Change Management Strategies: Dell Inc. and Kurt Lewin's Model

This report delves into the intricacies of change management, utilizing Dell Inc. as a case study to illustrate key concepts and strategies. The analysis begins with an overview of change management, emphasizing its systematic approach to organizational transformation. It then explores Kurt Lewin's change model, dissecting the unfreezing, changing, and refreezing stages as applied to Dell's initiatives, such as its eco-friendly production lifecycle. The report highlights challenges faced by Dell, including global implementation and customer acceptance. Furthermore, it outlines a strategic plan for effective change management, detailing six crucial steps: defining change and aligning it with business goals, determining impacts, developing a communication strategy, providing effective training, implementing a support structure, and measuring the change process. The report emphasizes the importance of each step, providing insights into how Dell can successfully navigate change and achieve its objectives, such as environmental sustainability and business growth.

MANAGING CHANGE

TASK 2
LO2 CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change management is a systematic approach which deals with the transformation and
transition of an organisational goal, processes, technologies or the way of working. The main
objective of change management is to implement strategies for effective change, controlling
change and helping people to adapt the change without any resistance. The whole process of
change management is firstly requesting a change, then implementing it and finally reviewing
the change to make sure that the change is being implemented successfully. The final stage of
change management is very important because it shows that if the organisation employee have
changed the way of working or not as there might be employees who resist these changes so the
manager must look up to these employees and ensure that they adopt these changes. Change
management include three types of changes development change, transitional change and
transformational change. Dell INC have implemented a full life cycle to change its production,
use and disposal of the plastic used in the company, the main aim of this change was to adopt a
eco friendly way of running the company. In the whole process of change management the
company has faced a lot of challenges to deal with because Dell INC is a multinational company
it have to deal with this change all over the world. Dell has done the world largest electronic take
back with approximately 800,000 tones of electronic recovered since 2008, when they were
dealing with this change. They wanted to eliminate the use of plastic product in their production
or reduce it to the minimum to make there company's work eco friendly and to attain sustainable
growth for the company. Dell also continually looks for ways to incorporate sustainable
materials, such as recycled plastic and reclaimed carbon fiber into products and packaging
(Nickols, 2016).
CHANGE MANAGEMENT THEORY
Kurt lewin's change model
Kurt lewin developed a change theory involving three steps which are Unfreezing, Changing and
refreezing. The following model is being implemented to show the change management in Dell
INC. The model have shown how change Dell has created a perception about that change is

needed, then moved forward to new behavior of working and finally solidifying the new policy
(Ferlie and et.al., 2016).
Unfreezing
This is the initial stage where the main goal of the company is to create awareness about the
change and check the current level of acceptability of the change. A company must go through
the unfreezing stage before any change is implemented. This stage analyse the behavior, way of
thinking, processes, people and organisational structures to make the employee of the
organisation realize about the need of change to thrive in the current market. Since Dell is a
multinational company they will have to look all the above factors for their stores all over the
world. They will have to communicate about their eco friendly strategy to all there stores
operating across the globe. The idea of unfreezing stage is that the more the employees and staff
know about the change the more they will understand the need and urgency of change, therefore
Dell must have a good communication system in place to make sure everywhere the new
strategies is known, so the employee must know that new program which entails collecting,
recycling and using e-waste to make new Dell products. This will help Dell know about in which
region there is resistance to these changes. Dell cannot just terminate those who resist these
changes because in doing so they might lose there experienced employees, so they must find out
the motivational factors for these employees to make them adapt the changes. Thus, this stage
involves unfreezing the employees to begin to move on with the new changes (Bradley, 2016).
Changing
Lewin states that since now the people have been unfrozen, they are ready to move on to the next
stage. The stage of changing which is also known as the transitioning or moving is the stage
where actually the change is being implemented. This is the most struggling stage for the
company as everyone has to accept the new reality and the hardest to overcome with. Dell has
faced many challenges during these stage when they adopt the change of moving on to eco
friendly production. The biggest challenge was to use the closed loop recycling where they have
to incorporate plastic back into the new product, this because as hard as they have tried but they
have to use plastic in their product, so they must focus on recycling. Another challenge was that
since Dell is operating all over the world the material take happened all over the world, which
requires a significant amount of investment and dealing with different regulations of different

country. Lastly there was the challenge of dealing with the customer and making them
understand that the change is beneficial to all and that the quality of the product is same as
before. There are billions of money spend on these changes so attention must be paid or the
company might have to into liquidation. During this step people learn new behaviors and
processes of doing work, so proper training and education must be provided to the employees so
that they can manage the change and provide better service to the customer. This stage must be
carefully planned and executed otherwise there will be serious consequences for the company
(Cameron and Green, 2019).
Refreezing
The final stage in Lewin's model is refreezing, which symbolizes the act of reinforcing,
stabilizing and solidifying the company's state after the change is being implemented. This stage
the new behaviors, processes and goals are frozen as new norms and policies of the company, so
that the people do not go back to there old ways of working. Dell must ensure that the change is
being implemented all over the world and that employees problems and grievances are being
solved so that they get help in accepting the change. Dell should make efforts to guarantee that
the change is not lost. Dell can award the employees who are adopting the change to increase
there motivation and also to provide motivation to the employees who are resisting the change,
these rewards will lead to individual making efforts to adapt change as fast as they can. Dell
must not ignore the refreezing step even though some argues that it is not as important, but
without the refreezing step there is high chance that the staff will revert back to the old way of
doing things as they find it more comfortable with the older techniques. Since, Dell is a
multinational company they will have to pay more attention on the refreezing stage or they will
have to face serious challenges and the company have to incur large costs (Cook, 2015).
LO3 STRATEGIC PLAN
An effective change management plan includes 6 steps, the change management by Dell should
follow these steps to implement change effectively. The 6 steps are as follows
Clearly define the change and align it to business goals
Dell must have a clear plan of what they need to change and why is this change required. The
must define a plan stating that they want to take back the electronics operating all over the world

and make use of environmental friendly techniques. They must convey that why this change
was required to the customer and employee. This change was a plan executed by the Dell so that
they can fulfill there responsibility toward the environment. This change should be aligned to the
business goals and objectives so that Dell can carry on the business in the right direction
strategically. This step determines the value of change, which will quantify the employees
efforts. Dell have clearly defined there goals and objectives while carrying out the change and
then they have recovered for about 1.76 billion pounds since 2007 which covers around 5000
tones of electronic (Donnelly and Kirk, 2015).
Determine impacts and those affected
This steps determine the impact of the change at all the levels of the organisation. Dell should
review the effect on each business units and the individual. Dell should review problems like
who will be the most affected and how the change will be received by the various stakeholders.
These stakeholders include suppliers of the electronic equipment, different store manager
operating all over the world, the customers etc., the supplier will be require to customize there
product to the requirement of the company, the store manager will be required to manage the
resistance faced by the employees and Dell need to make sure that the customer knows the
benefit of the change by the organisation. These stakeholders must be properly managed or they
will not accept the change, the supplier won't supply the required material and the customer
won't but the product if they are not sure about the quality (Doppelt, 2017).
Develop a communication strategy
In this step Dell should determine the most effective means of communication for the group or
individual that will bring them on board. All the key messages and the policy and procedures
should be communicated using the best communication channel and mediums that the employees
understand. Dell should identify problems including how the change will be communicated and
how the feedback will be managed . Dell should make efforts so that there employees and
customers can reach them with there grievances. For the employees the company should put a
suggestion box and for the customer they can provide online services to reach directly to the
company. If these problems are not managed the company have to face serious consequences
resulting into loss of sales due to customer dissatisfaction and staff turnover due to employee
dissatisfaction (Hayes, 2018).

Provide effective training
The company with effective change management should know that there employee receive
training to help deal with the stress and manage the change effectively. They should be trained
to teach the required skills and knowledge. These training might include online modules, blended
training and face to face session. If the employee of Dell company is well trained then they can
handle the customer problems. Dell should deal with problems like what skill and knowledge are
being required and what are the methods of providing these training, so that the employees can
be effective in performing there tasks and it will also help in making the employee understand
why the change is required which would result in the staff adopting the change (Hornstein,
2015).
Implement a support structure
This step involves providing support to the employee both emotionally and practically to adjust
the change and build proficiency of behavior and technical skills needed to achieve the desired
results. Dell should keep in mind that some of the changes can result in redundancies and
restructures, so the company should support there employees. To support the employees the
company can hire a mentor so that the employees can ask there queries to these mentors, these
will very much help the employee with dealing with the stress that they face to adapt these
changes. If the employee don't get proper guidance then they will be unhappy and they may left
the organisation leading to high turnover. Dell should keep in mind where the support is most
required and what type of support will be most effective (Lozano, Nummert and Ceulemans,
2016).
Measure the change process
Throughout the change management process, a structure should be in place to measure the
business the impact of the changes and ensure that continued reinforcement opportunity exists to
build proficiency. Dell must ensure that the change assisted is being achieving business goals,
was the change implementation successful enough, what thing could have been done better. This
step is the whole evaluation of the change and the pros and cons of the change can be analyzed.
So Dell can see that the long term goal of increasing reputation is achieved or not, is there
customers and employees working are still satisfied with the products and services of Dell or not.

This feedback will help Dell deal with the problems of their various stakeholders and solve their
problems (Whyte, Stasis and Lindkvist, 2016).
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