The background to change facing business that exists in todays Economy.

Everything except change itself is changeable in this world. The features we experience today, may undergo change simply, organisation is a group of people working together for achieving certain goals and objectives which may be common in terms of their interest and level of satisfaction. Certain level of amendments or change tomorrow or after some fewer days. If to talk of the business perspectives, they are more prone to changes because of the development of new and more advance technologies. Newer technologies may come to ensure more efficiency, comfortable, Sustainable and environmental friendly. Business modernization and diversification may lead to the business towards further additional changes. The national carrier of the UK, British Airways, popularly known as BA, is also the largest airline in the country. It flies to more than 550 destinations worldwide from airports across the UK, and operates more transatlantic flights from Europe than any other airline. Its hubs are London Heathrow and Gatwick airports. In 2008, BA moved to capitalise on the liberalisation of transatlantic air travel between Europe and the US by launching its new subsidiary Open Skies, which takes its name from the historic EU-US aviation treaty. On November 13, 2009, British Airways and Iberia Airlines made a preliminary agreement to merge. Obviously, after merger or acquision of the businesses, there arise the need of some significant changes in management in terms of its staff, goals and objectifies, pattern and presence of its customers and competitors and the aspect of strategic alliances as well. In case of British Airways too, as a national flag carrier of the UK, it had been facing numerous challenges which ultimately led it to the merger with Iberia Airlines. In the context of merger with Iberia Airlines, there appeared the various changing issues to be settled in time so as due effect could be given to the new alliances. Change management is a basic skill in which most leaders and managers need to be competent. There are very few working environments where change management is not important. When leaders or managers are planning to manage change, there are five key principles that need to be kept in mind: Managers or leaders are to bear in mind some intended to manage the change. key principles as they are

The way of making reaction to the changes differs head to head. Every people have their specific need s that to be met in different way and style. Still ahead, it should be borne in mind that generally change may involve some loss and people are to go through loss curve. In the name of change, expectation of the people should not be exaggerated rather it should be met in a realistic way. After change, what new scenario would be developed and it may impact the whole system established. Such fear in mind of the people should be avoided so as people can trust and accept the change wholeheartedly. In case of British Airways, there work force is made up of people injected with independence and freedom of choice as governed by their own culture. This implies that if the employees are asked their involvement in the decision making role and status, they feel themselves great in the sense that their ideas and views too have been honoured and the same fact would fuel them with the internal motivation and in future they would perform the job wholeheartedly. Satisfied work force is the valuable asset of the organisation and they give their hand and mind for the effort of the organisation to adopt new changes and amendments. If they are running with complaints and grievance in themselves, it would come as a serious loss to the company and prove very expensive in long run.

Evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of bureaucratic organisations.

Evaluation is the measuring effectiveness of the performance by comparing the standard fixed in advance and the result achieved till the date. Every organisation has got some strengths and weaknesses. Strengths should be materialised to further enhance the future prospects of the organisation whereas weaknesses pave the way for the organisation to minimise them and take some precautionary measures so as the effects of the weaknesses go minimal. Here, as we have to take reference of bureaucratic organisation of British Airways. Bureaucratic organisation is a system in which total human resources are allocated with different roles and responsibilities following the existing rules and regulations of the country. For the better designing of plans and policies of any organisation, it would be far better for exercising a popular management tool called SWOT analysis. After having a brief study of British airways, its strengths and weaknesses of bureaucratic organisation can be enumerated as follows.

In corporate language, SWOT analysis is defined as the rational and overall evaluation of a companys strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that are likely to affect the strategic choices significantly. Albert S Humphrey was the father of SWOT analysis. Every organization, or an individual or a country can go for this analysis periodically so as to meet it s objectives and goals. Corporate planner or a strategist is involved in organization to conduct this analysis more effectively and efficiently. The person must be highly competent, motivated with a positive bent of mind without any prejudices or biases. H e must be in a position to work harder under stress and strain and in a mature and cool manner so as to bring out the best results from this analysis. The term SWOT is more or less self explanatory and implies the meaning that strength means positive and worthy aspects of organisation whereas weaknesses refer to the darker or somehow hindering features of the organisation to the further progress and prosperity. A threat is a challenge given by the unfavourable trend or development prior to the development of some protective or defensive mechanism is created. Opportunities basically state that the availability of numerous assertive alternatives for growth and development. Both strengths and weaknesses come under internal environment whereas opportunities and threat come under external environment. To forecast or get some ideas of internal environment is somehow easier than that of having ideas of external scenario in advance. Talented visionaries always turn their threats into opportunities. Even during the time of controlled economy, late Dhirubhai Ambani converted weaknesses into strength and materialised opportunities from threats within the time span of three decades.

y Comparison of alternative forms of organisational development.

Organisational development has been seen as a key factor in overall strategic management of change and provides focus for the cultural and

organisational change needed for continuous improvement, establishing systems, culture and activities to the achievement of organisational goals and objectives. It ensures better use of financial, technological and human resources, fosters a greater sense of organisational purpose and it is more likely to deliver the required performance improvement. Progress and prosperity can be injected only in favourable situation. For the overall organisational development, a crystal clear sense of direction, strong leadership and focused people management issues along with performance management and the learning promotion, development, innovation and creation are essential. Sharing the ideas between and among the staff, asking and getting feedback and evaluating the progress are also some of the key factors for organisational development. Its a challenging issue of successful organisational development. Here are some pre-requisites to be fulfilled for effective organisational development. y Establishing a focal point to coordinate and support organisational development activities. y Ensuring organisational development based on organisational structure. y Maintaining creative and flexible approach to best suit the organisation. y Taking serious concern for suitable organisational skills and capacity. y To make the well integration of employee communications, staff development, team working and other aspect s of high-performance workplaces. (http://www.city.ac.uk/sd/organisationaldevelopment.html) As we talked of the term change at the very beginning of this report, any form of organisational development cant remain unchanged. Till the date, the British Airways has been following the traditional form of bureaucratic organisation which needs to be changed slightly or it can follow modern type of organisational structure for its possible development.

y Developing systems to involve appropriate stakeholders in the introduction of change A stakeholder is a person, group or organisation who has direct or indirect concern to the success or failure of the organisation because they will be

directly or indirectly affected by the organisations actions, objectives and policies. (Business Dictionary, 2007). The followings may be called as the stakeholders for any sort of business organisation. y Employees y Shareholders y Investors y Communities y Government y Suppliers y Labour unions y Government regulatory agencies y Industry trade group y NGOs y Professional experts y Prospective employees y Prospective customers y Local communities y Competitors y National communities All the stakeholders are not to be given equal treatment and consideration s. At first, it should be decided that who exactly our stakeholders are. All these things should be decided under stakeholders Management which is all about identifying the key stakeholders and winning their favour and support. And stakeholders analysis is the first stage of such management. If such process is executed properly, the project is successful on achieving its set goals and objectives. There is another step of analysing and identifying the vital people who are to be dealt seriously and sensitively. For an organisation, to have varieties of stakeholders may comprise of following benefits. y Powerful stakeholders may provide us with valuable suggestions and ideas which would greatly help the project to rearrange its ways and pattern of running and operation. y Through the link of powerful stakeholders, a project can manage the easy and uninterrupted access to valuable essential resources so as any job of goods and service production and their delivery channel to can be far better.

y If there are some active stakeholders too, their participation in the project would enhance their understanding of the project and they can even make their better contribution in the future days. y As the stakeholders show their reaction in advance, it would be beneficial for the planner and policy maker to formulate the policies winning the favour of the public. Finally, it is equally important to prioritize the list of stakeholders and to decide who would be affected by our works and activities.

Stakeholders refer to the people or organisations which has direct or indirect concern to the progress or prosperity of the organisation. Stakeholders are, in one or another genuine way; reap the benefit of the organisational operation. The modern organisations are required to follow the concept of societal marketing in which the benefit of every stakeholder is well protected and guaranteed. After the merging of two airlines company there appeared the conflict of cultural assimilation. When one culture is required to follow the methods and practices or others culture, a serious tension leading to disruption may emerge.

y Analysis and evaluation of these systems To analyse the system means to go into through study of every pros and cons of the situation. In another term, it can be termed as situational review which gives the summarised overview of any project or organisation. After having launched the specific system of operation, its impact in both positive and negative ground should be measured and has to take further decision whether existing system is sufficient enough to continue or needs some amendments.

Lewins

Change

Model

in

British

Airways

According to Lewin, there are three stages of change in organisation including unfreezing, movement, and refreezing which can make both positive and negative affect on employees

and

organisational

structure.

The first step of organisational change in BA is to unfreeze present pattern of behaviour as a way of managing resistance to change. In this stage, organisational change made an impact on individual level. For example, BA implemented Downsizing of Workforce policy in order to restructure the organisation which made the company to cut down the number of employee from 52,300 to 35,000. The second stage of Lewins Model is movement. In this stage, the company involved in making any change to be actual which the company developed tactics and programs to bring the vision of the top management-level to the bottom-line employees throughout the organisation. To support this stage, a number of internal British Airways structures and systems were changed such as new bonus system and the opening of Terminal 4 at Heathrow airport. The final stage is Refreezing. In this stage, the company had to stabilize changes by establishing systems that can make behavioral pattern in the organisation. For example, a new performance appraisal system based on behaviour and results was created to emphasize customer service and subordinate development. Furthermore, BAs symbols were introduced to support those changes such as new employees uniforms, refurbished aircrafts, a new corporate coat of arms with the motto We fly to serve, and so forth. (Goodstein., D., L. & Burke, W., W., 1991)

(http://thanabut.blogspot.com/2007/05/1 -introduction-this-report-iswritten.html)

y Development and adaptation of appropriate models for change.

The main objective of the changes adopted by British Airways was to help company exist in market place and stand as a competitive in the airline industry. After the change, company came more customers oriented by rendering excellent and qualitative services to them. Just following the changes, company also got successful to excel the relationship o the employees and the employeecustomer relations as well. The changes made in management brought the air ways more competitive in the UK market. The human resource management techniques and the strategies followed by the air ways have been the key factors that the company turned as a strong competitor in the airline industry. After the change was tossed into the implementation, management of British Airways came back with the strategy of Putting People first again. Moreover BA management started to equip the personnel with the updated course.

(http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Change-Management-BritishAirways/107109)

Change is an inevitable universal phenomenon. But merely change just for change holds no meaning for real change. There are some specific models of changes which are proved or tested in very general situation by the scholars or experimenters in different time points. Most organisations would have to change themselves as per the internal and external environment change or alter. Factors compelling change can be grouped into two. One is external trigger and another is internal trigger. External trigger consists of competitors, changes in customers tastes, legislations and government policies etc. Another factor under internal trigger are new product and service design innovations, resumption of the post by new senior manager, new service deliveries to customers and such other factors.
When these triggers have an impact on BA, the company responded by initiating Privatization program to change the ownership of the company from the government to the private sector. This program has a purpose to improve the organisation performance in order to overcome with fierce competitors. According to Lewins model of change, change within organisation will occur in three stages. The first stage is Unfreezing which is reducing the forces of change which maintain behaviour in its present form, recognition of the need for change and improvement to occur. Next, the second stage is Movement which is the development of new attitudes or behaviour and the implementation of the change. The final stage is Refreezing which is stabilizing change at the new level and reinforcement through supporting mechanisms. (Mullins, J., L., 1999)

(http://thanabut.blogspot.com/2007/05/1 -introduction-this-report-iswritten.html)

y Planning the implementation process and outcomes.

People normally say that failing to plan is planning to fail. So every work should be started by planning and planning well is getting the work half done. So every good plan should be supported with meaningful decision making tools. Good planning is a process that leads to consistent and expected decisionmaking. Planning that does not influence decisions is not worth mentioning. Decisions should be tallied with the mission of the organization and with each

other. Bad planning or, more commonly, an absence of planning is reflected in decisions that are taken too late and that are inconsistent. Implementation is the process of bringing any plan into action or execution. Unless and until the proposed plan brought into action, the pla ns in paper would go worthless. In case of British airways too, as it went into mergers with Iberia Airlines, it had to undergo various changes in its overall programmes and policies. In the new and strange context, the airways have of great challenges of running the industry smoothly and profitably winning the fa vour of its esteemed customers. Any plan or project is brought into implementation for the cause of achieving any purpose or objectives which ultimately are turned into outcomes if they are executed well. Here, British airways, after merger, have done its excellent best to efficiently manage the changed perspective to retain the existing customers and to ensure the entry of new customers in short run.

References: 1.Eisenberg,E &Goodall Jr,H.L.(2003),Organizational communication:Balancing Creativity and Constraint,4 th Edition 1. Burnes,B(2009),Managing Change,5 th Edition,Prentice Hall 2. Bratton,J &Gold,J,Human Resource Management, Theory and Practice, Third Edition, Palgrave Macmillan 3. (http://www.city.ac.uk/sd/organisationaldevelopment.html) accessed on 17 th July 2010 4. (http://www.city.ac.uk/sd/organisationaldevelopment.html) 5. (http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Change-ManagementBritish-Airways/107109) accessed on 21 st July 2o1o 6. (http://thanabut.blogspot.com/2007/05/1-introduction-this-reportis-written.html) accessed on 21 st July 2010

Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint

[Hardcover]
Eric Eisenberg (Author), H. L. Goodall Jr. (Author)
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