Team Assignment MGT 426 - Walmart Managing Change Paper

Top of Form

color-code matches:

default mode:

auto-navigation:

Save Cancel

Bottom of Form

Top of Form

· Word Count: words

· Percentage: %

or Cancel

Bottom of Form

· preferences

Document Viewer

Turnitin Originality Report

· Processed on: 20-Jan-2016 4:59 PM CST

· ID: 622333749

· Word Count: 2554

· Submitted: 1

WALMART MANAGING CHANGE By Ephraim Torres

 

Similarity Index

15%

Similarity by Source

Internet Sources:

14%

Publications:

4%

Student Papers:

N/A

include quoted include bibliography exclude small matches download refresh print

mode:

9% match (Internet from 29-Jul-2015)

http://www.ukessays.com

2% match (Internet from 20-Jan-2016)

http://panmore.com

1% match (Internet from 25-Jun-2009)

http://vendors.longs.com

1% match (Internet from 25-Oct-2010)

http://shop.emeraldinsight.com

1% match (publications)

. "Walmart's strategic management", university degree/business and administrative studies/management studies/1, 2013.

<1% match (Internet from 13-Nov-2009)

http://www.google.com

<1% match (Internet from 26-Feb-2015)

http://en.wikipedia.org

<1% match (publications)

"8-K: GHN Agrispan Holding Co.", EDGAR Online-8-K Glimpse, Sept 23 2010 Issue

<1% match (publications)

Sherry, John, and Eileen Fischer. "Engineering a mainstream market for sustainability : Insights from Wal-Mart’s perfect storm", Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research, 2009.

Wal-Mart Managing Change Team Paper Name Institutional Affiliation Introduction Organizational Change Management refers to the adoption and implementation of various activities, ways and technologies in the effort to helping the company or organization successfully serve its customers. That extends to the transformation of strategy, processes, technology, and people to bring about enhance performance and continuous improvement in an ever-changing environment and as such, organizational change is critical in the realigning an organization with the changing demands of its business environment or to capitalize on business opportunities. The focus of this paper is on the organizational change in Wal-Mart Stores specifically the various strategies, processes, technologies and people management that the company has and should put in place for the purpose of attaining successful operations in the market. The change model at Wal-Mart focuses on those critical implementation at the organization that would propel it to maintain its position as the world’s leading retail store. Company Profile Wal-Mart runs a chain of discount department and warehouse stores since its launch by Sam Walton on July 2nd, 19632 at Rogers Ark palace (Slater, 2003). The branch at Rogers was opened primarily to help the people both the customers and the community to save on their money and in the process led a better life. Wal-Mart was officially incorporated as a company in 1969 as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and three years down the line it made its first public trading at the New York Stock Exchange (Slater, 2003). That was followed by continuous growth as evident with the opening of more stores across the United States in the 1970s with the aim of serving the small businesses and individuals (Slater, 2003). Come the 19th century, Wal-Mart went international upon changing its business strategy by focusing on offering an exciting shopping experience to its customers both online, on mobile devices and in stores, a move that resulted in the company becoming the leader in the retail market worldwide (Slater, 2003). That in turn forced the management to consider implementing various environmental measures in an effort to increase the efficiency in operation thereby resulting in the company becoming the world’s largest and most emulated retailer (Slater, 2003). Wal-Mart continued to experience growth as evident in a 2013 report by the Fortune Global 500 list where the company was in position two as the second largest public corporation worldwide with over two million associates worldwide and offering services to about two hundred million customers on a weekly basis across over ten thousand stores in 27 countries (History Timeline, 2013). That was as a result of the company’s two objectives of providing the customers’ needs at the point of their need at a specific value and the treatment of others as they would want to be treated and acknowledging the total dependency on the associate-partners in the sustenance of their success (Annual Report, 2012). That conforms to the company’s mission statement that reads “We save people money so they can live better” while the vision statement reads “If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll Give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life” (Farfan, n.d). That demonstrates the company’s capability in following the right path in the its growth pattern and as such, it starts the need for the management to keep in mind the importance of the mission and vision statement to the growth of an organization (Farfan, n.d). It is this tremendous growth pattern that Wal-Mart is able to counter stiffer competition in a comparative manner by adhering to three basic principles. Firstly, the company adheres to the concept of providing value and service to its customers by offering quality merchandise at low prices every day. That has in turned enabled the company to successfully build the relationship with its customers thus bringing about rapid growth and success. Secondly, the company adheres to the principle of corporate dedication to a partnership between the Company's associates or employees, ownership and management. The same has been extended to the company’s Vendor Partners who have increased their business as the company attains growth. Thirdly, Wal-Mart adheres to the principle commitment to the United States and the communities in which stores and distribution centers are located. Here, the company strives to conduct its business in a manner that reflects these three basic principles and the resultant fundamental values in that all the Vendor Partners both within and outside the United States, are expected to conform to those principles and values and to assure compliance in all contracting, subcontracting or other relationships. That results in the company saving people money to help them live better. Change Model Given the fact that organizational change is a complex process following a time of anxiety and uncertainty for the workforce, there is the need for Wal-Mart to clearly articulate the merits of change and present a clear process for achieving change if it has to win the commitment and enthusiasm of people. That is because the involvement in and communication of the change project is critical in shaping the employee’s understanding of the various segments of the organizational change model. There are various critical areas that Wal-Mart need to focus on visa vice the organizational change model as follows; The first area under reviews is Wal-Mart’s management structure. The company has centralized management structure where all of the company’s 41 regions (35 Wal-Mart regions and six Sam's Club regions) are supervised by a Regional Vice President (RVP), who is based in Bentonville and travels monthly to each region. The fact that Wal-Mart’s regional management is based in the headquarters in Bentonville, the company has an unusually high concentration of executives and managers based in the Home Office. Ideally, each of Wal- Mart’s regions comprise of approximately 11 districts with each district having around six to eight stores. In addition, each district is run by a District Manager assisted by Support Manager on an hourly basis as well as several Assistant Managers from each store across the world. There are also Co-Managers, and General Manager representing the different departments. Because there is concentration of managers at the headquarters, the company should consider adopting a decentralized management structure so that it can be flexible in adjusting to the different environments across world markets such as the political tension (Jones, 2010). It is through a decentralized management structure that Wal-Mart will be able to engage in a variety of local projects in different countries and States. That will in turn accord the company the opportunity to effectively enter into prolonged negotiations with the governments in the target markets to shelve the plans of having all the local subsidiaries to be locally owned (Jones, 2010). The impact of this would be Wal-Mart retaining majority control of the local subsidiaries and as such, bring about successful operation in the target markets (Jones, 2010). The second aspect of Wal-Mart’s organizational change models concerns the human resource management, employee training performance management planning, needs analysis, measurement and standards. The training of employees and performance managements plays a succinct role in the company’s human resource management capability in supporting global expansion. That is because the expansion of the company is a demonstration that the HR has to also acquire certain knowledge, skills and abilities that transforms to a truly global workforce. That explains why the training programs at Wal-Mart are designed in such a way that they ensure the employees’ effectiveness in handling daily job tasks, and capacity to adjust to emergent conditions in the retail industry. That is in tandem with the company’s human resource management goals of cost-effective high performance training aimed at maximizing employee productivity. The importance of the training programs and performance management efforts is that they address some of the performance problems and challenges that bedevil Wal-Mart’s human resource management. Thirdly, the change model has to do with Wal-Mart’s leadership academy program which plays a critical role in the company’s transformation of its management training approach The leadership academy program enables the management of Wal-Mart to accelerate the preparedness of leaders as well as is in a position of cultivating managers fast enough to meet rising demand (Noe, 2006). Thus, the program is crucial in the company’s efforts of identifying employees with great potential and going ahead to train them to be highly prepared, successful managers (Noe, 2006). Wal-Mart’s leadership training program entails taking each participant from within the company’s employees through a series of developmental, training, and inspirational experiences that end up transforming them into thinking about themselves as leaders (McCauley, 2014). The results of this is an alumni network of graduates thinking themselves as who in turn use their acquired skills in collaborating and working for the purpose of continued development at the company across different circumstances (McCauley, 2014). Despite the critical role that the program plays, there is need for change to ensure it is effective in nurturing leaders from within the company. Firstly, the program should be framed in such a way that it explores real business issue in that the participants should be invited to bring real business challenges to the program to engage in problem-solving (McCauley, 2014). That should include break-away activities to encourage the participants’ exploration of the specific issues at hand. That will result in an increased participant engagement due to capability of making deeper connections between their development experience and their behavior patterns at work (McCauley, 2014). The leadership program should also be improved by avoiding cramming too much content into one program in pretense of covering as much ground as possible (Phillips, 2012). Instead, the program leaders identify the most important learning areas that the program should cover and how best the participants would develop meaningful takeaways. The focus should be on a specified number of behavioral competencies and a demonstration of how they may be connected (Phillips, 2012). Fourthly, the management of Wal-Mart should consider implementing a training program on office supply inventory. The training program should aim at bringing about efficiency in all fields of operations and the effectiveness of the entire employee towards productivity in terms of high-quality production and production in high volume capacities (Noe, 2002). The training on office supply inventory will serve to encourage the employee and motivate them as the participants will be taught on the importance of good performance where the best performers shall be awarded for their efforts in the production process. Those trained employees that shall surpass the set target shall qualify for bonuses at the end of the day and at the end of the month when a collective award will be awarded. Promotion will be a gift that each employee will gain once they each achieve individual targets that will be in line with the organizational goals. The expectations of the inventory training shall include high-performance in form of work being done on a timely basis and production levels on the part of the employers. That will extend to early reporting on duty and finishing the job allocated as required, respect and etiquette (Noe, 2002). There is also the need for the company to put in place an eye wear safety program to protect the workers from flying or falling objects, or objects swinging from a fixed or attached position are just some of the hazards that lead to accidents. That is because there are various reports indicating that most employees in America suffer from eye-related accidents and as such, the company has to ensure that its workers wear suitable eye protection as per the OSHA standards. Finally, the Pricing Strategy makes an eminent change model at Wal-Mart in that the company keeps an eye on pricing trends as a result of the bargaining power of buyers. Through the strategy, the company strictly operates under the “Everyday low price” principle in the effort to offering a wide range of products thus preventing buyers from switching to other retailers (Fishman, 2006). That coupled with the fact that any company wishing to succeed and be profitable in the market, there is need for the company to offer competitive prices so as to attain high efficiency in operation, and low operating expenses (Fishman, 2006). In the effort to make pricing a competitive advantage, Wal-Mart engages in direct dealing with manufacturers and maintains a centralized purchasing process in facilitating inventory control (Roberts, & Berg, 2012). That has forced the manufacturers to cut their margin in meeting the company’s employment policies and in the process enable the company to buy its inputs at the lowest cost. In return, the company saves inventory holding costs offering low price products (Roberts, & Berg, 2012). Such increased operation efficiency enables the company to stay ahead of the price competition from rivals. Communication Plan The best way for communicating the above change model is for the management to call for a special meeting and inform all the employees of the new developments in place. That will entail collecting relevant information from the employees while at the same time increasing their ownership stake in the running of the company. That will result in the employees contributing to the requirements needed to discovering the true status of organizational performance. All the managers will have a separate meeting in which there will be circular containing what the company has decided to implement in the effort to influence their decisions in I resolving any issues at hand that may be hampering the growth of the company. That will extend to exchanging or a dialogue on the best ways of responding to issues or risks at hand from a governance and regulatory perspective. All the stakeholders of the company will be informed of the change model in the effort to ensure all en-gage in the project in ensuring that it meets their needs. Conclusion In conclusion, management change in the organization plays a critical role in the company’s adoption of new technologies, procedures and policies. If Wal-Mart adheres to all the above strategies, the company will operate successfully. References Beŕard, J. (2013). Accelerating leadership development: Practical solutions for building your organization's potential. Farfan, B. (n.d). Wal-Mart Stores' Mission Statement - People, Saving Money, Living a Better Live. Retrieved November 12, 2014 Fishman, C. (2006). The Wal-Mart effect: How the world's most powerful company really works, and how it's transforming the American economy. New York: The Penguin Press. Fishman, C. (2006). The Wal-Mart effect: How the world's most powerful company really works, and how it's transforming the American economy. New York: The Penguin Press. Hsu, L. L. (2005). SCM system effects on performance for interaction between suppliers and buyers. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105(7), 857-875. Jones, G. (2010). Multinational Strategies and Developing Countries in Historical Perspective. Harvard Business School. McCauley, C. D. (2014). Experience-driven leader development: Models, tools, best practices, and advice for on-the-job development. Noe, R. A. (2002). Employee training and development. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Noe, R. A. (2006). Fundamentals of human resource management. Whitby, Ont: McGraw-Hill Ryerson. Roberts, B. R., & Berg, N. (2012). Wal-Mart: Key insights and practical lessons from the world's largest retailer. London: Kogan Page. Slater, R. (2003). The Wal-Mart decade: How a new generation of leaders turned Sam Walton's legacy into the world's #1 company. New York: Portfolio Wal-Mart (2012 Annual Report). 50 years of helping customers Powering our future: save money and live better 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

s

ubmit

quickview (classic) report

0

yes

quickview (classic) report

jump to next match