GDB Change Management 01

Type equation here.Title: Managing employees’ resistance to change

Learning Objective: Students are expected to learn about the need and processes of ongoing changes for businesses and especially for multinational companies like Coca-Cola.

Learning Outcome: Students are expected to learn the strategies for addressing resistance to change in the organizations.

Scenario:  According to Hiatt and Creasy, (2003) organizations have to change constantly in order to meet to requirements of a change in terms of political, economic, social and technical trends of the market. External market factors keep on changing and it is a human psychology to resist the change. For being aligned with the forces of the external market and its trend; organizations have to plan the changes just as recommended in the classical approach of Kurt Lewin (see lesson 3).

Coca-Cola is the world’s biggest multinational non -alcoholic manufacturer of drinks and is working in more than 200 countries having it headquarter hea dquarter in Georgia, USA. Company’s net worth is almost $ 12 billion and Coca Cola has remained as one of the top brands in the world in recent few years. Coca-Cola is a company that requires different strategies and change cha nge interventions from time to time as per the consumer expectations. Companies have to use both the internal and external change management strategies and Coca-Cola has gone through both these type of strategies ever since its inception. The compan y sustained difficult times and even in those difficult times, its business expanded through marketing and change management strategies. For example, in World War 2, the company compan y discovered new markets and niches and also distributed free drinks to the soldiers just to have a positive buzz bu zz in the market as a patriotic company.

Barton et al (2002) explained that Coca-Cola adopted acquisition strategy at the time of financial crisis in Asia. In Korea and Malaysia, the company acquired the business of bottling, coffee and tea shops. As beverage is a type of industry in which taste of customers keeps on changing. CocaCola also responded to such changes with timely initiatives like Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero etc. The biggest blunder of the company was New Coke that had black color and different taste. This venture failed due to severe criticism of consumers but the company managed this situation nicely by naming this product as Diet Coke and by reviving the old formula for original product (Kotler and Armstrong, 2010). As people are becoming more health conscious and tastes are changing, Coca-Cola is responding by developing new juices and energy drinks in few countries etc. Presently the company is doing good business except in few countries where the company need to align its stores with the company’s main theme of marketing, inventory and efficiently theme.

Case: Organizational change is meant for changing the structure, technology and system of the organization. Recent intervention for change management by Coca-Cola was for the purpose of enhancing employees’ intrinsic value and motivation. Coca-Cola aims at having a thoroughly integrated communication system for enhancing employees’ engagement with the brand. For this  purpose, Coca-Cola conducts an employees’ survey twice a year. Coca Cola’s business philosophy is that its business success depends upon “operational excellence” through the work of employees. Company recognizes the importance of people. It is important to communicate the change and educate the people about the upcoming change in the organization.

As Coca-Cola was adopting acquisition strategy during the financial crisis of Asia, it was also facing the resistance from the previous employees working in those countries. Primarily the reasons of resistance were job insecurity, perception of work-related changes , perceived harm to existing social bonds  in the organization etc. It is an established fact that at the time of change, existing employees perceive different kinds of fears. Managers of Coca-Cola working in those Asian countries were in a dilemma of addressing the existing employees concerns along with the organizational policy of business acquisitions.

Question: What kind of strategies should be adopted by the managers of Cola-Cola’s during this  process of new acquisitions so that resistance to change may reduce to a minimum level?

Note: You can use different sources like internet, books, articles etc. for finding answer of this question. In your solution, you should also discuss Kotter’s (1979) six strategies for reducing resistance to change. Active search and scholarly discussion are required.