ContentsIDENTIFYING PROBLEMS..........................................................................................................3

General Introduction:...................................................................................................................3

Root Cause of Issue:....................................................................................................................3

Resulting Issue #1:...................................................................................................................3

Resulting Issue #2:...................................................................................................................3

Consequence of Issue 2 (Negative):........................................................................................4

Consequence of Issue 2 (Negative):......................................................................................4

DISCOVERY- HOW TO ADDRESS.............................................................................................4

Issue Closure of Didcot, UK plant:..............................................................................................4

Short-Term Benefit in case of UK plant Closure:.......................................................................5

Long-Term Benefit in case of UK not closing the plant:............................................................5

Potential Solutions.......................................................................................................................7

DREAM- WHAT/WHEN THE SOLUTIONS MIGHT BE:......................................................7

DESIGN- HOW MIGHT IMPLEMENT........................................................................................9

DESTINY- PRACTICALITIES +/-............................................................................................9

Theory Help.................................................................................................................................9

DESTINY- PRACTICALITIES +/-:.........................................................................................11

References......................................................................................................................................13

IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS

Apply your developed theoretically informed knowledge of organizational

change to identify what are the key issues that require attention.

General Introduction:This first part of the case study pertains to the very first D from 5D framework, i.e. DEFINE.

The case study undertaken here reveals issues about D2, which is an automobile manufacturing

company, France based, having additional plants in Spain and UK. Company has major

strengthening factors like product innovativeness, high investment in technology and staff

tailoring.

Root Cause of Issue:However besides these all strengths external issues have interrupted in, due to current global

downfall in Economy the Company has been in trouble due to having great impact on demand.

For having low product demand company has been struggling to maintain its costs and sustain

globally.

Resulting Issue #1:In order to stabilize the demand supply ratio and fully benefit from Economies of Scale the

company has decided to halt production of some components and concentrate on the production

of other components at fewer sites. The other site chosen for this case is Blois, France. Reason

for expanding production in this area is because it has the most advanced manufacturing

technology and the factory is not yet working to capacity. It is anticipated that increasing

production at Blois will lead to significant reduction in costs.

Resulting Issue #2:UK plant has been selected for closure because it has the most outdated manufacturing

technology.

Consequence of Issue 2 (Negative):The closure of UK factory outlet will most probably lead to large scale redundancies and there

will be few opportunities for staff to be redeployed to other plants in France and Spain.

Consequence of Issue 2 (Negative):

It may be possible that many of B2 team members (team of engineers who are expected to be

deployed at Blois) may feel reluctant to relocate from Didcot to Blois.

These were the main issues that D2 has been facing. The issues came in streamline as demand

levels of company got affected by overall economy downfall. This enforces the company to go

for cost reduction strategies and points mentioned above, under “Issues” are these Change

strategies that company is about to announce. This solution will give a better analysis in the end

that which of these change strategies shall be more focused on, using what execution techniques

and what Do’s and Dont’s in order to avoid failure in implementation of change program.

DISCOVERY- HOW TO ADDRESS

Select one of these issues for detailed consideration and justify your choice.

Issue Closure of Didcot, UK plant:

According to my opinion, the issue that needs to be more focused on is the “Closure of Didcot,

UK plant”. This part of the case study is required to employee the second D of Appreciative

Inquiry 5D framework” (Cooperider, Witney and Stavros, 2008) i.e. DISCOVERY, in which the

key point is to address the most focused problem or issue on hand, what leadership style is to

choose from, what communication pattern is to follow in order to address the change program

properly from top to bottom until its execution.

Based on the literature and coursework studied in class and other articles and journals, my

suggestion for D2 company is to hold the closure plan of UK plant and focus on investing to

update and upgrade its technology instead.

Short-Term Benefit in case of UK plant Closure:My recommendation to manager would be to focus on long term cost reduction and brand

enhancement strategies rather than saving cost for the shorter time period and loosing immense

amount in the longer run. It is obvious that once a plant is brought to closure it will germinate

many issues further, like redundancies, unemployment, non operating asset, loss of efficient,

reliable, high performer and loyal employees, higher costs of shifting and redeploying Didcot’s

staff in Blois, decreased number of products produced, negative effect on brand’s perception for

closing a plant without facing Loss by it and etc.

Closing of a business shall be made when there is a constant decrease in Sales revenue and profit

ultimately or where there is zero percent profit available and that business is continuously goes

down, then the management shall remain with no choice than closing that business in order to

save what is left while carrying on with the other activities which must be the main focus of the

company.

If D2 closes its UK plant although it will get a high cost reduction in its overall accounts on

currently or short term basis but in the long run there are high risks and low return on investment

is associated.

Long-Term Benefit in case of UK not closing the plant:There will be straight forward Long Term benefits in case if UK plant is not closed by D2

manufacturing company, for just having outdated technology and decreased demand. I would

recommend that it is much fruitful to reduce cost by improvising the technology rather than

shutting things up which can line up many other related issues as discussed above. D2’s brand

will be strengthened, perception will be positive amongst mind of customers; company ratings

will be higher, long term sales, revenues and profits and reduced costs is a must guarantee if

technology is improvised and plant not closed.

Addressing of the Issue:

These underlying problems and outcome of decisions must be addressed from top to bottom and

then feedback from bottom to top shall be of the same importance as top to bottom orders are.

Decentralized structure is required in order to deal with status-quo, communication gap between

upper middle and top management shall be minimised during this time, guiding coalition,

consultation.

Decentralized structure: In the organizational structure of D2 decentralization must be brought

into practice for change management to be successful. (Marsden and Canibano, 2009) Not only

upper management but middle and lower management must also be brought into decision

making because in actual it’s the middle and lower management that enables the execution of

decisions made by top management. So views and opinions of middle to bottom management

shall have a prominent role in the final decision outcome or change to be.

Communication: Purcell and Hall (2012) Communication is a very essential phenomenon whilst

addressing a new idea and/or bringing Change to the existing system. The change that top level

authority of D2 has decided must be properly communicated with the whole teams across the

globe. (Donaghey, Dundon and Cullinane, 2011) Even if the decision or change designed by

upper level management is of most benefit to the middle and lower management but the change

or new idea is not communicated well with the middle and lower management levels then these

levels will not be able to accept the change and will be readily intended to decline the orders or

rebel them while their execution or create hindrances whilst its execution.

Guiding Coalition: Kotter in 2012 noted that putting together the right diversity in a team or in a

group of people to lead a change initiative is critical to its success. Coalition is actually a

powerful enthusiastic team of volunteers from across an organization. As it is an obvious thing

that leaders can not implement new strategies or bring change in existing system, all they can do

is to plan and plan more since the idea generation stage till the feedback analysis of a change

project. D2 management must create an effective coalition that must have the right composition,

a significant level of trust among all levels of organizational structure.

DREAM- WHAT/WHEN THE SOLUTIONS MIGHT BE

Identify and critically review those theories that could aid your understanding

of the issue(s) you have selected for special consideration.

Potential SolutionsThe answer to this question lies in it DREAM- (what and when the possible or potential solutions

might be?). Let’s have a look that what possible solutions we can have;

DREAM- WHAT/WHEN THE SOLUTIONS MIGHT BE:

Higgs and Rowland (2005) noted that for a change to be successful in global organization,

involving employees, engaging leaders and employees and specific leadership styles have to be

chosen. It all depends majorly on a leader’s capabilities, effectiveness and ability to balance

global/local dilemmas, is crucial to organizational change success.

This model helps us identifying that engagement and involvement of employees throughout all

levels of organizational structure is the first and foremost solution D2 car component

manufacturing company has to follow.

Hall and Purcell (2012) The second solution which company can follow in order to make its

change program a successful run is to train and consult the leaders first, if they are trained and

consulted enough to go through the change process and have a full grasp over forwarding the

message down through the other employees, then making employees from all level accepting that

change is not a big deal but if managers and leaders are not trained and efficient enough to grasp

control over such issues then the procedure of change management can come to a flaw full end.

With reference to the studied literature, theories and past case studies consulted, it is

recommended earlier that D2 should not bring Didcot UK plant to closure rather invest more in it

to make it technically advanced. I do not recommend closing the UK plant since company has

yet not been experiencing loss at all; it is just facing low demand issue for which it intends to

reduce cost. (Fuchs and Edwards, 2012) Closing a company’s valuable asset or business is not

solution to a problem at all until that business unit is giving no or zero percent profit to the

company. Similarly situation here in UK does not lead the company to close the plant, to reduce

cost company should make a little of more investment in order to make the plant more

technically advanced.

Marchington, Wilkinson and Acker (2001) Moreover, leaders and top management at D2 shall

play a prominent role in showing efficiency and effectiveness so that they can address the issue

and change they want to bring for the company to the employees. (Burnes, 2004) It is certainly to

be noted that leaders must not have a beginning role in initiating change but also to manage and

maintain change as it is implemented.

Organizational development methods and interventions those are necessary to change

implementation must be brought into practice by D2. (Caza, 2012) Top management could use

Action planning, future search and open space organizational development interventions that

would really aid in bringing and upbringing the change which is to be implemented.

In our current scenario, most of all a shared vision and target must be addressed. (Armenakis and

Harris, 2002) Employees throughout all levels of organizational structure can not perform well

until their mission, vision and targets are shared with the organizational mission, vision and

targets. (Frahm & Brown, 2007) Thus it is a duty and responsibility of managers of D2 company

to train and provide consultancy to employees of all levels that company is dually noticing their

interests and keeping in view their interests company forms its own mission, vision and

strategies. Employees shall be of confident enough that what company is introducing new or if

change is to be implemented, it is dually coordinated with their interests and benefits.

Last but not the least, D2 shall be well aware of the legal requirements that it is going to require

in order to invest more in Didcot UK plant for the betterment of the company and its employees

as well. (Rich, Lepine and Crawford, 2010)

Following these solutions company can be able to avoid redundancies, mass unemployment and

high costs of redeployment of UK’s engineers to Blois, France. Let us have a look how these

solutions can really be coordinated with the whole staff members of D2 and how they can be

executed until final required results are met.

DESIGN- HOW MIGHT IMPLEMENT

DESTINY- PRACTICALITIES +/-

Explain how these theories might inform the advice you will offer?

Theory Help

The answer to this question lies in both DESIGN- (How and in what ways might these possible

solutions be implemented?) and DESTINY (Recognition of Limitations to your design and

consideration/formulation of possible solutions which might address and balance these

limitations).

DESIGN- HOW MIGHT IMPLEMENT

The prominent solutions devised above are: Engagement and involvement of Employees,

Training and consultancy for Leaders first to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness, using

OD efforts and Interventions, shared vision and mission, fulfilling Legal requirements and the

most important one Investing more in Didcot UK plant.

Each of the above mentioned solution will be individually described in detail that how it has to

be executed and practiced, here under as;

Investing more in Didcot UK plant and Legal Requirements: The basic solution to the problem

D2 has been facing is to invest in the place which is already the hub of product engineering

talent. As it is clearly mentioned in the case study that “pace and quality of product development

has been an important factor contributing to the company’s pre-recession success. Product

development has been concentrated at Didcot because the area is an international centre for auto

product development. Many other companies including Formula One racing teams are located

nearby and this has led to the development of a word class pool of product engineering talent in

the area”. This certainly advocates my point of view that Didcot UK plant shall not be brought to

a closure. Since it is obvious to see that this area has been joined by famous car manufacturing

teams like Formula One, which increases more value of this area and if D2 company closes its

plant it would really create a negative impact in the mind of the customers plus D2 would readily

loose a strong place including the engineering talent which is famous of all.

Didcot is not only a working place of D2 company rather it is like it’s one of the strengths to

have its plant working in a place where famous car manufacturing companies have created a

strong engineering talent for product development. So my recommendation is to invest more in

this area because D2 has the ability to convert the weakness it is facing at UK to its strength.

Investment can be made by following legal procedures; D2 shall announce its objectives and

must apply for money for investment from one or more of the UK government’s Regional

Growth Fund to enable this project to go ahead. This would be the first step of making change

i.e. by arranging funds for the investment for the better good of the company and its employees

as well. (Truss and Soane, 2010)

Engagement and involvement of Employees, Shared Mission and Vision, efficiency and

effectiveness of Leaders: Employees throughout all levels must be asked for the problem of

resolving the cost reduction issue. (Welbourne, 2011) It is quite certain that none of the team

members form UK would facilitate to close the UK plant as everyone would certainly be

interested to boost the investment in the place where they have been working because it will

eventually benefit the workers and employees besides benefiting the company. It is certainly the

responsibility of a leader to create such mindset of his employees or team members. Leaders

shall negotiate well with the middle and lower management that what company is doing is not

only for its own interest but for the interest and benefit of its employees also. (Vakola &

Nikolaou, 2005) Employees shall have a clear cut idea in their minds that their interests and

mission, vision is always associated with company’s interests and mission, vision. In this way

the human resources can also be made ready to accept and help top management implement the

change, besides doing with the financial resources. Right Restructuring of D2 teams globally can

also reduce costs in the current scenario.

DESTINY- PRACTICALITIES +/-:In this section the limitations of the solutions mentioned above are going to be discussed and

furthermore the solutions of these limitations will also be addressed.

Finances for investment from Government’s Regional Growth fund might be of some issue. But

to persuade them the D2 company shall present a report underlining its continued long-term

commitment to its core activities in the UK and program of specific £s of investment in advanced

manufacturing, engineering and research and development until a specific period of time. This

report has to be persuasive enough to convince the regional growth fund to assist the Company.

While addressing about the change to be implemented, it’s a human nature to contradict and

create conflict besides. SO here the Human Resource department of D2 must be an active

participant. Regular seminars, on and off the job training sessions must be practiced to help

convince the workforce to implement the change program.

Some top management members can limit this decision of huge investment in a plant that is

technologically low, during this cost reducing efforts regime. Moreover Blois teams can also be a

limitation against investing in the plant which is not technologically high while ignoring for the

moment “Blois” which is technologically advanced and have capacity though. But they shall be

addressed well as well that it is company’s fault that its plant is technologically not advanced, it

is not the fault of that place, and rather Didcot is a centre hub of technologically advanced car

manufacturing companies and highly trained engineering pool. So these points must be

addressed well to every employee throughout all levels of the organization structure.

Regarding the Blois issue, company shall fully make use of its capacity by expanding production

because it is believed that expanding production here will decrease immense costs, but it is not to

be mixed with investing in Didcot UK plant.

For reducing costs the employees at UK, France and Spain must undergo a process of

Restructuring. But this is to be noted carefully that those interventions of restructuring are

followed which in long term are favourable rather just saving cost in the short run. (Gandolfi,

2008) For example Downsizing seems to reduce costs abruptly, but managers shall be aware of

the fact that it has direct and indirect costs associated with it. Indirect hidden Costs are those that

D2 can incur in recruiting and training new employees after downsizing. These hidden costs are

sometimes underestimated and such unexpected expenses could go more than the productivity

saving through downsizing.

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