Report On Managing The Change in an Organization

Introduction

Huawei provides the world’s best information and communication technology infrastructure and smart devices. It was founded in 1987. It has been a global leader in its business. It is a private entity and fully owned by the employees. According to the Union of Huawei Investment and Holding CO., Ltd, almost 104,572 people working at Huawei are a part of the shareholding scheme. This program is only for the employees and no government institute or external firms have any stake in the organization.

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However, in recent years, Huawei went for digital transformation to increase efficiency. They also considered shifting from a model that was centralized to the one which is driven by demand. This would enable the firms at Huawei’s frontlines to get more duties and responsibilities. However, while transforming, the company planned to go with the previous approach of following the policy driven by experience, increase productivity and efficiency, ensure convenient transactions between the stakeholders, and enhance satisfaction (Jingwen 2020).

Need for Organizational Change

Internal Factors

Strengths and Weaknesses

The biggest edge Huawei has is the competitive pricing of their quality products. Huawei might not be the cheapest manufacturer of smartphones but its prices are quite low as compared to the competitors (Bush 2019).

At the same time, the company is short of capital and has a weak brand which becomes its weaknesses. Also, if we compare the company with the big players in the market, then it turns out to be a weaker brand. Therefore, these things created an urgency of digital transformation by the company (Bhasin 2020).

Mission & Strategy

Huawei’s vision is to provide digital services to every individual, household, and firm so that the world becomes interconnected and an intelligent place to live in. This played a very vital role in the change. Their strategic approach fundamentally centers around technology, but they ensure innovation which is beneficial for customers and a win-win organization. These led the company to go for digital transformation.

In-house abilities

Huawei has successfully emerged as the largest telecoms-equipment-maker after beating Ericsson, which is a Swedish company in its annual revenue (The Economist, 2012 cited in Zhu & Jones 2014). Almost 45% of the people working in the organization focus on research and development. Therefore, the company has a lot of in-house abilities to work according to the technological advancements, and hence, was one of the drivers of digitization.

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External Factors

Opportunities and Threats

Innovative work has brought significant open doors for Huawei. For any driving innovation brand, a solid promoting methodology is similarly as significant as its central business system (Pratap 2019). There could be nothing better than marketing the digital transformation of the company, hence change was essential. However, the threat for Huawei is the fierce and intense competition within the smartphone market (Lim 2020).

Technological Pressure

As technology is developing at an exceptionally high movement everywhere in the world, the interest for specialized administrations is likewise following the pattern. Individuals over the globe are subject to web advances and consequently. Therefore, the digital transformation of organizations is a must for surviving in the market.

Socio-Cultural Pressure

Smartphones are trending in every age group today (Lopez 2017 cited in Huawei PESTEL Analysis 2020). The smartphones are no longer for elites only but are accessible to all. There is an increasing pressure to manufacture innovative mobile phones at lower prices, therefore, driving for transformation.

Factors involved in the Change Process

Transformational Leadership

Huawei has a lot many people who are innovative and emphasize bringing change in the organization. They played a very important role in the transformation process. The president of the Enterprise Business group, Yan Lida (2020) said, “I believe that digital transformation is a journey that will never end. Huawei will work with customers and partners along the industry chain to expand digital transformation and bring digital to every organization. Together, we are achieving win-win outcomes worldwide.”

Huawei’s Culture

Since 1997, 10 years after the beginning of the firm, the two focal administration rules that the initiative of Huawei has accepted to be key for being fruitful in the media communications industry are client centricity and devotion, everything being equal, to the corporate objectives of Huawei (De Cremer and Tian, 2015). This, therefore, became a huge factor in the change process and the company had to ensure these two principles.

Operational Model

Huawei’s operations team laboriously did their research on each local market to understand the unique needs and wants of their customers. From a management standpoint, Huawei has a splendid and gradual diversification strategy that meets specific market needs. Their operational model also incorporated the transformation.

Training

At the point when agent workplaces turn out pilot change programs pointed toward expanding the effectiveness and cut out superfluous positions, the Strategic Reserve ingests those representatives so they can refine their abilities and train in new zones (Huawei 2020). The training of the employees was also done after the digital transformation.

Effect of change in an organization

Short/Longer term Implications of change

The shorter implication of change was the new practices in the organization, which included training of employees for digitization, the creation of specialized teams to work on the change process. While the longer implication was the brand image of the company in the eyes of their customers. Huawei would come out as a digitally transformed and innovative company and hence have an edge over the competitors.

Impact of change on the culture/structure/operations of the business

As discussed earlier, the change in Huawei resulted in new operational and strategic practices in the organization. The culture of the business became even more innovative and customer-centric while there were new teams formed which kept their focus on the implementation and evaluation of the transformation process. The operational team kept on adapting to the change in the organization (Huawei 2020).

Internal and External Factors impacted by the change

The internal stakeholders of Huawei who got affected by this approach were the senior management and the employees. As they had to redesign their policies, work more on the research and development, they felt a huge impact of the change. The external factors affected were the competitors as they saw their competitor going for digitization, hence, also started making their policies to deal with this. The next was the customers, who seemed pretty satisfied and interested after getting to know about the change. They welcomed this transformation of the company.

Change Management Models and Approaches

Kurt Lewin 1951

This first phase of progress includes setting up the association to admit that change is essential. Later, the change stage is the place where individuals start to determine their vulnerability and search for better approaches to get things done. The last step is refreezing which includes steady association outline, reliable sets of responsibilities, etc.

The same thing happened when Huawei transformed itself. The company first realized that due to certain internal and external factors, there is a dire need to transform, not only for survival but for growth. The next thing was the implementation and execution of the transformation. The company ensured effective policies to adapt to the new philosophy and changed the organization according to that.

Kotter’s 8 steps 1996

Huawei also followed similar steps. They first identified the need of going digital in the organization. But the difference is that they did not build any special guiding team, rather the senior management created and then communicated the vision. The later part was the execution and implementation of the approach. The short-term wins were then measured and checked. The last step was the adaptation of the new approach and making it a new normal of the organization (Kotter 1996).

Harris’ 5 Phases

Huawei had an almost similar approach as this model. The motivation behind the program was thought of, objectives explained, exercises are chosen, and assets required were thought of. Later, the objective coordinated exercises got in progress. Sentiments of association and individual also developed. However, the change led to sudden issues. The plans become progressively intricate. The objectives appeared to be more distant and harder to accomplish than previously. However, there were no members who neglect to satisfy their desires. The fourth stage was surviving or limiting the difficulties (Lunenburg 2010). The last part included the end of endeavors, management of the issues, and the proper explanation of the objectives.

Behavioral Response

People’s Response; Positive vs Negative

People were very excited when they got to know about the digital transformation of Huawei. They all not only accepted it, rather were very excited and curious about the developments. However, certain risk-averse people were not ready for the change. They were skeptical and did not welcome innovative approaches.

Individual vs Collective Reactions

The individuals were quite excited and gave a very positive response to this change. However, certain teams in the company were neutral on this. They just accepted the policies and started working on their roles.

Change’s impact on Different Levels

As discussed earlier, there was a mixed reaction. The majority of the people gave a very positive response and were very enthusiastic while working on their new assigned roles. However, some teams were not happy with the workload. The organization overall was very excited about the transformation.

How HR Supports Individuals During Change

Communication

To have the right leadership is quite crucial to unifying the organization behind a common strategic direction. One-on-one conversations help individuals in analyzing the effect of a change on them, determine their commitment, and chose their actions.

Emotional Wellbeing

HR plays a very vital role in motivating and encouraging people. They increase buy-in, comfort, and support for change across departments, thereby increasing the success of change initiatives (Managing Organizational Change 2020).

Admin

The other important thing HR does is ensure proper administrative policies during the change which results in organizational efficiency and productivity. Therefore, this is very essential for change.  

References

Zhu, H.D, & Jones, M 2014, ‘Huawei: An Exemplar for Organizational Change in a Modern Environment, vol. 3, no. 1.

Jingwen, T 2020, A Look Inside Huawei’s Own Digital Transformation, viewed 26 November 2020, https://e.huawei.com/ae/publications/global/ict_insights/201801221604/digital-huawei/201801241420

Bush, T 2019, SWOT Analysis of Huawei: Tackling Competition in Smartphone Market, accessed 26 November 2020, https://pestleanalysis.com/swot-analysis-of-huawei/

Bhasin, H 2020, SWOT Analysis of Huawei, viewed 26 November 2020, https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-of-huawei/

Pratap, A 2019, Huawei SWOT Analysis, viewed 26 November 2020, https://notesmatic.com/2019/05/huawei-swot-analysis/

Lim, H.S 2020, Competition grows fierce among low-cost smartphones, viewed 26 November 2020, https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20200415/2038495/1/Competition-grows-fierce-among-low-cost-smartphones

Huawei PESTEL Analysis, Business Teacher, viewed 26 November 2020, https://businessteacher.org/pestel/huawei-pestel.php#citethis

Lida, Y 2020, Bring Digital Transformation to Every Organization, viewed 26 November 2020, https://e.huawei.com/en/publications/global/ict_insights/201802151130/Commentary/201805300850

De Cremer and Tian, 2015, ‘Huawei’s Culture Is the Key to Its Success’, Harvard Business Review. Caring for Employees 2020, Huawei, viewed 26 November 2020, https://www.huawei.com/en/sustainability/win-win-development/develop_love

Kotter, J. P. 1996,  John Kotter’s 8­-Step Change Model, viewed 26 November 2020, https://www.accipio.com/eleadership/mod/wiki/view.php?pageid=136

Lunenburg, F.C 2010, ‘Approaches to Managing Organizational Change’, International Journal of Scholarly Academic Intellectual Diversity, vol. 12, no. 1.

Managing Organizational Change 2020, Society for Human Resource Management, viewed 26 November 2020, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingorganizationalchange.aspx