of the environment that the organisation is functioning in, they have
continuously change themselves and their operations by adhering to the development that is
being taking place in the environment. The employees would have to be educated regarding
the changes that are occurring so that they can accept the changes and not resist them. If they
are educated about the changes then they will be able to participate and make the change
successful. Stress can be a part of the issue since it has a huge effect on the employees of the
organisation. Stress is caused due to variety of reasons such as job insecurity, excessive
workload, long working hours and other factors (Matos Marques Simoes and Esposito 2014).
Therefore, stress can be an important reason for the issue that is faced by Australia Post. The
organisation should act to reduce the stress among the employees so no issue is present in the
workplace of Australia Post.
Question 5: Why is innovation so important at Australia Post?
Australia Post have always found new ways through which they can help their
business to grow. The purpose of their company have been to continuously grow and adapt
themselves to the changes that have been occurring in the market and the communities
around them. For this to be happen they have always given emphasis to innovation and the

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power it holds. Through innovations and new ideas they could gain a competitive edge
against their competitors in the market and could be better than most organisations (Dodgson
2018). They also aim to make their customers happy with their services and this is also
fulfilled with the help of innovative ideas. For example, they can connect with a large
customer base and connect them to their service through the help of e-commerce. The
customer can enjoy their services irrespective of the country or region that they are in. The
company has a business culture that is customer centric and this is why they want to give the
best experiences to their customers through the help of new and innovative solutions. They
also invest in the entrepreneurs of today’s time so that it can give support to the several new
ideas that emerges from these new start-ups and they can help to empower innovation and
also gain profits for themselves if the innovation succeeds in the market (Autio et al. 2014).
Question 6: What can other organisations and managers learn from Australia Post?
Other organisations and managers can learn a great deal of things from Australia Post.
The first and foremost things, that Australia Post follows is a customer centric culture. For
them their customers are the first priority which makes them take every decision in favour of
their customers (Avilova, Gulei and Shavyrina 2015). To satisfy the needs and demands of
their customers they continually innovate and improve upon every one of their sectors so that
they can meet the growing demands and the changes that are occurring in the market. They
have made advancement in various sections in the organisation such as technology,
transportation, equipment which are necessary for the smooth operation of their organisation.
Their priority are their employees and they take great care of the people who work for them.
They help the employees to grow and develop within the organisation and take care of their
career needs. Moreover, they recruited people who had a good skill set and could mix with
the culture of the workplace (Kim and McLean 2014). Proper training was given to the
employee so that they could develop their skills further and provide better services and even

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share their innovate ideas with the organisation. Even though there are many other factors
that organisations could learn from Australia Post, these are the basic ways through which
other organisations could grow like Australia Post.

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References:
AlGhamdi, R., Nguyen, A. and Jones, V., 2013. A study of influential factors in the adoption
and diffusion of B2C e-commerce. arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.0272.
Autio, E., Kenney, M., Mustar, P., Siegel, D. and Wright, M., 2014. Entrepreneurial
innovation: The importance of context. Research Policy, 43(7), pp.1097-1108.
Avilova, Z.N., Gulei, I.A. and Shavyrina, I.V., 2015. Formation of the customer-centric
organizational culture of the university as a factor of effective social and economic
development of the region. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(3 S5), p.207.
Dent, E.B., 2013. Researching Leadership from a Systems Perspective: Observations and
Challenges.
Dodgson, M., 2018. Technological collaboration in industry: strategy, policy and
internationalization in innovation. Routledge.
Kim, S. and McLean, G.N., 2014. The impact of national culture on informal learning in the
workplace. Adult Education Quarterly, 64(1), pp.39-59.
Kiumarsi, S., Jayaraman, K. and Mohd Isa, S., 2015. Service quality and innovation in
Malaysian post offices: An empirical study. Global Business and Organizational
Excellence, 35(1), pp.55-66.
Kunze, F., Boehm, S. and Bruch, H., 2013. Age, resistance to change, and job
performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(7/8), pp.741-760.
Lachapelle, U., Burke, M., Brotherton, A. and Leung, A., 2018. Parcel locker systems in a car
dominant city: Location, characterisation and potential impacts on city planning and
consumer travel access. Journal of Transport Geography, 71, pp.1-14.

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Matos Marques Simoes, P. and Esposito, M., 2014. Improving change management: How
communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management
Development, 33(4), pp.324-341.
McCarthy, C.K., 2013. Threats and Opportunities: Collection Development in. Evaluating
Acquisitions and Collection Management, p.29.
Wang, M., Jie, F. and Abareshi, A., 2015. Business Logistics Performance Measurement in
Third-Party Logistics: An Empirical Analysis of Australian Courier Firms. International
Journal of Business and Information, 10(3).