A Comprehensive Change Management Plan for Sainsbury's (ABS305)

This report presents a comprehensive change management plan for Sainsbury's, focusing on the company's response to technological and legal changes driven by globalization and the COVID-19 pandemic. The report begins with an overview of Sainsbury's and a justification for the determined changes, which include social, technological, and legal adjustments. It emphasizes the need for technological advancements to ensure client data security and compliance with UK laws. The report highlights the importance of transformational leadership, advocating for a shift from democratic leadership to better manage the anticipated changes. The change management plan outlines key strategies, including aligning changes with overall goals, assessing impacts, developing communication strategies, providing employee training, determining leadership and motivation techniques, addressing resistance, measuring the change process, and improving activities. Future trends and recommendations are also discussed, with a focus on how Sainsbury's can adapt to ensure long-term growth and efficiency. The plan also covers key elements such as determining the change and aligning it to overall goals, determining in advance the effects and impacts of the changes, developing a communication strategy, providing training to its employees, deciding on the leadership and motivation techniques, removing resistance in making the change, measuring the change process and improving the activities. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of adaptability and strategic planning for sustained success in a rapidly changing business environment.

ORGANISATIONAL
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
PLAN

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................1
Overview of the company......................................................................................................1
2. OVERVIEW AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE CHANGE DETERMINED....................1
3. LEADERSHIP CONSIDERATIONS................................................................................2
4. CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN..................................................................................3
5. FUTURE TRENDS............................................................................................................3
6. RECOMMENDATIONS & CONCLUSION.....................................................................3
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................4

1. INTRODUCTION
Speaking in relation with the change, it is being referred as the process of moving from
an unsatisfactory current condition to an anticipated conditions through which the organizations
can stabilize themselves. There are numerous trends which comes up in the path of growth and
success of the firm and thus, there is a requirement to make changes in the policies and other
business processes in order to success in longer period of time (Millar,2015). Considering this,
the main aim of the current research report is to develop a change management plan of the
organization which outlines the effective strategic change and management of resistance. For this
purpose, Sainsbury is being taken as a case company. The report will highlight the leadership
style being needed for the change initiative and will focus on the future trends in the
organizational change management. The final section of the report will throw light on some
recommendations and will conclude the overall findings.
Overview of the company
Sainsbury is one of leading retail supermarket chain of UK opened first in the year 1869.
It is the longest standing major food retailing chain which provides more than 30000 products
out of which fifty percent are from its own brand. the success of the firm is majorly dependent on
the wide variety of quality foods and grocery products being offered by Sainsbury. Further, the
company has around 502 supermarkets and convenience stores and banks. The company has
developed its brand upon heritage of offering clients with healthy, fresh, secure and tasty food
(Ruddick, 2014). Quality along with reasonable prices go hand in hand with a responsible
approach to business. The store emphasizes on the fresh food and also strive to innovate
continuously and augments its merchandise in line with the requirements of the client.
2. OVERVIEW AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE CHANGE DETERMINED
Because of the globalization and current pandemic covid19, the system and operations of
conducting the business have been altered in almost every sector. Now, most of the businesses
have opted online platforms for conducting their business and so is the Sainsbury. However, with
the increasing use of online and digital space, there has been rise in the amount of cyber-attack
wherein most of the information of the clients were stolen. Therefore, as a precautionary
measure, the company has to issue new card to their valuable clients. Based on this, the firm is

planning to make some changes in their technology and legal policies in the near future
(Anthony, 2014). Considering the requirement, the firm is required to opt for different
technologies which can make sure the security of the information of the client. Although there is
an existing system, however some transformations are needed for enhanced outcomes.
Furthermore, on the basis of the laws and regulations of UK in regards with information and
cyber security, Sainsbury has to take some essential measure through introducing changes in the
rights of accessibility for the information internally. This will encompass realignment of the
system on the incremental basis. Based on the analysis, some of the types of changes being
determined are elaborated in the subsequent paragraph:
 Social Change – The social change involves the requirement for learning. In the current
times, the value of each and every organization is being portrayed on the basis of the
ability to learn. Learning is not just a department rather it has become an important sub-
section of any functional unit. The manner in which the people adapt to the learning
environment defines the requirement as well as applicability of change in the
environment of business. This is being regarded as the soft change because it involves
gaining knowledge, skills and learning.
 Technological Change– The technological change involves the requirement of artificial
intelligence. In almost each and every industry, the application of machine learning and
artificial intelligence has taken over all the markets for business. They are support
individuals and groups in connecting with people across the world on the business ground
and is also accessible by almost all (Jalagat,2016). Thus, their significance has been
widened up. the technological change is being regarded as hard change because it
involves strategic changes being imposed by the management of the company.
 Legal Changes – The legal changes involve the requirement for security of information.
There are different laws that have been announced for making sure security of
information at the personal and organizational level in the present times for ensuring
technological changes are not put to wrong uses. On the other hand, all these trends have
also impacted greatly the requirement for alteration in the system in relation with the
technical supplies.

3. LEADERSHIP CONSIDERATIONS
Leaders are being referred as the main promoters of change and therefore, it is important
on their part to exhibit suitable styles of leadership. The success of change is originated to be
relied on the leader’s style of leading the organization. seeking help of suitable and relevant
leadership style, the behaviour of the workers, teams and organization at large can be changed
and influenced who are resisting change. Presently, the leaders at Sainsbury follows the
democratic leadership style. This is quite evident from the fact that the leaders constantly
communicate and involves all the employees irrespective of their level of working in crucial
decision making of the firm and for managing the operations of the store. They believe that
through this style, all the workers are involved which in turn increases their motivation level.
However, as far as the current anticipated changes being planned by the company, democratic
leadership style does not actually fit the future change effort (Bolden, 2016). Thus, it is important
that the leaders at Sainsbury must focus on and adopt transformational leadership style because it
is the style which encompasses the components of change-oriented leaders as they create a
feeling of urgency, provide authority to the workers to perform in line with the vision, identify a
vision and preferred direction, give authority to the workers and celebrate the success. Thus, it
can be said that transformational leadership style is important for this anticipated change
management plan.
4. CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN
Change management plan includes of the activities and strategies that are being used so
that the changes in an organisations can be done without any resistance of any employees or
members (Bousquet, and et.al., 2019).. The company has to prepare its change management plan
so that the organisational performances will not be affected due to any changes in an
organisations. Sainsbury is making changes in it company like technological changes and legal
changes to remain competitive in the world with low cost and high profits with use of new and
latest technologies.
Strategies used by Sainsbury for change management plan
The steps taken by Sainsbury for making the change management plan in its
organisations are: Determining the change and align it to overall goals: The company first determine the
changes which are necessary in advance and aligning it with the group goals or company

goals. The company Sainsbury is making changes in it technologies and legal changes
due to pandemics so that it can produce the products and services with low cost and high
margins like creating various online platforms for selling its products etc. Technological
changes will help the company to expand its business globally and increasing its
operations and making changes in it legal policies so that it can freely market its products
and services internationally. This will help the Sainsbury to increase its customers due to
new innovative products and services which are offered and increase the efficiency of
overall goals of the company (Evans, T. R. 2020).. Determining in advance the affects and impacts of changes: The team of Sainsbury is
determining in advance the changes which will impact or affects the working of the
employees because determining in advance the changes will help company to plan for the
affects. The negative affects will decrease the efficiency of the performances of the
employees like wrong medium of choose technologies and employees resistance to
change will decrease the productivity. So all the affects and impacts should be
determined in advance and strategies are to be planned in advance to overcome from any
losses so that the changes can be done effectively (Arefazar, and et.al., 2019). Developing communication strategy: Sainsbury need to develop its communication
strategy for communicating all the changes and its pros and cons to its staff and
employees and taking their ideas and thoughts so that changes if found necessary will be
applied . Communication of plans and strategy is important because employees should
feel involved in that process otherwise they will unwanted and find it difficult to change
their way of working. Without communicating to the employees creates turnover rates
high and decrease in employees efficiency (Darmawan, A. H., & Azizah, S., 2020,
January). Sainsbury should include communication like open discussion and debates for
making any decisions with the employees suggestions. Providing training to its employees: This is the most important strategy to train the
employees for the activities which they have to do for efficiency in the work. Proper
training is needed so that employees get to know how to use the new tool and techniques
and the benefits for using the new technologies and law. This makes them feel confident
due to knowledge of doing the new task.

 Deciding the leadership and motivation techniques: The accuracy and efficiency of the
task depends upon the way leaders encourage and motivates the employees for doing the
work with full productivity. Sainsbury is using democratic leadership style so that each
employees should be involved in the decision making process. This company is using
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs so that each employees higher to lower level needs can be
satisfied so that they will work with full satisfaction and with full motivation with proper
guidance. Removing resistance in making the change: every employee will resist to change due to
more efforts and new changes in work etc so this will create huge problems in
introducing the new change. The employees will not ready to work differently and resist
to change for new policies and rules. Sainsbury need to train its employees and give them
proper guidance for accepting the changes. Measuring the change process: After all this the company need to check the
performances of all the employees and departments so that it can measure whether the
change is making any profits or just increasing the cost. The performances are being
measured and cost are also being measured so that checking the accuracy of changes of
new technology whether its bringing efficiency or increasing the profits or not (Gresham,
J., 2020). Improving the activities: The last strategy used by Sainsbury is to improve the activities
which are lacking and decreasing the performances of the company for example
employees efforts, cost of technologies and customer satisfaction. Improving the
activities like motivating the employees and changing the technologies and working of an
employee.
5. FUTURE TRENDS
Future trends are the change management outcomes that will either increase the
efficiency of an organisation or increase the productivity and decrease the efficiency of an
organisation (Konlechner, 2018). The Technology changes or law changes will change the future
performances of Sainsbury like increase in profits or overall efficiency.
Future change of Sainsbury
Future trends of Sainsbury has long term impact on an organisation due to change
management policies for long term growth of the business which are:

 Increase in profits: Using of latest technology will increase the profits due to more use
of capital intensive methods will reduce the work loads of employees and staff. Using of
artificial intelligence will lead to efficiency in work for example an employee or staff has
certain limits and capacity of doing the work but using technological tools has no
capacity and limits of doing the work. The human errors can be reduced through this
digital technologies and the data remains safe of the company and it will automatically
generate huge incomes due to more savings (Rosenbaum, 2018). Minimisation of cost: Sainsbury is using latest technologies for decreasing its cost of
productions and increasing the profits. Using latest technologies will help the company to
save its cost for example cost of recruitment and training to employees, cost of producing
unlimited products and machines , cost of advertising or personal marketing etc. This will
saves the cost of company in long run due to using new and latest technologies of
marketing and producing the products. Effective productivity: The company’s productivity increases due to effective working
with Artificial intelligence because all the activities or data are stored and compared with
each others so that any ineffective work can be improved for the future improvements.
For example the employees performances are being measured with their gather data and
monthly efforts which being recorded electronically and inefficiency by anyone will be
improved. More customer satisfaction: The customer satisfaction of Sainsbury will improve
because using of latest trend products and services attract more customers. The customer
will attracted towards the products with same price and more advanced features.
Sainsbury is international company and with the use of latest technology and remain
update all the time it will automatically improves the customers satisfaction in long run. Latest technology or competitive advantage: Using of latest technology by Sainsbury
will increase the productivity of the firm and increase the efficiency of the firm. Due to
globalisation increasing use of digital technologies increased the competitive advantage
of an organisation and Sainsbury need to use latest technologies to remain competitive in
the global market for long future growth.

 Expansion of business: This technology changes will automatically expand the market
due to more customers and profits investments will increase and company will expand its
business in different areas for future growth (Birkel, H., & Müller, J. M. , 2021).
Sainsbury is using sustainability approaches for sustainable growth of the business with
technological changes.
Triple bottom line approach
The company is using this approach for sustainable profits and taking in consideration all
the social and environmental factors that any activity by the Sainsbury does not harm them.
Sainsbury is focusing on making profits without damaging the natural environment and social
environment or should not include in any activities that will affect the health of the people (Dey,
2020). This approach says that The company should generate profits with taking in account the
three category people, profit and planet Sainsbury is taking care of all its changes and making
sure that for short term profits it should not harm the planet, people. For example the company
should earn profits with least use of natural resources for producing its products and save the
planet and should not produce or do any activity that harm the people and their health. Sainsbury
is following this approach for change management and growth in long run.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
From the above report it is been recommended that the company Sainsbury should
change its policies with the help of its employees because they have more knowledge then the
company for their satisfaction and effective performances. The company should make changes
first on small areas for insuring its efficiency or can bear losses. The company should follow all
the social responsibility and environmental laws for earning profits in long run.
From the above report it has been concluded that change management is necessary for
every company to survive in its global market. The company should change those areas where it
can earn huge profits with low cost like technological changes. Further, it is concluded that for
change management the company should use best leadership style and prepares its change
management plan so that it can develop all the strategies in advance by defining all the pros and
cons. Lastly for the long term growth the company should use triple bottom line approach for
success of change management in long run.

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