For this month’s newsletter and blogs, the topic is “change management.” Given our current situation as a country, it’s a very worthwhile subject.
What can happen when somewhat radical change is introduced into a business environment?
The Company Microcosm
If we put our focus on a single company as an example, we can easily demonstrate what can happen within a business if its overall environment is subject to significant change.
We can start with the company’s greater marketplace. The marketplace itself is subject to fluctuations which impact several economic factors. The state of the economy affects the cost of raw materials, the cost of staff, and the cost of facilities. It also directly affects the pricing of the company’s goods and services.
These changes will affect sales in the business. How the changes impact will determine whether it is more difficult or easier for company reps to sell the company’s products and services. Changes could affect demand for those products or services as well.
Product or service demand also crosses over into and impacts marketing. Marketing must demonstrate, ahead of sales, that the company’s product or service is desirable in the current environment. It is up to marketing to create demand by pointing out product and service benefits to potential buyers in the new environment.
Overall changes can also impact delivery. If the company sells and delivers physical commodities, changes will affect the cost of distribution. Lowered gas prices will ultimately reduce the distribution cost and higher prices will increase it. If a service is offered online, changes can impact the cost of software platforms, hosting, and other technology related resources.
Effects on Personnel
Now, how do all these changes affect the people within the company?
Company leadership must look outward and monitor changes in the business environment and interpret them for the staff. In our next article, we’ll cover how leadership should approach change management in more detail.
Company personnel don’t live within a bubble. At the end of every workday, they go home, watch the news and interact with the external environment. The media tends to make changes appear as controversial as possible, which can influence the workforce. They come to work the next day all stirred up, either positively or negatively, and interact with each other. The mood, good or bad, will spread throughout the company.
And so it goes, day after day, until these changes reach some point of stability. As we will discuss in the next article, it is up to the company’s leadership to manage the business so that these changes have minimal negative impact on personnel.
These are just some of the ramifications that changes, such as those we are currently experiencing, can bring. A company must be very prudent to deal with such changes in a way that maintains business success.
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