Change Management: Applying Kotter's Model to a Fictional Org Case

This case study addresses the application of Kotter's 8-Step Change Model within a fictional organization, ABC Limited, a medium-sized bicycle production and supply company in Toronto facing declining sales. It highlights the necessity for change to improve product quality and introduce new product lines to regain market share. The case study details how to implement Kotter's model, emphasizing the importance of creating a sense of urgency, forming a guiding coalition, developing a clear vision, communicating the vision effectively, removing obstacles, creating short-term goals, consolidating improvements, and anchoring changes within the organizational culture. The analysis provides a practical approach to change management, focusing on employee involvement and continuous improvement to ensure sustainable organizational development. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a range of study tools and solved assignments for students.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors Note:

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Introduction:
An organization operates in an increasing competitive market place and in order to sustain
competitive advantage in the market it needs to keep on modifying its products and services as
per the requirements and demand of the customers. Hence, flexibility is one of the most
important components in managing the changes in an organization effectively. In order to
manage the changes within an organization an organization must have necessary flexibility to
ensure that changes within an organization are affected properly. Introducing change
management to a factious organization in the real world is the objective of this document.
Part 1:
Fictional organization:
Background of the organization:
ABC Limited is a medium sized enterprise involved in production and supply of bicycles in
Toronto, Canada. The company was established in 2014 and since then have made a significant
place for itself in the market. Between 2014 and 2017 the company has earn significant growth
in its revenue with each year the company managed to increase its sales units on an average by
15%. However, in 2018 the sales of the company has decreased significantly to record to its
lowest revenue since its inception. The management has decided to introduce necessary changes
to the production process to improve the quality of bicycles to ensure that it can increase its
revenue from sales in the coming years. The company has a large production unit in Toronto
where more than 40 regular workers and employees work together to produce bicycles. The
bicycles are directly supplied to the market by the company thorough its retail units in different
parts of Toronto.

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Necessity to make changes or the need for changes:
A management shall always be proactive in its approach and look for new areas and
opportunities to improve the operating and financial performance of an organization. The ability
to read the present day scenario and correctly forecast the future are two of the most essential
qualities of management personnel. In case of ABC Limited, it is clear that the company has
failed to continue on its sustainable development and growth path with its sales in 2018 declining
to its lowest since its inception in 2014. In order to ensure that the company arrest the declining
sales revenue immediately in the next year by increasing its sales revenue in 2018 it is important
to introduce necessary changes to the production process to improve the quality and design of
bicycles to attract the attention of the bicycle lovers. The company has specifically though to
introduce the stunt bicycle section along with existing designs of bicycles manufactured and
produced by the company.
Thus, it is clear that in order to achieve the organizational objective the management must make
necessary changes to the production process and supply chain of the company. Necessary
changes shall also be introduced in the marketing and promotional campaign of the company to
sale its new stunt bicycle range along with the modified version of existing bicycles.
Kotter Model of change management within ABC limited:
Often change management within small, medium and large entities have not resulted in desired
outcomes for such organizations. John Kotter has conducted a detailed study on the subject
change management by different entities to find that in number of cases the actual outcome of
change management within different organizations are far from the desired outcomes with which
such changes were introduced within the organizations. John Kotter has explained 8 steps to

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change model to improve the outcome of changes within business organizations in his 8 steps
change model. Using the 8 steps recommended by Kotter in his 8 steps change model a detailed
discussion on how to implement the changes in ABC Limited is discussed here.
Sense of urgency:
According to John Kotter creation of a sense of urgency within an organization is the most
important step in managing the changes within the organization. ABC Limited must take
necessary steps to make the employees and workers importance of the proposed changes and the
need to urgently make these changes to improve the performance of the company in immediate
future. Considering the significant decrease in sales the management should let the employees
know that immediate improvement in sales is essential for the survival of the company in the
long run.
Guiding coalition:
In order to implement the proposed changes with ABC Limited it would extremely beneficial to
establish a different team to implement the proposed changes within the company and occupy
itself only with the implementation of these changes till the changes are not effectively
implemented within the organization.
Vision for change:
Change for the sake of change will not enable an organization to achieve anything. A clear vision
will help the stakeholders of an organization to understand the objectives that the organization is
trying to achieve from implementation of the proposed changes. In this case, ABC Limited is
trying to improve its sales in the future by improving the design and quality of bicycles

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manufactured by it along with addition of a new bicycle model to the existing ranges of bicycles
of the company.
Communication of objectives and vision of the company to the employees and other
stakeholders:
Without the support of the employees and workers of an organization it is impossible to
implement the proposed changes within the organization successfully. ABC Limited must
use necessary measures to create support for the proposed changes within the production process
and supply chain of the company. Since the objective of the company is to arrest the decline
revenue in the future and increase sales, these shall be clearly communicated to the employees.
With the support and acceptance of the employees it would be easier for the company to achieve
its objectives in the short and long run.
Dealing with obstacles effectively or remove the obstacles to change management:
The obstacles to the changes within the company must be effectively dealt with and if necessary
shall be removed from the organization to improve the implementation process of changes within
the organization. Proper discussion and meeting with employees and other stakeholders of ABC
Limited would help the company to deal with obstacles and if required necessary steps shall be
taken by the company to remove obstacles.
Creation of short term goals and objectives:
Nothing succeed like success. The proverb is equally applicable to the change management
within an organization. ABC Limited shall create short term vision and goals such as quarterly
sales revenue targets, bi-yearly targets of revenue and profits and annual revenue targets and

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operating margin targets. By achieving the short terms goals the company will be able to
motivate the employees to achieve even bigger goals in the future. Change management will be
much easier with creation and achievement of short term goals. Acknowledgment of
contributions of the employees in the change management process by rewarding them would
further help the company to achieve its objectives from change management.
Consolidation of improvements:
Often an organization confuses short term goals and improvements with the actual objectives of
change management. Improvements over a long period of time must be consolidated to access
and evaluated the actual impact of changes within an organization. ABC Limited must
consolidate small improvements and short term wins over a long period of time to correctly
assess the impact of change management within the organization.
Changes must be anchored:
Making the changes part of the core organization is essential to ensure that such changes become
part of the organization. ABC limited must imbibe the strategy to improve the quality of its
bicycles to ensure that it becomes a process to improve the quality of its products continuously.
It is important to follow each and every single steps as recommended by John Kotter in his 8
steps change model. In addition ABC Limited must use the new vision of the company as focal
point in at the time of recruitment of new employees and staffs to ensure that the employees are
an enabler for the change rather than an inhibitor to the changes.
Part 2:

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experienced thatJohn Kotter has
Part 1: