SYS380 TMA: Walmart Organizational Change and Intervention Report

This report analyzes the need for organizational change within Walmart, focusing on its current market position and challenges. The report begins with an abstract and introduction outlining the importance of change in maintaining a competitive edge. It then delves into Walmart's background, organizational structure, and the factors driving the need for change, both internally and externally. A diagnostic model, based on Kotter's change model, is employed to identify areas for improvement. The report proposes strategies for change implementation, including communication methods and approaches to overcome resistance. Finally, it provides recommendations for change sustenance and overall improvement, aiming to address Walmart's performance and market share challenges.

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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND INTERVENTION
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Table of Contents
Question 1.......................................................................................................................................3
Abstract..........................................................................................................................................3
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Background of Walmart and it's the organizational situation..................................................4
My role as an agent for change.....................................................................................................6
A diagnostic model for what is to be changed.............................................................................7
Internal factors driving the need for change...............................................................................8
External factors driving the need for change............................................................................10
Evaluation of organizational readiness for change...................................................................11
Question 2.....................................................................................................................................12
Strategies required to be implemented at Walmart organization to improve the company.
.......................................................................................................................................................12
How the changes will be communicated to stakeholders.........................................................13
Expected resistance to change and how to overcome it............................................................14
Change sustenance.......................................................................................................................15
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................15
Recommendations........................................................................................................................16
References.....................................................................................................................................16

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Question 1
Abstract
Organization change is an imperative that helps companies transform with the dynamic
market shifts. Through organizational change companies can maintain their competitive edge and
meet customers expectations efficiently. Walmart has been a dominant force in the retail industry
over the past years. Of late the retailer is facing stiff competition in controlling the global
markets from other giants, for example, Amazon. The failure to take over markets in Germany
and South Korea is also worrying. We take a look at how organization change can help Walmart
continue its dominance.

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Introduction
In attempts to provide favorable environments for working and maximum performance,
every organization needs to adopt the organizational changes in its system of management. With
the adoption of organizational changes, companies can be able to tackle their problems and the
demands they might be experiencing from both the external and internal environments. Change
is the main driving force that has stimulated the successful growth of the world's biggest
companies hence enables them to realize successful performance. Due to the new changes in the
external environment, most companies are supposed to adopt new ways of performance in order
to realize positive progress and their survival. It would, therefore, make the companies very
strong and enable them to achieve better results as compared to those produced by other
companies.
Question 1
The selected organization for this evaluation is the Walmart Inc.
Background of Walmart and it's the organizational situation
Walmart Inc. is a multinational retailer with headquarters in the United States. The
retailer runs a series of grocery stores, hypermarkets, and discount stores in several countries.
Sam Walton established the retail in the year 1962, but it was incorporated fully in the year 1969.
Walmart is present in 27 different countries and is registered under various names (Walmart
2019a). Walmart was the largest firm in 2018, with total revenue of 500billion dollars. The
retailer employees a workforce of 2.2 million employees around the globe, making the largest
private recruiter. In the year 2019, 65% of Walmart's revenue came from its operations in the
United States, with grocery retail being the largest retail business. The company sells its shares
publicly, but the Walton family owns the largest part of the company. Walmart was registered in

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the New York Stocks Exchange (NYSE) in 1972 for the first time. By 1988, Walmart was
making large profits, and in the following year, it became the largest retailer in the U.S. due to its
revenue size. Walmart has been very successful in North American and European countries
(Walmart, 2019b). Despite its success in most countries, Walmart has not made a major footprint
in South Korean and German Markets.
Walmart's executive board is, responsible for formulating and implementing changes in
the company. Walmart is currently facing stiff competition from companies such as Amazon
and, therefore, must make drastic changes to keep its competitive edge. The firm's inability to
take over the German and Korean markets and subsequent poor reviews have led to questions
regarding its superiority. Given the number of resources the company boasts, it should have
easily outwitted other smaller retailers in Germany and South Korea. Therefore, Walmart's
strategies in the two make need to improve in order to continue reflecting its superiority in other
European countries and the United States.
The main reason why Walmart has succeeded in most countries is its customer-relations
culture. The culture at the retailer revolves around customer satisfaction, integrity in all
operations, and striving for excellence. Walmart’s persistent commitment to serving clients is an
art that the retailer has mastered quite efficiently. In order to take over German and the Korean
markets, these aspects of serving then need to be enhanced or changed drastically. Walmart
should adopt new methods of meeting their client's expectations so as to maintain competition
with other giants like Amazon, who are winning their market share quite fast. The process of
change at Walmart should start with the board of directors and then passed down to the roots, as
explained by (Antaki, 2011). To meet the clients’ expectations, the company must embrace
technology shopping techniques such as artificial intelligence (A.I.). Walmart must also prepare

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for the technological revolution that is about to happen in order to effectively meet the needs of
the clients in the future.
My role as an agent for change
My main activity as a change agent at Walmart Inc. will be to investigate the current
manner of doing things at the company. Implementing organizational change is always not as
straightforward undertaking as doing obvious day to day activities in the company. To
implement change as an agent, I must first deal with the existing organizational culture.
Understanding organizational culture involves dealing with the company employee's attitudes
and behaviors. Organizational culture can hinder change from happening (Mallinger, Goodwin
and O’hara, 2009). This will involve digging out clues among the workforce in the German and
Korean markets that are related to market performance based on how they relate with clients.
This is because Walmart has been successful in other countries based on the same principles.
Therefore, getting to know the culture of employees in the two markets will help me to
determine whether their behavior doesn't meet client expectations. The next part of my
investigation will be to investigate why customers are attracted to other smaller firms in
Germany and Korea, then relate findings to Walmart's mode of operations
My next role will be to advocate for novel changes in the methods of operations,
including customer relations. This will involve rallying up support from employees in different
sectors of the company and by submitting my findings executive board. After gaining support, I
will then encourage different sectors of the firm in the affected to embrace change. This will be
my strategy for avoiding resistance to change. People experience different emotions when their
normal way of doing things is interrupted (Palmer, Dunford, and Akin, 2017). These emotions
needs to be handled differently to avoid resistance.

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In my capacity, I will facilitate the changes by making it easier to perform. This will
involve being creative in designing a system that will enable everyone to succeed as they
undergo changes. I will also mediate the new changes by reconciling opposing priorities. After
that, I will advise the board of directors and other stakeholders appropriately through meetings
and training. My other role will be to manage the changes by setting out clear goals. Then I will
follow up on the goals by holding people responsible and rewarding appropriately as the process
progresses.
A diagnostic model for what is to be changed
To identify what needs to change I will use the Kotter’s change model as described by (Pollack
and Pollack, 2015)
By following the Kotter's strategy to identify what needs to change, the first step will be
to make sense of urgency (Pollack and Pollack, 2015). The sense of urgency that Walmart needs
to change its operations strategy will be that other retailers such as Amazon are winning big
chunks of the market share, and their reviews in Korean and German markets are quite low. If
Walmart doesn't embrace change, then it will be off-charts soon. Such a sense of urgency is
crucial in gaining support and cooperation. The next step will be to develop a coalition that will
lead to change (Pollack and Pollack, 2015). In Walmart's case, the group will consist of all the
presidents and a member of the Walton family. Managers of the various branches will also be
included. The group formed should have the power to lead change. Thereafter the group should
come up with a vision and strategy to facilitate change (Pollack and Pollack, 2015). Walmart is
already in a strong market position. However, competition from other giants and failure to
convince some markets as the competitors are doing threatens the positions. The goal will be to
maintain their position at the top of the chart and gain control of markets in Germany and South

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Korea. The strategy is to conduct seminars to educate employees on the organization's principles
and to conduct robust technological changes.
Consistent communication of the change vision to all members of the organization should
follow (Pollack and Pollack, 2015). Communication regarding the need to change should be kept
constant throughout the process. After effective communication, the next step, as outlined in
Kotter's strategy, should be empowering broad-based change (Pollack and Pollack, 2015). This
stage should involve cooperation with the various Human Resources offices and business units to
remove obstacles that may undermine change. It should also involve changing systems and
structures such as outdated technologies that might undermine the vision. After removing
barriers, the guiding coalition should develop short-term wins. The short-term wins should
include reaching certain goals after a given period. At the peak of the change strategy, the
company should consolidate gains and produce more changes (Pollack and Pollack, 2015). The
administration should also instill a new culture into the company. For example, the novel culture
should be meeting clients’ needs through available resources such as technology. Following
Kotter's model, Walmart should change the way it deals with clients by increasing the efficiency
of shopping through the introduction of robust technologies such as A.I. and enhancing customer
relations through staff education.
Internal factors driving the need for change.
Organizational structure: the organizational structure involves how various roles and
duties are allocated among the employees of the company as well as how communication is done
within the company. A company that has its structure well organized makes more benefits and
minimizes losses. In Walmart, the organizational structure contains two key features;
hierarchical and function-based structure. In a hierarchical structure, every employee except the

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CEO has direct authority, and the directives issued from top-most officials are implemented
through various managers to the junior employees such as the storekeepers. For the functional-
based structure, this company has groups of employees tackling various duties. It has a
department in which the human resource is well managed. In Walmart's organizational structure,
when a new policy or a strategy is developed, it is communicated through the corporate
managers all the way to store managers. There is a big challenge posed by such lengthy
communications because there may not be chances of adjustment of business practices at store
levels. A change is therefore necessary aimed at making the organization flexible whereby
managers at such low levels should be authorized to implement any new idea they may develop.
This will, in turn, will help them reap more benefits and lower chances of making losses (Müller,
Buliga and Voigt, 2020).
Organizational culture: these are the norms that are observed within the company. They
guide the behaviors of the employees that will, in turn, determine the capacities of the
organization to add value in the provision of their services to their customers. In Walmart's
company, the following components make up their organizational culture; service to the
customer, respect for the individuals, excellence, and integrity. Such a culture is important in
maximizing the company's profit since both the service provider and customers' expectations are
met. However, there are some concerns with regard to the employees' wages. The company is
criticized for its failures in addressing the low wages given to the employees. Demotivated
employees often deliver poor services to the customers resulting in low profits and increased
losses within the company. There is a need to change this culture to motivate the employees,
therefore, maximizing the profits. This can be achieved in three ways; creation of reward systems
such as pay rise, bonuses and promotions to boost the feeling of competence and mastery among

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the employees, engaging the employees in problem-solving, decision making and encouraging
self-direction, and promotion of fair organization politics with rewards being given based on
performance and qualifications and not connections(Rangus and Slavec, 2017).
External factors driving the need for change
Among the external factors that drive the need for change in the organization include
increased competition, change in technology, economic constraints among the customers, and
complex communication systems to customers. The competitors introduce competing strategies
in the market, which lowers the familiarity of Walmart's products. These competitions occur in
such ways as the introduction of new products and amplification of the new products, advertising
discounts to various products, and improvement of the services they offer to customers. There is
a need to apply cheaper and quality services and products to overcome the competitors' strategies
as well as to reap more. The adoption of new technologies is another key requirement in the
organization of Walmart company. For instance, they can introduce computers and industrial
robots that may pave the way for the rapid resolution of complex problems and management
(Fjeldstad and Snow, 2018). In addition, they will facilitate cost reduction and improved quality
as opposed to their old technologies. Effective communication is not only needed in the
management but also to customers for the purpose of improving services offered. Information is
exchanged between managers through communication, while recommendations on product and
service improvement are also made through communication. The communications outside this
organization should focus on the following; developing and positioning an expert, targeting, and
connection with traditional media and distribution of the message. There needs to be an adoption
of a modern communication system that is not complex, and that is most widely used internally

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as well as among the customers. This will help to overcome losses that result from poor
communication (Ramdhani, Ramdhani, and Ainisyifa, 2017).
Evaluation of organizational readiness for change
Successful organizational change occurs when the leadership clearly understands that the
change processes is a process with phases that require time. The intentions, beliefs, and attitudes
of the employees regarding the change are required, and for the successful implementation of an
organizational change, effective unfreezing processes are needed. The key phrases for an
organizational change are; readiness, in which the members of the organization are prepared,
adoption, a period in which the change trials are still on, and institutionalization whereby the
efforts for internalizing the change are ongoing. To assess the readiness for the organization,
change among the organization members, rigorous psychometric properties are taken into
consideration (Haffar et al., 2019). The following elements show readiness for change in the
organization:
The clarity in mandate and leadership and pattern-breaking behavior: here, the
importance of the change is clearly explained. The management ensures that the initiatives
required for the implementation of the change are well outlined. The traditional behavior patterns
change, and adoption of new behaviors that support opportunities to implement the
organizational change is also a clear indication of the preparedness of the members to new
changes (Khan et al., 2014).
Commitment to change: to evaluate the organizational readiness change, the employees
need to show their commitment towards embracing and supporting change initiatives.
Commitment to change simply means having a mind-set that enables an individual to accept and
implement proposed change initiatives. This mind-set reflects the following; it reflects the desire

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of the employees to support the change based on their belief that change will bring inherent
benefits. It also opens their mind to recognize that there are many cost implications that can
result from their failure to support and implement the change. Finally, it gives the members an
obligation sense of providing support for the change. In both cases, readiness for change is
assessed by the individual's evaluation about both individual and organizational capacity to
accommodate and make the change successful, the purpose of that change and benefits that can
be accrued through the adoption of such a new change in the organization (Blackman, O'Flynn
and Ugyel, 2013).
Conclusion
Organization change is a vital toll that Walmart should use for robust transformation.
Various external and internal factors that drive the need to change are discussed. In this part, we
have also outlined the role of a change agent and how Kotter’s model can be used to identify and
implement change within Walmart. Evaluating an organization for its readiness to change is vital
in making plans that reduces resistance to change.
Question 2
Strategies required to be implemented at Walmart organization to improve the company.
Introduction
There is a need to implement change intervention in the Walmart company to improve its
status. This is due to the advancing political factors, technology, users, taste adjustments, market