Kiwi Sheepskin (KSS): Change and Growth Management Strategies Analysis

This case study examines Kiwi Sheepskin (KSS), a New Zealand company with 100 years of experience, facing growth challenges. The company aims to implement a performance-based pay system in New Zealand, Japan, and France. The analysis covers the need for change, internal and external factors affecting KSS's growth, and the selection of appropriate change management models for each country: Prosci's ADKAR model for New Zealand, Kotter's Eight-Steps model for Japan, and Judson's Five-Phase model for France. The study also includes a SWOT analysis to identify growth opportunities and suggests using the Ansoff Matrix for product development and the Primo-F model for growth management.

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Case study...................................................................................................................................................2
Change Management..................................................................................................................................2
Change Management Model.......................................................................................................................3
Growth management..............................................................................................................................7
Growth Model.........................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10
Introduction:
Organizational change is very needed for the companies to develop when the world is updating
accordingly. There are so many changes have been taken place in this world regarding tastes,
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preferences and behaviour of the customers as well as the employees in the organization
(Kaufman, 2017).
Case study:
Kiwi sheep skin (KSS) is the very successful company with 100 years of experience at New
Zealand company. The business is manufacturing of sheepskin products like shoes, pillows and
handbags etc. and fashion sells in home country and international wide. Though it is a grown-up
company in a problem of growth (Donham & Thelin, 2016). So, now they wanted to do changes.
The changes will have reminded when the company doing not well. The top-level management
of this company has been found that need to introduce and develop change in performance
based-pay system in New Zealand, Japan and France. No one can guess that organizational
change whether going to fail or success. So, this company getting barriers and resistance when
implementing changes in the organization (Bosse, Breuer, & Spies, 2006). Now, they are following
three sections
Section-2 is about to find where the change is needed in all three countries (New Zealand, Japan and
France). Each country has their different areas regarding regions, religions, culture where change is
needed so making changes by analysing.
Section-3 after analysing change then implementing the growth strategy for a change.
Section-4 is the final statement regarding result (Fraser, 2019)
Change Management:
The need for change:
As stated by business life cycle
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(Institute, 2019)
Now the KSS is in maturity stage whereas financially is not good at all the time because of
updating. before getting into decline they have to do changes within an organization to be in the
maturity stage otherwise the company will be in the losses. So, that the change is needed. This is
what the KSS seeking for. They should analyse both internally and externally in the organization
which is environmental analysis helps to find need of change resulted to financially well. They
planned to increase the cost for the New Zealand’s in future less farmer’s promoters (Hornstein,
2015).
Internally affected factors:
There are two factors that affected KSS’s growth, are: -
Not all the senior staffs are contributing their hard work to the company, and employees are
more and their wages also high. Though there are senior staffs but not producing benefits, young
and dynamic employees are needed for creative thoughts and work development. This reason
made company to be in the low productivity being matured. Giving seniority rewards to the
employees who served for a long time is the seniority-based pay. Now, to change internal
environment replacing the seniority-based pay (SBP) with performance-based pay. why because
if provide benefits to only the seniors then there is no chance of improving performance level of
fresher employees. So, decided to give benefits based on their performance, it seems like having
an equal chance of getting benefits to all the seniors and junior or fresher employees. Now-a-
days companies are giving more preference to the (PBP) performance-based pay. This is the
strategy of encouraging employees to develop their performance (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015).
Change Management Model:
New Zealand
New Zealand is stable at some factors like economic factors, social, and political factors of
liberal market economies(Hollinshead, 2010).
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Figure 1: Cultural dimension of New Zealand (Insights, 2019)
In the above diagram has shown that among all the factors are power distance, individualism,
masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation, indulgence. Individualism is high and
power distance is low. It indicates that the New Zealand people give more importance personal
goals when compared to the company’s goal. The leader who wanted to take control of all the
decisions and make it out of control is called top-down leadership. That’s should not be there in
the company need equal power to all the employees(Shulruf, Hattie, & Dixon, 2007). Here, the
participative management must be there, is the chance of improve their performance, employees
always seeks this type of chances. If that is the case employees shows interest to work with their
managers (Da Veiga, 2018).
Taking above analysis into consideration, KSS New Zealand selected prosci’s ADKAR model as
the management methodology of change. It change individuals success as the success of
organization (Chen & Osei, 2018). Communicating the information to the employees in two ways.
Firstly, give clear cut plan regarding the trainings and programs about performance-based pay (PBP)
change into the organization and provide picturization how you are going to implement that cha nge
should be benefited (Bejinariu , Jitarel , Sarca , & Mocan , 2017).
Atlast, the result of the (PBP) helps to increase the productivity of the company through
change. This type of methods add some other into the process which is resulted in positive.
 Providing seniority-based pay (SBP) to the senior staff who are in the head office or
main office is a challenge of resistance. For an effective result add this model with
ADKAR model was recommended by Kubler-Ross model.
 The person who has the below qualities is the creditable manager-
o Honest and reliable
o Knowledge
o Sensitivity
o Should maintain objectivity
o Celebratory
o Keep promises
o Responsibility for mistakes
o Big dreamer (Wong, Lacombe, Keller , Joyce, & O'Malley , 2019).
This type of manager should be nominated than charisma style (Brinkman, 2015) for a good
change environment as same as New Zealanders preferred.
Japan:
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In Hofstede point of view, Japanese are the people always hesitate to take risks and afraid of uncertain
future. Both companies and people in the japan always bother about long term relative but would not
focus on short term gains and objectives. Being perfect people are influenced to success only (Touburg,
2016).
Figure 2: Cultural dimension of Japan (Insights, 2019)
As the above chart showed that, they are masculinity orientated people ignoring of individualism and
power distance. Japanese are the collectivistic cultured people. Hey work as a group and give preference
to individual’s desires and needs as a group desires and needs. Japan is the highly developed country
regarding companies rather than in the society (Kucharska & Kowalczyk, 2019).
By looking at the above analysis, KSS has chosen Kotter’s Eight-steps model for japan. As initially
structured according to the countries culture the organizational change is going to be changed. One thing
is cleared that this branch has good top-down model which is effective process and long-term relative
people (Nordin & Deros, 2017). The only thing that has to be change is “mind set of uncomfortable with
uncertain future into comfortable and reject to take risks into acceptable and be ready” offered by Kotter’s
model clearly. Allowing creative and dynamic young people into a change would be the desired rather
than giving leading to top executives and this is the case easy to make group-oriented culture effectively.
In Appendix 2, mentioned the detailed process of applying this model (Katsikas, Rossi, & Orelli, 2017).
In a mean while found that are potential problems, need to increase the potentiality of the employees in
the Japan to achieve their long-term gains successfully. They treat individual performance as selfishness.
Performance-based pay (PBP) has been introduced in the Japan to increase the potentiality and reach their
long-term analysis successfully. And the second thing is the top-level management need to keep some
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more focus on the employee’s performance whether doing well or not and have a interaction with the
employees where not allowing them into decision makings (Alas & Sun, 2007).
France:
in France also Hofstede analysis has given a result in the below chart-
Figure 3: Cultural dimension of France (Insights, 2019)
According to the above chart analysis, there are 6 factors. Among all those France scored high in
uncertainty avoidance and also nearly power distance and individualism scored well and less in
masculinity. When compare Japan and French. French is also hesitant to risks as same as Japan, but the
difference is Japan is group orientated people whereas French is individualists. And another common
activity is centralized power distribution in society. By agreeing with the Barmeyer and Mayrhofer
(2014), “the logic of honor and rank” is another name of historical culture value to get fairly high-power
distance. In a mean while they do more strikes of regarding social and political issue. According to the
above sentences here both respect to hierarchy and satisfying individual needs and liberation (Lee, Lin, &
Lin, 2017).
Judson considered both operational effects as well as social and psychological effects so that Judson’s
five-phase model has been selected along with the eight factors for a change especially for a branch of
France. Need to nominate managers who are good at taking risks and socialistic, might be helpful in the
process of change with high communicate system (Stampa, Vedel, & Henrard, 2010).
Growth management:
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Growth opportunity and strategy:
SWOT analysis on KSS to know the growth opportunity-
S-strengths:
 experienced and matured company with good top-level management (Ballingall, Yeabsley, Drew,
& Pambudi, 2018).
 have a good recognition of quality and design of the product (Dalziel , et al., 2018).
 good sales at world-wide and supply chain (Scanniello, 2018)
W-weakness:
 Productivity is low and organizational structure is not good (Beck, et al., 2018).
 Lack of good communication between employees and hierarchy (Lawrence, et al., 2016).
O-opportunities:
 China is the biggest market for highest sales of KSS for next five years (Cummings, Bridgman, &
Brown, 2016).
 More young people prefer to work in Auckland (Buick, Blackman, O'Flynn , O'Donnell, & West,
2015).
T-threats:
Increasing wages for high-level employees and improving raw material costs as well as operating costs.
Getting revenue under sales expectation due to heavy competition in the fashion market (Saebi, Lien, &
Foss, 2017).
According to the above analysis of SWOT on KSS, the external opportunity might be result in sometimes
positive and sometimes negative. In section2, performance-based pay (PBP) adopted by KSS to change
the low productivity through the influencing of employees to do work well and to participate many areas
like decision making process by communicating with hierarchy (Banker, Lee, Potter, & Srinivasan,
2015). Hence, this strategy of growth suggested to focus on external opportunities. These opportunities
and strategies would help to overcome threats. To recognize the specific growth strategy, use Ansoff
Matrix tool (see Figure 4).
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(Insights, 2019)
Though KSS has proved in selling in existing market still the growth is getting slow, needs to put efforts
on market penetration. This is the phase of changing something in the organization so the diversification
will take time to change slowly. For a fast growth it needs to a market research and staffing by investing
financially. At last, the main agenda is increasing sales selected Ansoff Matrix as a growth strategy for
product development. Using the luxury strategy, KSS decided to sell their products to the targeted high-
end consumers. Taking high-end consumers into consideration the manufacturing of products will be
going to produce for the best sales (Schawel & Billing, 2018). Those people bother about the luxury and
basic needs and also the life style would be the luxurious. They are planning to add “home” service which
is online business for the consumers. Sheepskin rugs are the examples for selling to high-end consumers
to show their luxurious, example decorating house. KSS is already existence with 100 years of experience
has a capacity to develop new products by using their network regarding sales in the market with less
investment. They need to check existing organizational structure to analyse the marketing strategies to be
implemented strategy (Nasdaq, 2019).
Growth Model:
KSS selected Primo-F model as the growth model. RapidBI developed this model where it helps to give
the structured work at one place to recognize the company performance. There six things which are very
useful and point out there are-
 resource
 people
 innovation
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 idea
 marketing
 operation
 finance
these above factors are very essential for a company to sustain for a long time should have a potential
employees strategy (Phillips, 2012).
Three sources (marketing, operational, financial) are plays a key in business performance which helps
to develop the standard levels of the business. Then the remaining three sources helps in improving of
growth of company regarding sales and working ability of the employees. People (employees) in the
organization should know the external environment of the business in the market. So that they could
improve their performance level rather than lazy or unconscious of activities, otherwise it might lead
to failure of new product. People in the sense who have management skills and leadership qualities
should be the change of internal environment in the organization. Human resources and leadership
come under the resource for the company. The employees should be very active, creative, potential,
for the promoting of new products. This model can also calculate the performance growth of the
company. When putting the deadline for the assessment then every assessment would give the result
to decide further improvements of the organization internally and externally (Haque, TitiAmayah, &
Liu, 2016).
Conclusion
Though the company is in maturity stage, need to make some changes not to meet decline stage. For
this, replacing seniority-based pay (SBP) with performance-based pap (PBP) for a better performance
of employees. In all three countries KSS decided to change the attitude and behaviour of the
employees in Japan, New Zealand, France. According their cultures, the changes will be taken place.
The models of ADKAR, Judson’s five phases and Kotter’s eight steps. These three countries should
follow these concepts for the company growth and also recommended might include product growth
strategy and adding “home” series product line. Primo-F is suggested for growth management.
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