Managing Organisational Design and Change

Term two

Introduction

The paper analyzes how organisations run their business within the following organizational management basic foundations; scenarios review, issues in preventing strategic drift, major contributions of the quality gurus, TQM & Six Sigma, and the application of the Balanced Scorecard. The aim of the evaluation on organizational design and change is to enhance the operations and systems of an organisation to meet the customer needs in the most cost-effective way.

Seminar Question Thirteen

When analysing scenarios and using them as a strategic planning tool why, is it beneficial for planners to rank scenarios and identify commonness in possible futures and potential pathways?

 

According to Robbins & Coulter, (1999) scenarios are a consistent view of what the future is likely to be. Scene analysis is a key factor to recognize its impact approach. A curtain is a cause or organization that describes a future state; you can calculate and display on a computer and can also be used graph curve briefly. It examines changes when certain factors, the overall situation, what is the danger, like the scenes, as more research for people.

 

Scenarios analysis results broadly divided into two categories: one is certain about the future state of the description, and the other is to describe a series of changes in the development process, and the next several years in some cases. It can provide some opportunities for future decision-makers, bring the best, most likely and worst prospects may also be given in detail events and risk under three different situations that may occur (Subba Rao, 2009).

 

When analyzing scenarios and using them as a strategic planning tool, it beneficial for planners to rank them and identify commonness in possible futures pathways for a number of reasons. First, it makes the process of planning and developing possible solutions. By clustering the common scenarios, you end up with fewer cases that can be addressed through similar approaches. Secondly, it helps to save resources in terms of time, human resource, and finances used in the process of planning. Clusters formed are more cost effective to work with than the many individual cases. Third, the process does not require so many solutions for so many scenarios. This makes the it more effective and efficient and also increases the success chances for the strategic plan (Bold, 2011).

 

Seminar Question Fourteen

What are the issues for managers when preventing strategic drift?

When a manager is unable to keep up the pace of change in the external environment, poses the organizations strategic plans to strategic drift. Strategic choice is one of the important factors that influence strategic drift.

 

The strategic choice is a factor of strategy formulation process. When considering the future strategy should make a clear choice. Strategic choice is to choose the other options; the most recommended and selected options. Strategic choice should be a multi-aligned with the company or organization’s purpose and goals. Therefore, if an organization can realize the problem and then solve these problems out, it is possible to preventing strategic drift (Subba Rao, 2009).

When making the strategic choice there are major issues for managers to address; organisations values and strategic intent. The strategic choices need to consider stakeholders’ expectations and influence. The manager should know the external environment, which is competitors, markets, and positions. In addition, the manager needs to be aware of all the resources and competences at his disposal in developing the sustainable choices (Bold, 2011).

The choice made will be: complex rather than simple, integrated rather than isolated, long term rather than short term, proactive rather than reactive, impacting on the whole rather than part of the organisation, major rather than  minor change, grand design rather than marginal tinkering, and made by those in positions of power in the organisation rather than subordinates. (Kai, 2014)

Avoiding a strategic drift calls for a disciplined approach to the implementation of the strategic plan and the degree of manoeuvrability and flexibility so as to adapt the plan to the changing needs in the external environment. managers need to observes the progress of the plan closely by assessing the internal and external factors as well as the changing business environment to enable them apply the new knowledge to adjust the strategy accordingly. Change leadership should be in a position to create an environment where honest appraisals of the current situation can freely be discussed. The leadership team should be capable of challenging status quo and to discuss threats openly and necessary steps and solutions no matter how difficult they may seem (Subba Rao, 2009).

 

Seminar Question Fifteen

Research on Quality:

  • Research the literature to find a paper article that describes how an organisation uses one (or more) of the quality concepts, tools or techniques.
  • Write a summary of the article and critically comment on it.

Lean Six Sigma is a business process improvement approach that combines logistics and quality management. While Six Sigma is used to standardize and improve the quality, lean manufacturing is applied to enhance the flow and to minimize unnecessary production steps (Bold, 2011). This results in a more efficient production with reduced delivery times and improved quality. This approach is used by chemical companies such as SABIC Innovative Plastics and Shell as well as in hospitals. The factories of Shell in Netherlands form a network of columns and vessels. It would not be efficient to optimize one unit and ignore the effects on adjoining activities both for production and supporting business processes. After mapping all the processes, production, business, and management, key Performance Indicators are defined for each process to ensure it is measurable on how effective it runs. In Six Sigma, the process of decision making is data-driven and supports process oriented thinking (Botezat, 2012). This approach also prioritizes the needs of the customers.

This Lean Six Approach to quality control effective in that it is able to improve the efficiency of the production process while at the same time developing high quality products. The company manages to cut down on some of the production costs, and this also contributes to environmental sustainability. The approach is superior in its ability to address the needs of the customer earning the company a competitive advantage. In addition, the Lean Six Sigma approach is comprehensive and cuts across the whole organization creating a complete change to the organization design.

 

Seminar Question Sixteen

Quality gurus:

            Supplement these weeks’ module materials by conducting a review of the literature concerning the work of the quality gurus we have discussed. Then select one of the gurus, provide a summary of their work. Discuss its relevance to the quality of products and services today and the performance of the organizations that provide them.

Kaoru Ishikawa

He focused onchanging people’s perception towards work. His idea was for managers to go behold product quality to a company-wide quality controlled necessary for continued customer service. This implied that the customer would continue to receive services even after they have received the product. Quality improvement as such is a continuous process capable of always going a step further. He developed the fishbone diagram, a cause and effect diagram for quality control (Bold, 2011).

Crosby

Crosby’s philosophy differs from Juran’s and Deming’s approaches. Crosby’s philosophy revolves around Zero Defects and exhorts workers to improve quality. Doing things the first time is more cost effective than in fixing defects that are already created (Botezat, 2012).

Juran

His philosophy is similar to Deming’s in several ways but its more evolutionary than revolutionary. It involves adapting existing management system instead of instituting an entire system. Like Deming, he argues that 80% of defects produced in the system are controllable by the management, not operators (Bold, 2011).

  1. W. Edwards Deming’s

Edward Deming is considered to be the father of modern quality. He strongly held the view that to achieve the highest level of performance. Companies require more than a good philosophy. In other words, the company must change its behaviour and consequently adopt new ways of achieving its goals. He summed up in the famous 14 points. He based his business philosophy on an ideal cooperation. In order to utilize its own potential to the maximum, a company needs to harness the abilities of every employee for that reason. His theory of profound knowledge contends that every worker has unlimited potential when placed in an environment that educates, supports, and nurtures a sense of responsibility and pride. In addition, he Deming argued that a greater part of an employee’s productivity, 85 percent, is determined by the environment under which they work and only a minimal proportion by their own skill.

(http://www.businessballs.com/dtiresources/quality_management_gurus_theories.pdf)

By improving quality, businesses decrease expenses and increase productivity and their market share. It is an important guide to the modern business world and acts to facilitate the development of a new appreciation for the impact of quality on production and price. His quality concepts have enabled managers to stop dependence on inspection to realize quality. They are now motivated to improve products and services constantly, driving out fear, job training, instituting leadership, eliminating slogans, and instituting programs for self-improvement. In addition, companies are able to work minimize total cost by contracting a single supplier, eliminate quotas and numerical goals, and focusing everyone to work towards accomplishing the transformation.

Seminar Question Seventeen

After conducting a review of the academic literature concerning Total Quality Management

Answer the following question: Why might some major organisations, who were world leaders in adopting TQM, now be moving their organisational focus and investment away from TQM and other formal quality frameworks?

TQM process takes time to implement and in some cases the long inputs in the same have not yielded so good results. As a result, some companies are opting for alternative approaches to quality assurance and management. In addition, companies that have for long implement the TQM approach might have now reached optimum levels and need to change in order to keep up the emerging competitions from rivals.

 

(http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/total-quality-management-tqm.html)

 

One alternative approach to that some companies are using to realize this change is shifting to the ISO9000 quality assurance system. As a fundamental enterprise development and growth; it does not refer to a standard, but a class standards collectively. Survival and development of enterprises and the continuous progress must rely on effective implementation of the quality assurance system (Bold, 2011). Therefore, quality is the key to success. Established ISO9000 quality assurance system allows companies and organizations to appreciate some of the following benefits:

1) A well-structured quality management system, so that the organization runs a greater effectiveness and greater efficiency.

2) Better training and higher productivity.

3) Rejection and reduce customer complaints, leading to save a lot of expenses, and ultimately enjoy a larger market share:

4) The customer-to-business and business products / services with greater confidence.

5) Be able to ISO9000 certification requires unimpeded in the market.

 

Another approach to quality assurance and management is the Six Sigma, a quality improvement of business process management technology to “zero defect” in the pursuit of the perfect business, driven by a significant reduction in the cost of quality, and ultimately achieve a breakthrough to enhance financial performance and business competitiveness. In general, the following three meanings:

  1. It is a mass scale and goal
  2. It is a set of tools and scientific management methods, the use of DMAIC (improvement) or DFSS (design) process design and process improvement.
  3. It is a business management strategy. The aim of the Six Sigma management is to improve customer satisfaction while reducing operating costs and process innovation cycle approach, which is run by improving the quality of the organization’s core processes, and thus enhance corporate profitability management, but also in the new economic environment, companies under competitive strength and sustainability of the business strategy.

(http://www.lean-6sigma.co.uk/what/what-is-6-sigma/)

Seminar Question Eighteen

After conducting a review of the academic literature concerning Performance Management and the Balanced Scorecard:

 Answer the following questions and discuss the issues.

What is the balanced Scorecard?  

Why is it different to traditional performance management systems?

 

A Balanced Scorecard a system of management that enables organizations their strategy and vision into action. It is a management system structured according to the “plan-do-check-act” management circle logic (Botezat, 2012). Balanced Scorecard approach believes that organizations should examine their own performance four perspectives: learning and growth, business processes, customers, financial. Among them, the Balanced Scorecard contain five equilibriums: first, the balance of financial and non-financial indicators. Second, balance of long-term goals and short-term goals. Third, balance of results indicators and motivation index. Fourth, balance of business groups within the organization and outside groups. Fifth, balance between leading indicators and lagging indicators.

 

The main difference between a Balanced Scorecard and the traditional performance management systems is that the traditional management systems focus on the organization’s financial performance while the former provides feedback on external outcomes and internal business processes to facilitate continued improvement of performance and results. The Balanced Scorecard is capable of measuring the intangible assets, unlike the Traditional financial measures. Traditional financial measures do not ultimately represent the current state or future prospects of an organization unlike the Balanced Scorecard (Robbins & Coulter, 1999).

BSC comparison with the traditional performance management systems has the following characteristics:

  1. BSC to provide strong support for the strategic management of the enterprise. Balanced Scorecard evaluation content and related indicators and strategic objectives are closely linked, through the implementation of corporate strategy for the overall management to complete the Balanced Scorecard.
  2. Balanced Scorecard can improve the overall efficiency of management; business managers can greatly save time and improve the overall efficiency of enterprise management, and lay a solid foundation towards success of the enterprise.
  3. Focus on teamwork, corporate management to prevent disorders.
  4. Balanced Scorecard can improve incentives to expand the sense of participation of employees.
  5. The Balanced Scorecard enables enterprise information burden to minimize.

Conclusion

In summary, an organisation aiming for better operations and processes which develop products that meet the customer’s needs require to follow the basic foundations as discussed in this paper. Strategic planning is the cornerstone to successful organizational performance. Organizations can stay on business by adopting quality assurance and management concepts and tools to gain competitive advantage over their rivals.

Reference

Bold, E. (2011). ‘Instruments and Techniques Used in the Design and Implementation of Change Management’,Journal Of Advanced Research In Management, 1(3), p. 5-13.

Botezat, E (2012). ‘Managing Change: Some Theoretical and Applicative Aspects’, Annals Of The University Of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 21(1), p. 998-1002.

Kong, K. (n.d.). Exploring Strategy.

Robbins, S. P & Coulter, M. (1999) Management, 6th Ed, London: Prentice-Hall International Limited

Subba Rao, P. (2009). Strategic Management, Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House.

The Original Quality Gurus.(n.d). Accessed: 05/03/2014 from businessballs: http://www.businessballs.com/dtiresources/quality_management_gurus_theories.pdf

Total Quality Management. (n.d). Accessed: 28/02/2014 from academicghost: http://academicghost.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/total-quality-management.html

Total Quality Management.(n.d). Accessed: 08/03/2014 from inc: http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/total-quality-management-tqm.html

What is 6 Sigma.(n.d). Accessed: 08/03/2014 from lean-6sigma: http://www.lean-6sigma.co.uk/what/what-is-6-sigma/

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