Managing Change
Introduction
Change is defined as anything that is deliberately introduced into the organization and which may affect a service level agreement or affect the functioning of the environment. Nokia is a multinational corporate and deals with making communication devices and soft ware. Its headquarters is in Keilaniemi in Finland. From their products people can access music, television, navigation and much more and is in this day selling billions of smart phones all over the world. However, in last past it has faced challenges which have ailed its handset business. The position taken has been weak yet competition has remained stiff. The new chief executive must be in a position of coming up with a new strategy to turn around the situation.
In the Smartphone market, the Nokia has two great archrivals in the sector namely Apple and RIM. These two companies are rapidly closing on Nokia even though Nokia still calls the tune. The two companies are yet to edge Nokia out but according to the market share, they could edge it out in the near future. Other major companies running in the Smartphone industry are Samsung (Bada and Android), Sony Ericson, Motorola among a horde of others.
The challenges faced by Nokia in the telecommunications market
The struggles by the company have increased with reports of falling of sales when compared with the previous past. It is expected that the profit margin will continue to go down therefore the expected earnings will continue to lower by the day. In addition, borrowing costs have increased and the shares have tumbled to the lowest levels in more than a decade. It is reported that Nokia has now lost 75% of its market value in the last four years (Anonymous, 2011).
The analysis of these challenges can be attributed to a number of things. One, it is the failure to come up with products that meet customers expectations. This alone has caused of shift in the demand of the Nokia’s smart phones.Once a company fails to consider what is being offered by the competitors, it becomes impossible to satisfy the consumer. The complaint has been that their products are poorly designed as compared to what the competitors are offering. This creates opportunities for newer entrants in the market.
The second issue is that there has been competition in the market share. This has meant that the company has been challenged by other marketers supplying better products in the market all over the world. For example, Chinese manufacturers supply these handsets for consumers in China, India and the developing world. Their phones are cheap and thus putting Nokia manufacturers under pressure (Anonymous, 2011).
Another aspect is the presence of some specific brands that have challenged the sales of Nokia as a brand. These brands are known to have unique features that are needed by the consumers in the market. For example, the apple has recorded more sales in the recent past. This year alone, it has recorded shipments of 20.3 million and a market share of 19%. The apple is ready to keep modifying the iPhone and come up with better branding. Samsung on the other hand has had increased sales due to their diverse portfolio. They have introduced phones that have the companies own brand operating system, galaxy series, android, and windows mobile.
The soft ware used by Nokia has also brought about challenges to it. More and more companies are using goggles’ android soft ware. Android is flexible and can be fitted into a variety of devices. It also can be used in a number of different prices. This provides better opportunities for coming up with affordable smart phone strategy. Their use has had a market share of 48% and has shown strongest growth in the recent past. The vendors of Samsung Motorollla, Sony Ericson and Huawei have shown that these products have done well in the market due to the use of android in their devices (Anonymous, 2011). In the regions where Nokia has a big market share, for example Europe and china, goggles’ android operating system has posed new challenges for Nokia, that uses Symbian software. The Symbian- based smart phones has shown less demand.
The need to manage change by Nokia
There is a lot of competition faced by the corporate and this has been more than it ever expected. Funding by the competitors has been towards innovation of technologies. Apple for example has been known to come up with innovation strategy that is differentiated from the competitors it is facing. While the competitors have made changes in their strategy to enter the market, Nokia lagged behind and continued to use the same old strategies. This has given them a challenge to act fast and change. Rigidity on their part has posed serious challenges for Nokia. The human resource must always be committing towards new changes within the corporate (Kotter, 1986. The attitude within the human resource has been poor and as such, when they were needed to act, they watched and waited. The CEO speaks of urgency to launch the new soft ware but this must take into consideration that human resource may not see the urgency and he must have to explain the reasons behind this. Taking an up bottom approach may fail him and he may never achieve the expected results within the time limit given. The approach of shedding off of jobs is not always received well by the employees (Luecke, 2003). It sends signals of fear and the human resource will most times lack motivation to move the company forward. The criteria for choosing and who remains and who doesn’t may not always be spelt out. This poses a major challenge to the company. The brand positioning, connecting people is an effort of many, not only the management giving orders on what ought to be done.
Future goals for Nokia
Nokia as a corporate has to ensure that they are able to achieve various goals that they have set up. Some of those goals include shifting their mind towards meeting the needs of the customer. The competition is such that the corporate must provide products that are demanded within the market. Another goal would be to have technologies that give better results. They should be able ensure that they stand on a better ground as far as competition is concerned. Having identified the problem of using the Symbian soft ware, they have a redesigned soft ware. There are prospects to come up with a deal with Microsoft corp. that would see the company making use of smart phones using windows soft ware. The big challenge is to improve and go for radical change (Anonymous, 2011). They need to innovate quickly enough to beat the rival and to keep up its good name.
Net sales must be increased by a high percentage and thus maintain its market share. This will call for more differentiated products and lowered average selling price for smart phones. It is vital that they also consider the price that they offer so that it should be better as compared to other mobile phone providers
To achieve these goals there is need to change market leadership so that the needed transformation is achieved. The leadership should be able to prioritize various issues. These include the competitiveness of the product. The leadership must ensure that the product is equally good as of other competitors. The customer should also be satisfied by what they come up with to avoid the shift of sales to other products. It is vital also that leadership should focus on making enough research and development so that they have all the data necessary to make the changes in the smart phone. .
Achievement of the goals by Nokia as a corporate
To achieve these goals, it is essential that they reconsider the ever used managerial practices and processes. One should be able to use the appropriate environmental information for a long time and as it is shared and internalized by the employees, subsystems can be modified and adjusted.
One of the approaches it can use is known as the culture-excellence approach. This approach when used in an organization equates organizational success with the possession of strong, appropriate organizational culture (Luecke, 2003). The organization should be able to incorporate the nature of the company with their environments. Nokia as a company has the challenge of ensuring that they have a culture that is driven towards change. The culture of sitting back while most companies continue to excel should be replaced with by having a strong and appropriate culture. This will bring the excellence so needed in the company. The approach calls for innovation and coming up with new ideas that will bring in the necessary transformation in the company.
Another aspect in this approach is flexibility. One should be able to come with a new plan that relates well to the situation at hand. The leadership should avoid using the same old plan and come up with what befits Nokia in the present reality. For example, in the issue of being able to acquire the market share that they have lost and go beyond it, they should be able to come up with a new plan to achieve this. The leadership should avoid the old strategies of close supervision and strict rules but instead use controls that are flexible and that people can identify with. Nokia as a corporate should ensure that people can identify with every strategy put in place. If then it wants to ensure that the plan works, no force should be used to get there. It is necessary to avoid coming with changes that are run from the top management and leadership but ensure that the initiatives are coming up from the human resource o the ground in all actions of the organization.
The CEO must ensure that he has the right people in place to achieve the expected end. New people should be selected to shape new culture. There should be training and development needed to ensure the members of staff adapt to the change. He should clearly identify the benefits of cultural change to all the employees and reward them accordingly with frequent communication. He should be able to train them, coach and mentor them towards implementing best solutions and measuring effect of changes. There should be harmony and respect for the employees in pursuit of operational excellence. Software developed may not be well known within the organization. The leader should be able to train the employees and ensure that they are mentored towards the implementation of this change.
Organizational learning helps the management to come with a ways of enabling every organization to have a design that would help in achieving the organizations goals. It is an approach that encourages employees to be at their best. The working environment therefore becomes a conducive and a better place. It is therefore necessary that every leadership should consider the five aspects of organizational learning; thinking that is linked to the system, ensuring that the employees are learning as a team, have a shared vision, come up with mental models and ensure that every person is able to master what they do. One should see the system as a whole, letting the employees work together and experience the productiveness. In this they should start different kinds of conversations and remarkable degree of honesty and mutual respect. Everyone should be able to conceptualize what the organization is doing. In this case the employees should be able to know the vision of Nokia and work towards that. The leadership should aspire to unleash the potential of each and every employee in the organization. Having known the goals of the company, the leadership must ensure that every thought and idea is linked to the changes that Nokia wants to achieve. No one person should say that they do not know how the new software works or why in the first place they need to act fast to beat the competition in the market. In every area that is assigned to a specific person, say for example marketing of the products for the company, there should be an aggressive approach and mastery into it. The best must come out every employee and they must be able to give the best they can. Team work must be encouraged in the corporate. No one person should lag behind while other providers of smart phones are working together (Vakola & Ioannis,2005).
Human resource practices to be used in the achievement of the goals
In the light of the competition facing the corporate, there is need to revise the human resource practices. Human capital has become a resource to ensure that the needed changes are put into place. The practices should be linked to competitive strategies of corporate and to the business systems and processes. Some of the practices that need to be put in place should be like for example developing skills and knowledge within the organization so that the people are trained and developed towards the needed change (Martin, 2011). Nokia must ensure that they are able to train the people they already have within the organization and drive this towards the needed change. Another practice would be having improved employment relationships. There should be formation of psychological contract so that the needs of both the employees and the employer are met. In this regard, the employer should be able to give the required security, compensation, and opportunities for training, development and personal growth. The employee should give the needed commitment to the company, be loyal to it and give the very best of job performance. The performance of the employee should rewarded with promotions, bonuses and ensure permanency is guaranteed to those who perform well. This will bring in motivation to workers towards implementation of the change in the corporate.
Resistance to change
There is always tendency for people to resist change when action taken by individuals and groups is perceived to be a threat to them. According to (Lee, n.d.), resistance is healthy. It makes one check their assumptions and forces one to clarify what they are doing. One must therefore take time to understand resistance and come up with ways of reducing resistance (Wynn n.d) There are various reasons as to why people resist change. There is the idea of losing the status and the security of the job. The employees may not be sure if they will retain their job once the changes are implemented in the corporate. People may also not see the benefits of the change. In the case for Nokia, the implementation of the new soft ware, someone may feel it is not necessary. Therefore, the employees may feel it is a waste of time. People may also have personal conflicts. Peer pressure may also cause resistance to change. Some employees may push others to resist change as carried out by the corporate. There is also the alteration of the traditions in terms of culture and group relationships.

Recommendations on how to reduce resistance to change
It is therefore important to explain the benefits of the installation and answer the very personal questions such as the impact of the same on individual employees. The leadership must also engage the people in dialogue and listen to their individual concerns. When people feel that they are valued while the leadership is planning and implementing the change, they are more likely to be incited towards its successful completion (Del Val n.d.). This calls for involvement of the people early enough in the implementation of the change. The manager must consider how much organizational culture fits with change objectives and what could be done to improve such fit before the change process starts. This would help bring employees and management interests closer and to avoid organizational silence. Training also does help surpassing of communication difficulties and as such help avoiding resistance caused by communication barriers. It will also help reduce the gap between the present situation and the capabilities required for the change process. People should also be given time to digest this new idea (Del Val n.d.).
Conclusion
Change is expected and may bring about good results but it is not easy to predict how people will react to it. Sometimes the reaction may be irrational. Managing change requires a change management process that and clearly defined change management roles and responsibilities, tasks and deliverables. The survival of Nokia depends on how well they are able to manage change. The secret to successfully managing of change from the perspective of the employees is definition and understanding. The CEO should consider providing a compelling rationale for change and provide visible leadership and commitment. He should recognize the differing attitudes, behaviors and approaches of winners and losers. He should equip people to bring about desired changes and help them to operate like winners.
References
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