BUS6001 Honda Case Study: Contemporary Management Issues Analysis

This report delves into the contemporary management issues faced by Honda, a prominent player in the automotive industry. It begins with an introduction to Honda's operations and the external forces influencing its strategic decisions, particularly technological change and climate protection. The report presents a case study of Honda, analyzing its response to these dynamic drivers. It then examines key dynamic forces impacting business and society, utilizing SWOT, PESTLE, and Porter's Five Forces analyses to evaluate Honda's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as the impact of political, economic, social, technological, legal, and ecological factors. The report further explores how Honda has responded to these changing drivers, focusing on strategies like defining change, determining its impacts, developing effective communication, and providing training. Finally, the report offers recommendations for Honda to enhance its productivity and adapt to societal changes, concluding with a summary of findings and a list of references.

Contemporary
management issues

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Case study of Honda and two major changing drivers................................................................3
key dynamic forces impacting on business and society..............................................................3
How the organisation responded to these changing drivers........................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................15
Books and Journal......................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Management of business is related with all business activities which an organisation
perform to evaluate their strategies and decision making. Business organisation faces a lot of
problems regarding management issue due to many forces which impact on their performance.
These forces can be internal and external which has its impact on business decision making and
its sustainability. Honda is a Japanese public company, operated in 1959. dealer and
manufacture of auto mobile, cars, and other key equipments. The company has its wide reach
into the world which inherently upgrade level of competition. In recent times, it faces various
external problems it affect to the environment and government policies. This report is going to
evaluate about Honda business strategical problems in adapting changes. As it is become
essential to opt significant factors and theory to respond with strategical planning. The report
will clearly identify the needs of company in order to enhance their productivity and access
change into society (Rosenbach,2018). For this instance, there is evaluation of dynamic factors
and their impact on companies sustainability. Moreover, need of change and how it can be adopt
is also going to focus on this report.
Case study of Honda and two major changing drivers.
Honda is well establish company which has its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. The
company has its worldwide reach in setting up their brand and products which makes it the
largest manufactures of auto mobile and cars. The company has in need of go through with the
need of environment and society, that has not fulfilled in the past years which causing affect on
greenhouse gases. It aims to decline these impact to the most extent and start evaluation of
electric vehicle so that no energy sources would get suffer. The case study shows the need to
analyse Honda external factor with the help of PESTLE and Porter's analysis. The company has
adopted two key drivers i.e. technological change, and climate protection. These are the essential
function which company has undertake in order to promote changes in the organisation.
Therefore, there is need to identify the strength and weakness of company through which it can
easily evaluate the area where change is required. This could be analyse by SWOT analysis
(Osunnuga 2020).
There are the two main factors that become the reason of closure of Swindon plant that
are global change and landmark free trade deal between the EU and Japan. Global change
demands electrification models that change the overall system. Another factor allows Honda to

export cars in the domestic market by 2027 freely, reducing its need for a European base. So
these are the two main reason of closure of Swindon plant.
key dynamic forces impacting on business and society.
SWOT analysis
It is the most effective framework which understand and evaluate an organisations strong
connectivity which it operates by showing their strength and weakness which is necessary to
access opportunities and threats in its efficient manner.
 Strengths
 weaknesses
 Opportunities
 Threats
These factors comes up with the ways and essential elements which Honda needs to look
forward for their growth. Weakness could get overcome by adapting reliable changes and grab
the opportunities (Chaturvedi, 2018).
External forces:
Pestle analysis:
Pestle analyse has drives effective factor which are essential to analyse for an
organisation. This analyse helps in making strategic management by knowing outside factors that
has great influence on companies performance and profitability. The analysis cover the area of
external drivers that defines what companies need to do and in what ways it would be beneficial
for them. In context with Honda, the factors impact on business are described below:
 Political factors
 Economical factors
 Technological factors
 Legal factors
 Social factors
 Ecological factors
Pestle analysis has identifies the most crucial factors which Honda needs to evaluate at
short period of time. As it needs to get competitive edge into the market before other countries
took its advantage.
Porter's five force model:

These model is a useful criteria to analyse market competitive edge which has affected
organisations stakeholders or rivalry firms. The model recognize the strong position of company
and the industry it is working on, it determine the influence against their competition and make
them ready to adapt these competition into positive way. These all forces eventually affects on
companies profitability. It is based on five forces in the context of Honda company (CHUA,
2018). It drives how an organisation handles all the factor which affects an organisations
profitability. This model covers 5 essential components which affects and influence on
companies compatibility. In relation with Honda their market analyses are described below:
Bargaining power of suppliers: It shows suppliers potential to bargain into the market,
suppliers high their prices and exploit business through their only existence. Low bargaining
power shows the organisation has enormous number of suppliers that reflects strong connection
with market distributors. As automobile industry has less number of suppliers and high
competition due to which Honda could loose their potential to bargain. For that instance Honda
has large suppliers relation which lower the bargain power of suppliers and Honda has authority
to bargain into market.
Bargaining power of buyers: This factor shows buyers power to bargain for a product
which has similarity in products and prices. A customer could not pay high price for same
products. Automobile industries has large competition due to which brands are promoting their
product in such a manner which attract large customers. Customers has high bargaining power as
they have wider choices to select and purchase after making whole analyse or product options.
Threat of substitute products: Substitute products gives customers a wide choice to shift
their demand for product which could fulfil their requirements. Available substitutes make easy
for customers to bargain into the market. Automobile industry has moderate competition in
substitute products as every brand has its unique aspect of production and feature. It requires
huge investment to sell these products which automatically lower down the competition. Honda
has moderate competition due to its close competitors (Filipović, and Popović, 2019).
Threat of new entrance: New entry of a firm with similar products causing competition
into market and emphasis on more efforts to come up with new strategy. Automobile industry
has very low threat of new entry as the industry require high potential to operate and there are
several barriers in entrance. Honda has low threat of new entrance due to its high brand image

and loyal customers. As if new firm enters into the market it will take many years to build its
market and name.
Competitive rivalry: similar products into market leads to high competition into market.
In order to sustain with change in technique of one firm correspondingly impact on other
competitor firms. Automobile sector has low competition but high competition into well settled
brands. Honda has facing large competition due to its rivals such as Toyota Volkswagen and
others. To gain advantages of full control over market, Honda needs to be innovative and
qualitative in fulfilling customers demand.
Porter's five forces model is very helpful in finding of competitors of Honda so that they
can make strategies accordingly. Honda is the organisation that produces electric vehicles which
have a big competitors such as Toyota in UK. Honda didn't launch or introduce any electric car
in earlier times. So that's why it becomes a very tough situation for them. They have lack of
experience that how they can deals with them. Porter's five forces model is very helpful in
analysis the upcoming situation of competition when Honda wants to introduce something new
in market.
How the organisation responded to these changing drivers
There are two main changing drivers that analysing in the case study that are climate
protection and change in technology. Climate protection is the first driver that should be change
by organisation. For that reason they are adopted introduction of electric cars that helps in
protecting climate or nature. As it can clearly see that it is not easy for Honda to cope up wit
these upcoming change. Because these key changes drivers impact on all over operations and
management or organisation. It becomes very tough for organisation that show they can handle
the change due to adoption or transformation of petrol vehicles into electric vehicles. It is a big
challenge for Honda that how they can responded strategically so that they can not damage their
operation of organisation. Due to the force that comes through competition from China UK and
EU become in a tough competition that they should make their environment clean by making of
electric vehicle so that they can beat China. Otherwise China can dominate the market very
easily. It is very tough situation for organisation that they are surrounded by many forces that can
be internal or external. So that's why, it is very necessary for organisation that they respond to
key dynamic forces so that they can take big step or move forward towards their organisational
goals and objectives (Jalali, and Seyyedyazdi, 2020).

For a good response against sustainability organisation need to use triple bottom line. The
triple bottom line refers to a framework of accounting with three important parts such as
financial, environmental and social. Many organisation adopt TBL framework so that they can
evaluate the performance of employees. It also helps in creating and developing greater business
value.
Organisation should analyse their internal strengths and external opportunities and try to
transform their threats into opportunities and weaknesses into strengths so that organisation can
easily handle external forces such as technological and environmental factors. Because important
drivers are climate change and technological change that become the reason of change in whole
process and procedure in operations of organisation. With strong internal factors or strengths
organisation can adapt the change in organisation whether it is change in whole operations, it can
easily bears if the organisation have strong team. Honda took important step such as they
adopted the strategies so that they became in a position to handle systematically. They took a
proper and systematically strategy so that they can responded to these changes or forces that
mentioned below: Define the change and integrate with business goals: It is important for organisation i.e.
Honda that they firstly to clear out or define the changes that comes under due to
transformation of petrol vehicles into electric vehicles. So they should find out the
requirements of change in organisation such as operation system should be change
because of electric vehicle. It is also important for organisation that they should clear out
to employees that why change is required so that they can focus on their work and
increase their productivity accordingly. Determining the impacts of change: The next step of Honda is to determining the
impacts or effects of change on organisations' operations and management. Because the
changing impact can be bear by managers of company so they should know about the
impact of change on which department. In simple words, they should know about the
departments that are mostly affected by change in technology. Develop effective communication strategy: When Honda identifying and analysing the
change that which departments or organisa6tion get affected by change then they should
effectively communicate to all members of the organisation so that they can take steps
accordingly. Communication strategy should be effective so that everyone can

understand that why change is occurred in the organisation and why it is important to
adapt them. In communication strategy, feedback is the most important part that could be
managed in organisation. Feedback can be managed through taking reviews and
comments from employees of organisation (Marjanović, and Križman Pavlović, 2018). Provide effective training and implement them: Now it is the time for providing training
and development programs so that organisation's employees can develop adaptability
skills so that they can adopt changes easily. They should develop skills and behaviours
that is necessary for achievement of Honda's goals and objectives. Training methods that
becomes more effective in Honda's are lectures of process of technique to use. It is
important that employees' learning should be implement in adaptability of change so that
Honda make sure about the affect of training program.
 Measures the change process: The process is not end that means organisation should be
measures the process of change so that they can identify and analyse the deviations or
differences that occurred from expected and actual performance. It can be done to analyse
the situation that they see that organisation can achieve their desired result or not.
It is also important for organisation that they should select one most effective decision
tools so that organisation can address to changing drivers. One important and effective decision
tool is Ishikawa diagram or cause and effect diagram. (Wajid, and Shah, 2017).
Ishikawa Diagram: It is one of the important that helps to taking decision wisely by
organisation. Honda is changing their whole process of production so that they should make very
wise decision that will not create any problem for them. Ishikawa Diagram or commonly called
Fishbone diagram which aids the managerial team to trail the causes which can reduce
imperfections, defects and failures. Such failures which can disrupt the process of operations and
can affect the productivity of organisation, Honda. The diagram is in shape of fish's skeleton
with the problem on its head and causes of those problems on its feed. Organisation can follow
these and make their production feasible. It is one of important that helps to take decision wisely
by the organization. Honda is changing their whole process of production so that they should
make a very wise decision that will not create any problem for them. The cause and effect
diagram becomes the best tool for deciding on Honda so that they can handle all the
contemporary issues in management. It is the tool that refers to identify every factor that
becomes the reason for product failure. It is very important in Honda's case because they are

trying to change their production of petrol to an electric vehicle. Because they are doing it for the
first time it is very obvious that in their manufacturing, defects can become an important issue
(Newton, ed., 2019)
Cause and effect diagram become the best tool for taking decision in Honda so that they
can handle all the contemporary issues in management. It is the tool that refers to identify each
and every factors that become the reason of product failure. It is very important in Honda's case
because they are trying to change their production of petrol to electric vehicle. Because they are
doing for first time it is very obvious that in their manufacturing, defects can become the
important issue (Newton, ed., 2019).
So it is very necessary for organisation that they should make decision regarding their products
manufacturing. It can be take properly only when this tool is implemented in organisation. Cause
and effect diagram is the important one because it gives the reason behind defect can be occurred
and the effect of that defect. With the proper analysis of cause and effect diagram, organisation
can be take decision for achieving their goals and objectives.
Organisation can be adopted some theories for identification and application of effective
responses to deal with management issues. Some important theories are mentioned below:
Lewin's change model:

It is the important model in which organisation should focus on important three steps that
are unfreezing, changing and refreezing. It is simple model in which organisation make sure that
each and every person can understand the whole changing process. This model is developed and
established by Kurt Lewin's change in which they elaborate each and every step in detailed so
that employees can easily understand that. In this model, Kurt developed or create a perception
in which employees are get influenced towards change. It generates a behaviour i.e. needed for
adapting change and convert them into new norm so that organisation become in habit.
The important three steps are:
Unfreezing: It is the stage in which organisation prepare their staff or personnel for
upcoming change. It means that it is the stage of before implementation of change. Because it is
very necessary for organisation that they should aware about the change and their reason that
why it is necessary for organisation. That means firstly Honda should make sure that all are
prepared for adapting of change that comes. It is very effective that employees become more
urged to adapt change. Because it is in human nature that they can not easily adapt the change
but if Honda give some information before change then it create a possibility to easy adoption of
change (Schaltegger, and Burritt, 2017).
Changing: Now it is the of organisation that they implement change in their operations and
overall management. In this stage employees should develop skills and behaviour so that they are
prepared for adoption of change. It is very important stage in which Kurt Lewin's shows that

employees need very important skills and behaviours so that they can face the change and work
accordingly. In this stage two important things that are need at priority that are:
 Information flow and
 Leadership
Both plays very important role in the organisation because they are thing that motivate
and encourage people to adapt the change and increase their efficiency and capability
accordingly. Information should be very fluently flow so that employees can easily work on
them. Whereas leadership is the quality that should be needed in every leader of the organisation
so that they can motivate and encourage people towards organisation's goals and objectives. Both
are very necessary for organisations' success and growth because they are the key element that
help to employees in adopting change (Ssempebwa, and Neema-Abooki, eds., 2017).
Refreezing: It is the last stage in which organisation stabilizing, solidifying and
reinforcing the new state after the change. It is very important for organisation because in this
stage they are trying to become a permanent structure that change state the new norms. In simple
words, organisation try to make all the functions and operations that affected by change and due
to that they are change become habitual so that employees and other members of organisation
able to continue with new norms. After the training and development programs now employees
should be make habits of new norms so that organisation can not give continue trainings.
From the above brief study of theory, it is analysed that according to the situations,
theory should be implemented so that organisations can efficiently perform their functions or
operations. Honda's change management was not much effective and impelling which is why
Lewin's for Kotter Change management can be used in place so that productivity of an
organisation is enhanced. As Lewin's Change Management is easy and feasible which can make
manage change in a set framework so that managers are powered to create a lot of new ways.
This can be done through freezing the other factors, then changing them and again refreezing
them so that freezed factors can be again used.
Kotters model for change:
1.Establish a sense of urgency (for change): This model defines that Honda needs to have
environment of change by seeing changing market factors:
2.Create the guiding coalition: After recognizing change, Honda must coalition to guide
every management resources towards its implementation

3.Establish a vision and strategy: This requires a set objectives that Honda defines to make
electric cars in nearby future with zero emission and fuel free.
4.Enlist a volunteer army: In order to make strategy effective, influence people to come
into volunteer to making the changes successful.
5.Empower (or enable) broad-based action: The strategy needs high actions and well
settled targets so that mission would not lack with unfruitfulness.
6.Create short-term wins: Honda would need to focus on short achievement rather than
taking level high short achievements will give motivation to proceed further fore long.
7.Sustain acceleration: sustainability In making needs needs to be maintained so that no
employees will coming down with their track.
8.Anchor new approaches in culture: change environment encourage new and innovative
approaches into organisation culture, Honda must build effective strategies and approaches
that defines their model and mission
Recommendations
There are some important recommendations that should be consider by the organisations
so that they can improve their process and procedure. With some suggestions and
recommendations it is analysed that organisation face many problems easily and overcome with
that. There are some recommendations that are mentioned below:ic
Organisations should survey in their environment that their employees are ready to accept the
change in organisation or not. Because without that it could not be that organisation can change
without permission of employees. They can take some suggestions from shareholders that they
make changes in their organisation so that they are cooperate or not (Tan, and Kamaruddin,
2019)
 It is recommended to the leader and manager of the organisations that they should clear
out the need or requirements of change that happened in the organisation. It is very
necessary for organisation that they should interpret the need of change. After the
effective communication they should make the situation in this way so that all members
or organisation thought that change is very essential.
Leadership is one oicf the most important tool or technique that helps to achieve the
desired goals and targets. So it is suggested to organisation that they adopt a flexible leadership
style so that when organisation needs it can automatically change their style. Leaders should