800125145760001

BBMC4103

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

SEMESTER SEPTEMBER 2014
BBMC4103
CHANGE MANAGEMENT

MATRICULATION NO

800125145760001

IDENTITY CARD NO.

800125-14-5760

TELEPHONE NO.

012-6642328

E-MAIL

kellystyledesign@gmail.com

LEARNING CENTRE

PETALING JAYA

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Course Guide

Page

1.0

Introduction on the selected organisation

2.0

Identification and explanation on the changes

3-4

made in the organisation

4-7

3.0

Challenges experienced by the organisation.

7-9

4.0

Recommendation on ways overcoming the challenges

9-11

5.0

Summary

12

6.0

Reference

13

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1.0

Introduction on the selected organisation

Dell is a computer hardware manufacturer and distributor. The company is one of the world's
largest computer distributors in terms of both quantity of units sold and gross income, and one of the
United States largest corporations. Michael Dell founded Dell Computer Corporation, in 1984
while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. Selling assembled computers from his
dormitory room, Michael abandoned the university during the planning

stage of his first in

house computer design in 1985. The company was so successful that within two years, PCs
Limited had distribution offices in Europe, and changes its grammatically incorrect name to
Dell Computer Corporation. By 1991, seven years after selling its first computer, Dell Computer
Corporation was listed in the Fortune 500. With much experience in mail order telephone sales, Dell
was one of the first companies to offer computers for mail order via the Internet.
From 1999 until 2006, Dell delivered more complete computer systems worldwide per quarter
than any other PC manufacturer. Dells product categories include mobility products, desktop PCs,
software and peripherals, servers and networking, services, and storage. Dell is now attempting to
improve it's image with Linux-based desktop and laptop models, a community-driven idea generation
website, and a move to less expensive AMD processors. Most of Dell's products are IBM PCcompatible desktop, laptop, and server computers using Intel or AMD processors. The company also
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markets a line of HTC-produced hand held computers hand, rebranded computer peripherals such as
keyboards and mice, and Sony-developed monitors and televisions. Other Dell-branded peripherals
such as scanners and printers are often designed in-house with production out sourced.
Dell has launched a new suite of Pro Support Services aimed at enterprise customers and wants
solution providers to help deliver them, according to Greg Davis, Dell's Vice President and general
manager of global commercial channels. The Pro Support Plus Enterprise Suite monitors and manages
performance of critical systems and includes access to dedicated technical account managers who can
provide monthly reporting and performance recommendations to customers and also more access to
more senior-level Dell engineers, according to Dell.
Dell provides several formal and informal learning programs, all designed for individual career
development. The available courses align with current business needs to strategically develop
competencies within Dell. The organisational culture at Dell follows the home country standard, the
United States of America. Thus, employees are required to speak English in the work place. The
atmosphere is much the same as in the USA. This includes the organisational culture and bureaucratic
element to maintain convergence on administrative procedures.
2.0

Identification and explanation on the changes made in the organisation.

Organisational change means to the modification of the existing organisation to enhance

its effectiveness and efficiency. It introduces the basic concepts of organisational change and
describes the various forms of change, the sources of change (internal and external) and the
focus of change (people, structure, and technology).Organisational are confronted almost daily
with the need for change. Over the last few decades many new products and services have
been introduced into the market; local markets have become global markets; protected industries
have been opened up to competition; and public institutions have either been privatised. In
simple words, change has become both pervasive and prevalent. So, obviously change is invisible in
an organisations. Thus, managing change effectively is a major challenge facing organisations.
The computer industry is one of the biggest in the world with HP, IBM, and Apple and Dell is a
part of that main players. Furthermore, computer industry consists of all the potential buyers in
personal computers such as printers, servers, notebooks and other computer peripherals. Dell deeply
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understands it and spends much work in analysis of changes in the environment and it provides
environmental scan for the computer industry.
There are some changes in workplace, these changes are termed organisational change.
The focus of organisational change can be people, structure and technology. First of all we focus
on people change. Emphasises the improvement of job performance by changing certain aspects
of organisation members such as their work attitudes and work behaviour. Managers may
attempt to make this kind of change when human resources are shown to be the major cause
of organisational ineffectiveness. Example of people change are training given to employees to
learn new computer and stress management programmes to enhance employees welfare.
Communication is very important to influence employees to bring about desired changes and
employee talent. This causes an organization to regularly enhance employee skills to meet evolving
market requirements. This is achieved through a program of learning, training, new skills competency
enhancement and work process improvements. Dell is known for its effectiveness at snagging the parts
that make up its computers. Now the company is trying to upgrade and change the staff skill at
snapping up talent. Dell encourage and develop the staff talent faster than the growth of the business
by enhancing the skill of the staff. Dell continuously invests in new processes and new systems to place
the right talent in the right roles as it enhance the company performance. Dells Executive Leadership
Team and Board of Directors conduct quarterly talent reviews in the context of the business strategy.
During these reviews, the Executive Leadership Team may develop talent imperatives , identify
mission-critical jobs , forecast talent needs , assess and calibrate talent, identify development actions
for top talent, report progress , create succession plans.
Performance planning among the employees and managers are very important in people
change. Dells performance management system links individual goals with organizational learning.
The system helps identify the next generation of Dell leaders and elevate the performance of all Dell
employees. The performance management process requires annual formal reviews, the calibration of
talent and allocation of performance rewards and promotions all decisions in line with being a
meritocracy. Throughout the year, managers provide employees with ongoing feedback, coaching,
training and on-the-job development. Employees and managers mutually create the employeedevelopment plans. This entire process aligns individual performance objectives and careerPage
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development planning with business and company goals and results. This plan evolves over time,
adjusting to internal and external changes.
Next is structural factors change in an organisation. Structural factors are organisational
control, such as policies and procedures. It involves any modification in authority relationships,
chain of command, coordination mechanisms, degree of centralisation or decentralisation, job
design, spans of control, work specialisation, departmentalisation, formalisation, standardisation or
team building. It may involve major changes in the actual structural design. Changing conditions
or changing organisational strategies often lead to changes in the organisational structure.
Examples of structure change is revision of job specification and job description. In addition,
modifying organisational structure to fit the communication needs of the organisation. Other
than that, decentralising the organisation to reduce the cost of coordination, increase the
controllability of work units, increase employee motivation and gain greater flexibility.
Motivate the senior staff is one of the changes made below structural factors of a
multinational company. Dell employees work with managers to create well-rounded development
plans to prepare them for future roles. An ideal plan blends training with on-the-job experiences and
career moves and mentoring from co-workers and others. Employees build networks in which they can
give and receive feedback. Targeted external coaching is offered to executives to provide guidance and
support to help improve performance and grow leadership capabilities. Dell employees may use the
360 review process to gain performance insight and identify opportunities for growth and
improvement.
Open communication also leads to increased understanding of the need for change within the
organization. Communication is open across all levels of the organization and relevant feedback is
recurrently shared for improvement. Dells Professional Development encompass a wide breadth of
topics from technical training to communication skills and sales workshops.
The next change in an organisation is focused on technology. Technological factors are any
types of equipment or task processes which assist organisation members in performing their
jobs. Technology change are changes in work places, work processes, work methods, or tools and
equipment used. Examples

are automation of production facilities and computerisation of

human resource systems. Through raised innovation and productivity, efficiency and profits are
increased. Costs are also reduced by minimizing employee turnover and absenteeism.
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Dell aligns objectives and focuses on development, product and service quality and employee
satisfaction. Dells culture shift to one of continuous improvement which gives the company a distinct
advantage in the competitive market place. Employees who are engaged in their work and committed to
their organizations give companies crucial competitive advantages including higher productivity and
lower employee turnover. Dell reported improved sequential financial results for its fiscal secondquarter 2012. Product shipments, revenue, operating income, gross margin and earnings were all higher
than in the first quarter, and the company continued to reduce operating expenses. The technological
improvement and inventions always creates new products and market opportunities where Dell should
be proven has high competitive with their rivals. Moreover, not only reducing the size of the product
but also increased efficiency and improve product's quality of Dell to show the advantages in the
computer industry.
Now, lets us see the changes faced by DELL in political, economic and social views.
The change of political environment also contains varying of government's laws in every country
which too complicated to Dell or the others to adapt immediately to the new laws. It includes the field
of advertising, safety, pollution, and investing required by different governments. In economic
environment, Dell should focus on the value of the home currency which all branded products like Dell
are imported and their prices vary with changes in the relative exchange rates. Even in the crisis period,
the customers are likely to purchase higher quality products rather than to simply buy more depend on
their income. The culture environment contains a large impact on the industry with large sphere of
influence. Especially in Dell's case, if it's too intense that creating a threat and barrier of customers,
they might replace or switch to unknown local branded products available where they be able to
purchase with cheaper price.
The key to be succeeded in these changes depends on how Dell adapts to the environment by
modifies it marketing fix and strategies. The strategy of Dell will be changed depends on the economic
environment where containing consumer buying power, inflation levels, number of employee levels,
credit conditions to the customer. Dell Emergency Notification and the optional Incident Collaboration
Centre ( ICC) allows us to interactively contact large numbers of employees and customers during a
crisis to provide direction, ascertain status and tools to manage through the hard time.
These three type of changes has been generally accepted that organisational effectiveness
depends on it. These three types of organisational change are interrelated in improving
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organisational effectiveness. For example, structural changes must take people and technological
factors into account. Similarly, changing people necessarily involves some consideration in terms
of structure and technology.
3.0

Challenges experienced by the organisation.

There are some challenges which experienced by the organisation while it involve in

change organisation. One of the challenges is limited training resources. Federal training budgets
are shrinking while staff members have less time to attend formal training sessions. A learning
organization can make use of alternative strategies that integrate learning into the workplace. These
alternative methods cost less and are effective. Learning is not given adequate funding and support. For
an example, Dells staff are not given resources to experiment with new ideas before risking large scale
implementation from the higher management.
Next is unwilling employees in an organisation. If some people within Dell feel as though
the implementation of the learning process will likely affect their lives differently, most of them tend to
be reluctant and unwilling to participate in the learning and implementation of the changes. Unless the
learning process is implemented across all the departments and levels within Dell, most employees are
likely to assume that the learning process was meant to be for the seniors only.
Resistance of change also is one of the challenges faced by Dell Company. This is
prevalent mostly in environments with individuals who have been at their jobs for a long time, and are
set in their ways. Pioneer companies like Dell have a hard time with organizational learning, if they
have older career people working for them who feel they know darn well how to do their job, and
wont have some young guns telling them how to do it better. This kind of mentality is inevitable, and
all human beings are prone to it, so its the first and most severe barrier to overcome. This is where you
as a leader must be able to win them over and make them understand that it is for their benefit, not
detriment that changes and new ideas are being brought in.
The next challenge faced by Dell company is lack of commitment. A learning culture
can be developed in a Dell only when the top management and executive is committed and deeply
involved. There are often problems and situations in a professional environment that everyone knows
about, but nobody wants to discuss. This may be the result of it being a sensitive subject that could
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result in offense, or possibly something that collectively is upsetting to the whole, resulting in the
innate desire to turn the other way. These things, however unpleasant, must be discussed, openly
though with discretion. If problems exist that go ignored then learning dynamics will ultimately fail as
a result. Everyone has a shared but unspoken understanding that certain issues are not to be confronted
and resolved. Example, .one of the employees negative attitudes are bringing down morale of the
organization but nobody will talk about this problem for fear of retribution.
Lack of direct leadership also challenge faced by Dell organisation. Leadership that is
overly passive isnt going to get the job done with organizational learning. While some passive, mellow
mindset helps in leadership with modern culture, leaders need to be present and involved in every
aspect of learning, to motivate people and give them the resolve and confidence they need to press on.
For an example, poor leadership in Dell will lead to failure in learning as theres no proper
communication writhing the managers in implementing the organisational change.
Once Dell engages in organizational development, there are processes that can become timeconsuming and slow its productivity. Surveying employees on the effectiveness of internal processes,
waiting for customer feedback on a marketing program before moving forward with changes and
evaluating logistics plans to improve shipping efficiency are important to company growth, but they
can also slow down the company's ability to make changes and react to pressing issues.
The absence of a leaning culture either from Dells management or employees can be a barrier
in the learning process. If the organization is to achieve its goals, a learning culture must be embraced
in which individuals are comfortable in sharing their knowledge. This benefits more people within the
organization and makes them empowered. A learning organization also should drop hierarchical
structures and embrace horizontal structures that encourage interactions among employees.
In some instances, the organization's size is a barrier to the learning process. When Dells total
number of employees increases the chances of successful knowledge-sharing declines. This is
especially due to the complexity of the organization's structures and the weak employees'
interrelationship, leading to reduced trust and hindering the implementation process.
People in an organisation also can be a challenge to them. Barriers to learning
organizations can be deliberate or not. Institutions within the organization can prohibit employees or
those who want to learn from accessing resources that can help make the learning process successful.
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Dells staff can also act as an impediment to the success of this process. In some cases, these barriers
may not be known to the company.
4.0

Recommendation on ways overcoming the challenges.

Changes in the industry and environment are the factors that affect directly to the growth of a

company. Dell also concerns about that and tries to change itself as fast as possible to the environment.
Competition and substitute availability are significant factors in the race to capture and maintain
competitive advantage. The critical challenges Dell's leadership faces today require innovative thinking
and integration to create an agile infrastructure. Dell has remained profitable. Dell not only stands on a
firm financial foundation, they continue to support superior customer service and a pre-eminence with
their internal employees.
High performing organizations, such as Dell are alert to the acceleration in the continuing
global rate of change, developing trends, and economies. Dell recognizes the changes and acts on it to
achieve competitive advantage. Dell is expeditious in its decision-making and execution of goaldirected change that is in alignment with its organizational goals and objectives. Dell's strategy is:
survival, sustainability, revenue generation, and profitability through innovation and speed. There are
some recommendation on ways overcoming the challenges faced by Dell organisation.
Dell have to deliver the best possible customer experience. Dell's climb to market
leadership is the result of a persistent focus on delivering the best possible customer experience by
directly selling computing products and services online and through catalogues. "We put a great deal of
emphasis on understanding what drove customer satisfaction, whether it was response times on the
telephone, quality of products, valuable features, or the ease of experience in using the product.
Engaging the entire company from manufacturing to engineering to sales to support staff in the
process of understanding customer requirements became a constant focus of management, energy,
training, and employee education," writes Michael Dell. We can see clearly the Dell's management is
always focus on customer centric, Dell wants each moment customers spend with Dell is valuable.
Other than that, Dell company should innovate in this computer industry. The best way
is by approaching a problem, a response or an opportunity from a different perspective, you create an
opportunity for new understanding and new learning. By questioning all the aspects of our business, we
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continuously inject improvement and innovation into our culture. How can we teach people to be more
innovative? Ask them to approach a problem in a holistic sense." This part of Dell very similar to HP
and HP is good example for other company to learn, HP Way used to work smoothly but people in the
organization didn't want to change and when a new CEO came in. Dell learned this lesson and they
tried to be run in a different track from the beginning. Dell encourage people to think innovatively,
people also can raise the problem or solution to solve it.
In addition, Dell also must focus on the best solution, not the best technology. As we
all know the Dell organisation main motto is that Todays technology is tomorrows
commodity. Dell waits until the cost of that technology falls low enough for it to be stuffed into
computers at state-of-the-art factories and then sold direct at a cheap price, which allows the company
to drive for share. Technology may play an important role but sometimes some problems need human
to solve it and we can based on technology to make the best solution to solve the problems, and use
technology as a tool to help Dell solve the problem and the problem here is decrease the cost and price.
Dell did a good job in solving this problem.
Dell organisation should face challenges by innovation process with getting feedback
from customers and suppliers. They must know what customers really want them to do and is
there a different way to accomplish that criteria. Finally, Dell organisation try to come up with
a totally different approach that exceeds the original objectives. Dell should make a survey on
the Web and get know about the actual users commonly chat about Dell and our competitors,
their likes and dislikes. Its a tremendous learning opportunity. Not only listening from customers,
Dell also should listen to suppliers and Dell wants to have a whole view about each problem they
encounter. So, this type of feedback is always run very well because Dell looks into the problem as a
whole and satisfy both customers and suppliers. So, the most flexible and good for both sides will
come out. Standing in the between Dell won the satisfaction of customers and suppliers.
There are potential ethical conflicts associated with Dell's competitive methods. "Friendly fire"
or healthy competition amongst colleagues for idea generation or innovative solutions could result in
faulty thinking, resistance, dangerous shortcuts, or liability issues. At a global level this strategy must
be well thought out and carefully implemented. Evaluation of organizational performance measurement
systems is qualitative in nature. Such a process can also help Dell more proactively sense and react to
changes in their competitive.
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Dell's efforts remain focused on four strategic initiatives such as driving global growth,
attaining product leadership, superior customer service and embracing Dells corporate culture.
Dell's rapid innovation and resourcefulness has helped maintain its ranking amongst the top PC
producers. Dell's strategy to incorporate customer and stakeholder feedback in process innovation and
product design ensures customer loyalty. These alliances reduce time and cost as they minimize or
remove steps in the research and development process. It also provides motivation for its employees.
Rapid product development increases the learning capacity of employees while strengthening their
technical, conceptual, and interpersonal competencies.

5.0

Summary on changes and challenges made by the organisation

Organizational change refers to the capacity of organizations to build new awareness, strategies

and capacities on the basis of their own and others' experience. It implies more than learning by
individuals or leaders for organizational change the new knowledge and capacities must become part of
the organizational repertoire of interpretations, systems and actions. There is a lot of work available on
organizational change in business organizations, but considerably less on organizational learning in
civil society development organizations. Organization change is a practice to help organizations build
the capacity to change and achieve greater effectiveness. Organization change helps Dell Corporation
enhance congruence among organizational structure, process, strategy, people and culture by
developing new and creative organizational solutions.
There are many changes faced by Dell organisation such as people change, structural
change, technology change, political change, economic change and social change. There are a lot
changes faced by Dell organisation such as limited training resources, unwilling employees, lack
of direct leadership, lack of commitment, absence of learning culture, organization size and
people. Dell should face this kind of changes by gives importance to the best solution not for
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best technology. Other than that, Dell should practice innovation in their production to sustain
in this field for a long time.
The Organization effort to create a learning organization is one in which the goal is to put
systems in place that will help the organization face the challenges it will meet 20 years into the future.
The learning organization is a compelling argument for increasing efforts to move beyond short-term
work aimed at only the top management. Not only Dell but all the organisation need to be looking
towards learning not for survival but for generatively. The learning organization is a tentative road map
to a never-ending journey.

( 3,865 WORDS )

6.0

REFERENCES

http://www.academia.edu/3536278/DELL_S_MARKETING_STRATEGY
http://web.mit.edu/course/15/15.823/attach/Dell%20CASE.pdf
http://aaahq.org/pubs/aesv16/chapter2.pdf
http://ashtonmedia.com.au/dell-delivers-great-customer-experience/
http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/mobility/240161062/life-after-icahn-7-mounting-challenges

facing-dell.htm

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