Business Change Management System: A Report on Wesfarmers Ltd

This report examines the business change management system within Wesfarmers Limited, utilizing Kurt Lewin's change management model as a framework. It delves into internal and external factors influencing the organization, providing a detailed SWOT analysis to highlight strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report focuses on challenges related to employee emotions and job satisfaction, crucial for maintaining high revenue and stakeholder returns. It addresses organizational behavior issues, such as lack of communication and low job satisfaction, and proposes solutions using Lewin's three-stage change process: unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. The analysis concludes that managing both internal and external environments is vital for successful organizational development and change management at Wesfarmers, emphasizing the importance of employee development in achieving stakeholder satisfaction.

RUNNING HEAD: Business Change Management System
Business Change Management System

Business Change Management System
Executive Summary
This assignment is based on Kurt Lewin’s change management model to introduce the
successful change and development in Wesfarmers limited, Australia. Thus report will discuss
the internal and external factors that affect the business and operative functions of an
organisation, and the SWOT analysis will provide the detailed information relevant to the
strength, weakness, opportunities and threats in Wesfarmers limited. This assignment is focused
on the challenges faced by the Wesfarmers in the management of the emotions and personality
of the employs to maintain the high revenue in the organisation and to give satisfactory return to
the interested stakeholders.
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Contents
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3
Company profile..........................................................................................................................3
Environmental analysis at Wesfarmers...........................................................................................3
SWOT analysis................................................................................................................................5
Organisational behaviour issues of Wesfarmers employees...........................................................7
Change management process to employment issues.......................................................................8
Unfreezing...................................................................................................................................9
Changing......................................................................................................................................9
Refreezing....................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References.....................................................................................................................................11
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Business Change Management System
Introduction
Organisational development is a process to introduce the change or implementation in
culture and people in the organisation. Organisation development is based on the behavioural
science knowledge development applications to introduce any change and improvement in the
operations and functions of the organisation (Alvesson 2015). Wesfarmers limited is an
international industry dealing in differentiated field of trade and services mainly focus on the
operations providing the great return to the investors that are shareholders. The main and strong
stakeholders in Wesfarmers limited are their shareholders and they are their main challenging and
affecting elements hence an organisation leading the change in the contemporary issues in the
strategic and business management (Jones 2013)
Company profile
Originated in the year 1914, a Western Australian farmer’s cooperative, began to grow as
the largest and most competitive industry after Woolworths. Their journey from a cooperative
company to largest diversified industry had faced many ups and down and the challenges
(Thompson 2014). Wesfarmers limited focus on the shareholder and the monetary return to the
shareholders and the most challenging issues for the Wesfarmers limited. In the year 2015
Wesfarmers limited enjoyed the highest revenue AU$ 66,883 million in this financial year. With
this Wesfarmers limited provide the highest employment rate employing more than 217,000
employees and 495’000 shareholders in it. 2018 financial year shows the numerous changes in
Wesfarmers limited to change the portfolio to give the highest return to the shareholders
(Wesfarmers 2019).
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Environmental analysis at Wesfarmers
Wesfarmers limited is a diversified industry hence it needs to manage the internal as well
as external factors affecting the regular operations of the organisation (Adeoye & Elegunde
2012). Environment of an organisation consist the role of internal as well as external
stakeholders creating the issues in the introduction of any changes in the organisation for the
development and issue management.
Source: (Lumen 2019)
Internal factors or stakeholders: The stakeholders that exist in the internal environment
of the organisation and participate in the activities of the industry on broad level and affect the
operations of the business very closely (Kilroy 2017). The main internal affecting stakeholders
are
 Employees
 Managers
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 Owners
External factors or stakeholders: They exist outside of the operations of the business but
they are affected by the actions and operations of the organisation (Al Khajeh 2018). They also
affect the organisation by their activities and actions. They are not involved directly in the
organization but they are interested in the operations of the organisation (Andriof 2017).
 Consumers
 Investors
 Shareholders
 Suppliers
 Society and community
 Government entities
Wesfarmers limited focus to deliver the quality product to the market hence it need to maintain
the internal as well as external environment to make the effective coordination between the
internal and external affecting factors (Biron 2011).
SWOT analysis
Analysis of present strength, weakness, opportunities and threats presently prevailing in the
organisation is SWOT Analysis (Awan & Hafiz 2016). This analysis of the Wesfarmers limited
would help the managers to identify the main issues available in the organisation, their internal
strength to face the challenges, weakness to fail to face the issues, opportunities in the
organisation and the hidden or appeared threats to maintain the change and development in the
organisation (Helmes & Nixon 2010).
SWOT analysis at Wesfarmers
Strength Weakness
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 Wesfarmers gain the high revenue in
capital expenditure
 The supplier stakeholders of the
Wesfarmers are very genuine and
reliable.
 Wesfarmers train the newly hired
employees as to give better
satisfaction to the customers
(Punjaisri 2017).
 Leading the business since 1914 it has
become a brand itself and very
challenging to compete by the
competitors.
 Strong support to develop the
sustainable community development
and a leading entity in the sector of
agribusiness.
 The developed aspect of research and
development in the market
competition the Wesfarmers limited
face challenges in research and
development strategy.
 The major loss by the Coles in the
year 2015 is the biggest loss to the
financial conditions of the
Wesfarmers limited. (Beaton-Wells
2017)
 The structure of the organization at
Wesfarmers limited limits the
adaption of the new changes in the
management (Alvesson 2015).
 The large diversification of
Wesfarmers limited into smaller
groups increases the risk of share
failure.
 The habit of storing the higher
inventory without planning the supply
of the storage inventory.
Opportunities
 Wesfarmers limited has opportunity
to expand the business entities
internationally.
Threats
 The main threat to the Wesfarmers
limited id the fear to face the
challenges from the competitors.
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 The image in the market of
Wesfarmers limited gives the
opportunity to build the strong bond
among the customers and suppliers.
 Loyalty of the pre-exist customer give
opportunity to add the new potential
customers (Biron 2011).
 The technology innovation helps to
improve the sales and demands in the
customers (Cook 2015).
 The new strategies of the new
entering competitors create the tough
level of the competitions.
 The level of the job satisfaction
decreases in the employment leads the
high turn-over of the employment.
 Competitors attracting the
experienced employees by the high
level of salaries and benefits.
 To cope with the changing
technology creates the threat to fail in
the competition (Ariyawardana 2017).
This SWOT analysis is suitable to identify the present situation of the Wesfarmers limited with
the detailed discussion of the presenting positive and the negative factors affecting the growth
and the operations of the business in Wesfarmers limited (Reddington, Holbeche & Francis
2012).
Organisational behaviour issues of Wesfarmers employees
Organisational behaviour of an employee in an organisation face many factors and these factors
put great effects on the performance of the employees and the performance directly affect the
functions and operations of the organisation (Fernie & Sparks (eds.) 2018). Employee’s
behaviour is particularly based on their emotions, attitude, inspirations and personality
(Hornstein 2015). The main issues related to the employees in the organisation are;
 Lack of personal communication
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 Conflict between the employees
 Harassment or discrimination
 Low job satisfaction
 Poor performance
 Threat of losing job
The main drivers of the organisational operations or functions are the employees in any
organization (Freeman 2010). The main focused stakeholders in the Wesfarmers are their
shareholders. If an organisation wants to deliver the better return to its shareholders it needs to
operate the functions to obtain the high profits hence it can deliver the profitable return to its
shareholders and can satisfy their interest (Swann & Stanford 2016). All these target need the
strong performing employees and if they face any issues then it would affect the overall
functions of the organization.
Change management process to employment issues
The issues faced by the Wesfarmers limited are related to the employee’s job satisfaction and
happiness. The Wesfarmers limited deals in many diversified business operations so it also faces
the high employee’s job satisfaction related issues (Hayes 2018). The present topic about the
employee’s job satisfaction here is to maintain the emotional attitude of the employees. To
manage the issues the management can introduce new changes and development by applying the
organisation development and change management (Hill 2017).
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Source: Lewin’s change model (Bernard 2004)
Three-stage process change cycle was discovered by the Kurt Lewin to manage the change as not
a one way process but the dynamic aspect to take the all organisational factors involved in the
introduced change (Bernard 2004). The three step of the change management by the Lewin are;
Unfreezing
The very first step in this model is to unfreeze the pre-existing assumptions of in the mind of the
employees. The employees have a defined behaviour and beliefs about the roles and duties they
performed hence this is very challenging task to the managers to make the employees ready to
accept the new introduced change in the organisation. Hence to deal with the emotions of the
employees of the organisation managers needs to prepare the strategy to unfreeze the previous
mind set of the employees by proper communication and understanding (Hussain 2018).
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Changing
In the second stage of the model managers perform the important step of the change
management process (Kumar 2017). This is the time where employees are introduced towards
the new changes. Hence at this stage the employees and the managers face very difficulties.
Employees raise questions and complaints about the change and the managers face difficulties in
dealing with the conflicts arise among the employees. This process needs high level of patience
from both sides to introduce the change and to reduce the conflicts in the management (Kitchen
& Finbarr 2002).
Refreezing
The last and final stage of the change management in the organisation is refreezing the introduced
change in the management and the employees. This happens after the successful implementation
of the change in the mind of the employees and when employees become familiar with the change
the managers make the change permanent for the development and solution to the organisational
conflicts between the employees (Kluger 2018).
Conclusion
This report is based on the development of change in the successful running organisation. This
report concludes the role of internal and external environment is very important in the
organisation development and change management. This assignment has the detail information
about the Wesfarmers limited SWOT analysis and the challenges managers face in the
management of the employees job satisfaction. As discussed in this report Wesfarmers limited is
successful running agribusiness industry hence it focuses to deliver the high satisfactory return to
the main stakeholders that are its shareholders with the help of the employee’s development and
management. Operating from 1914 Wesfarmers internal and external environment is very strong
and challenging.
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