4. Justify why you have structured your change management plan in this particular way and why you have used some specific techniques or approaches in your planning, not others, with reference to the literature.

4.1 Justification of Change Management Plan Strategies.

The structure of the change management plan for ANC company involves building a guiding coalition and cooperating with expert organisations. These activities will help in facilitating communication, managing resistance, providing reinforcement and addressing implementation barriers.

These strategies facilitate communication during organisational changes. Communication is vital in implementing change in an organisation; it creates awareness about the project, enhances understanding and acceptance between various stakeholders and builds commitments among parties involved (Simoes and Esposito, 2014). The implementation of ERP systems in the ANC company failed due to ineffective communication and communication breakdown among the departments in the company. One of the guiding coalition functions is conducting regular communication meetings to ensure that all stakeholders understand and accept the expectation of the organisational change. Therefore, creating a guiding coalition during the ANC’s ERP system implementation will eliminate communication challenges.

Secondly, these strategies help in managing resistance during organisational changes. Resistance to change is typical and expected in an organisation when implementing a new system or policy (Hayes, 2018). Thus, businesses must develop initiatives to curb, manage, or eliminate the resistance to change. The resistance to change by various stakeholders is among the challenges ANC company faced while implementing the ERP system. One of the objectives of the guiding coalition in the ANC company change plan is to collect opinions, suggestions, and feedback regularly from employees to assist in decision-making. The involvement of employees in the process of change decision making is crucial in managing resistance.

Additionally, these change plan strategies help in eliminating implementation barriers during organisational changes. Several barriers impact the process of organisational change; from employees’ attitudes, limited understanding of the change to inadequate skills and knowledge for implementing the organisational change (Hayes, 2018). Building a guiding coalition helps eliminate employee-related barriers to change while cooperating with expert organisation help in removing obstacles related to inadequate understanding of the change and insufficient skills, knowledge and expertise (Weiss & Li, 2020). During the ERP system implementation, the ANC company experienced challenges of employees resistance and insufficient technology and expertise. Therefore, through cooperation with expert organisations such as professional risks experts, market economics and information technology system developers, the ANC company can develop insights and ideas essential for implementing the ERP system.

Furthermore, these change plan strategies provide reinforcements necessary for implementing organisational changes and show progress. Reinforcements are vital to the success of all change initiatives. Employees tend to go back to what is familiar, hence the need for a system that monitors the implementation of organisational changes (Hayes, 2018). Additionally, measuring the progress of organisational change is vital to its success and management. Measuring the progress of an initiative is crucial to the evaluation of its success, failure or challenges. One of the functions of a guiding coalition in the ANC company change management plan is conducting a regular progress meeting to report on organisational progress and transformation in adopting ERP system and timely and accurate transmission of instructions and ideas among stakeholders.

4.2 Reasons for the Selected Approaches

Effective change management approaches facilitate employee guidance during the change process and offers a smooth transition. Building a guiding coalition and cooperating with expert organisations is crucial for ANC company to implement the ERP system successfully.

4.2.1 Building a guiding coalition

A guiding coalition comprises a group of social leaders who bring perspective, energy, and expertise across various areas, and their professionalism command respect from their peers. Maximini (2015) documents that these groups of people assist organisational management in transforming the organisation; they can shape, implement and sustain various organisational changes proposed by the organisation leadership and management.

Building a guiding coalition impacts employees’ attitudes towards the change vision, enhances positive energy towards the change, and minimises resistance towards the change. A guiding coalition comprises individuals with the skillset and experience necessary for implementing the organisational plan.

The advantage of this method is that these individuals can quickly gather and process information about the change process and present it to other employees, majorly their peers, in detail and effectively (Maximini, 2015). This will positively impact how employees react and embrace the change process. It is an advantage because it allows a buy-in towards a change initiative. Additionally, a guiding coalition comprises influential individuals in an organisation who are informed and committed to decisions (Chappell et al., 2016). Most organisational changes fail due to a lack of commitment among employees; having a team among employees dedicated to the change process is vital for the success of the change process (Hayes, 2018). The implementation of the ERP system by the ANC company failed majorly due to personnel induced challenges. Building a guiding coalition will enhance the success and the speed of implementing the ERP system within the organisation. It will include diversity in the change agents, thereby fast tracking actual change.

4.2.2 Cooperate with Expert Organisations

Businesses face both internal and external challenges during their operations. Sometimes, the available internal knowledge is not adequate to solve external challenges such as a change in operational policies or the country’s economic status (Pollack & Pollack, 2015). Therefore, there is a need for business managers and leaders to cooperate with external experts. In implementing organisational changes, the business must understand how the change will impact its positions in the market social, economic and politically.

Expert organisations such as risk assessment, market economic, and system developers possess the necessary knowledge and better ideas to implement organisational changes. Cooperating with these organisations provides fresh and unique perspectives in implementing organisational change and improving efficiency (Hayes, 2018). For instance, collaborating with risk assessment experts help business identify and analyse the potential risks associated with changing the organisation’s plans.

The advantage of this method is that cooperating with experts can make up for the lack of skills and management expertise and make the process and need of organisational change more convincingly to employees (Hayes, 2018). Essentially, experts bring in a fresh perspective, including best practices from the industry in order to facilitate smoother change implementation and management (Pollack & Pollack, 2015). The ANC companies will benefit from cooperating with experts in the implementation of ERP systems. For example, the company can partner with system developers to create a better system that meets the market standards, market economics to evaluate the impact of the change on the company budget and revenue and risk assessment experts to evaluate the economic and social risks associated with the implementation of the ERP system. Additionally, it helps in changing the attitudes of ANC company employees and other stakeholders towards the system.

Bibliography

Chappell, S., Pescud, M., Waterworth, P., Shilton, T., Roche, D., Ledger, M., … & Rosenberg, M. (2016). Exploring the process of implementing healthy workplace initiatives: mapping to Kotter’s leading change model. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 58(10), e341-e348.

Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.

Maximini, D., 2015. The Guiding Coalition. In The Scrum Culture (pp. 107-113). Springer, Cham.

Pollack, J., & Pollack, R. (2015). Using Kotter’s eight stage process to manage an organisational change program: Presentation and practice. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 28(1), 51-66.

Simoes, P.M.M. and Esposito, M., 2014. Improving change management: How communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management Development.

Weiss, P. G., & Li, S. T. T. (2020). Leading change to address the needs and well-being of

trainees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic pediatrics, 20(6), 735-741.