Microsoft Has Been Completely Reborn Under -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Microsoft Has Been Completely Reborn Under? Answer: Introducation In 2014, after Satya Nadella took over as the CEO of Microsoft, the company went through a much-needed restructuring process. Microsoft cut down 18,000 employees. Most of these employees were from Nokia which was the phone business acquired by Microsoft in 2014. Additionally, 5000 employees were laid off from Microsoft as part of the same restructuring. Reason for this reorganization was Satya Nadellas idea of a leaner and agile organization which can anticipate and innovate quickly with faster decision making (Etherington, 2014). Case of du Telecom In 2013, UAEs Du Telecom signed a MoU with Chinas Huawei Technologies. In a three year agreement, Huawei had agreed to help Du Telecom in developing an advanced mobile and broadband network. The rationale behind signing this MoU was to expand Du Telecoms networks to include technologies like LTE-Advanced, 4.5G and 5G capabilities in order to tap the exponential growth seen in consumer data usage (Toms, 2015). The major External pressures which lead these organizations to change are market decline and extensive competition. Before Nadella took over as CEO, Microsofts products were facing poor reception in the market. Microsoft was also facing competition from Apple and Google. As in the case of Du Telecom in order to tap the growing demand, they had to collaborate with an organization that has experience. The Internal pressure faced by Microsoft and Du Telecom is the pressure to grow their market share and form a collaboration with Nokia and Huawei Technologies respectively. Microsoft was like a puddle Before Satya Nadella took over as CEO, Microsoft had started to lose its control over the market. Windows 8 had not performed very well and the company was struggling to make its way into the smartphone revolution. Zune, which was launched to compete against iPod, had been a product failure and to add insult to injury, the customers were losing faith in the company (Palmer, 2017). The industry was shifting from Microsofts windows to Apples iPhone and Googles android resulting in a market share of less than 4%. Even the stock prices had stalled despite increased revenue and profits (McCracken, 2017). Initially, Microsoft talked about having its operating system Windows on every PC but by 2014 the scenario had changed completely. Mobile phones had made PCs obsolete. Microsoft needed a turnaround strategy in order to compete with Apple and Google whose innovations were quickly expanding their market share. Planning and preparing the change Problems with Choice of agent: In an organization, which was undergoing technological change, a manager who was considered an expert was selected to be the change agent. But this decision was proved to be wrong as this manager had no influence over its team. He was unable to communicate the top managements vision of change to the employees. Due to lack of influence, he was not able to stay abreast with the concerns people had with the change process. A person with subject expertise is not necessarily the right person for implementing change. Quality of change relationship: In the same organization a new technological advancement required a certain kind of training. When the employees got this news through grapevine, they resisted the change as they feared to lose their job despite the fact that the management had no such intentions. Due to poor communication with that group that is targeted for change implementation, the organization can face employee resistance at the beginning of change process (Heathfield, 2017). If the employees are resistant to change, it can adversely affect the quality of change relationship. Identification of the group to be targeted for change: Sometimes the target of change implementation might be wrong. For the two organizations which merged recently the focus of the cultural training included the middle and lower level management. However, problems started cropping up when the key people in the organization found it difficult to stay together and work. Specification of the change issues: While defining the organizational change issues managers might completely ignore the main issue and focus on other minor issues while developing an implementation plan. For example, an IT company dedicated its efforts in developing advanced versions of their existing products in order to compete in the market while completely ignoring the fact that the market has shifted to new innovations making their products obsolete. People and Culture While implementing change it is expected that change agent might face resistance from employees it can be both active and passive. When employees stop complying with new organizational norms, they continue to attend the meetings and might appear to agree with the change but do not do anything to fulfill the commitment. The active form of resistance can be seen in the form of sharing their discontent on public platforms and involving in unionism and politics in order to obstruct change process. Proper communication plays an important role in the successful implementation of change. Opportunity to offer feedback should reach every level of the organization till the lowest level. Communication is also important to help employees identify the benefits that the change will bring for them. Listening is also important to create a trusting and employee oriented organization (Heathfield, 2018). Another way to lessen the resistance is to link the collaborative behavior of employees with job pe rformance (Hayashi, 2017). Implementing Change Technological, political and economic policies, change in governance etc. are some of the external variables. Change in leadership and culture are some internal variables. If not taken into account, these variables can result in failure of change implementation. When Apple came up with iPhone Microsoft first denied that success of such a product is a possibility, but currently, the success of iPhone is a well-known fact. Under Steve Ballmer, Microsoft kept innovating products like Windows Vista and search engine Bing but was very late in including technological advancements in its change strategy (Thompson, 2013). So in the case of Microsoft, Technology was the situational variable that they did not take into account and failed in product innovation. It was only after Satya Nadella took over as the CEO, Microsoft was able to meet the pace with innovations happening in IT industry. Sustaining the change Change is the only thing that is constant. In order to survive the fast moving business environment, businesses should embrace change. Technology and innovations are the most important drivers of organizational change. Adapting to this change is important as it increases productivity and saves time (Richards, 2018). For an evidence-based practitioner, it is important to note that as a change agent, their role as an influencer, communicator and a progressive thinker will play a key role in the success of change management. A future change agent should not only prepare himself/herself with the subject expertise but build leadership skills as well to successfully lead the change implementation by motivating and communicating employees so that everyone in the organization shares the same goals and vision. For managing organizational change successfully, a change agent should cautiously address the fear of change in the minds of employees. Stress caused is directly proportional to the lev el of change experienced. In order to address this fear, change agents should ensure that the employees are heard and the management is communicating the expectations continuously and correctly. Secondly, it should also be ensured that the teams receive training for the skills required for them to stay updated. References BORT, J., 2015. How Satya Nadella has changed Microsoft in just one year. [Online] Available at: https://www.businessinsider.in/How-Satya-Nadella-has-changed-Microsoft-in-just-one-year/articleshow/46115078.cms [Accessed 12 January 2018]. Etherington, D., 2014. Microsoft CEO Gears The Company For Change, And A Renewed Focus On Productivity And Platforms. [Online] Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/10/microsoft-ceo-gears-the-company-for-change-and-a-renewed-focus-on-productivity-and-platforms/ [Accessed 12 January 2018]. Hayashi, S.K., 2017. Strategies For Managing Employees Who Resist Change. [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/03/17/strategies-for-managing-employees-who-resist-change/2/#3d97107c66ee [Accessed 17 January 2018]. Heathfield, S.M., 2017. Communication in Change Management. [Online] Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/communication-in-change-management-1917805 [Accessed 17 January 2018]. Heathfield, S.M., 2018. How to Reduce Employee Resistance to Change. [Online] Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/how-to-reduce-employee-resistance-to-change-1918992 [Accessed 17 January 2018]. McCracken, H., 2017. Satya Nadella Rewrites Microsofts Code. [Online] Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/40457458/satya-nadella-rewrites-microsofts-code [Accessed 16 January 2018]. Palmer, A., 2017. Microsoft Has Been Completely Reborn Under CEO Satya Nadella. [Online] Available at: https://www.thestreet.com/slideshow/14209806/1/microsoft-gets-rebooted-under-ceo-satya-nadella-here-are-his-6-biggest-achievements.html [Accessed 16 January 2018]. Richards, L., 2018. Why Is Change Important in an Organization? [Online] Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/change-important-organization-728.html [Accessed 17 January 2018]. Sahota, D., 2013. Du signs project management agreement with Huawei. [Online] Available at: https://telecoms.com/136912/du-signs-project-management-agreement-with-huawei/ [Accessed 12 January 2018]. Thompson, N., 2013. Why Steve Ballmer Failed. [Online] Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-steve-ballmer-failed [Accessed 17 January 2018]. Toms, J.P., 2015. Du and Huawei work on advanced mobile networks for the UAE. [Online] Available at: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20150706/europe/huawei-du-advanced-mobile-uae-tag23 [Accessed 12 January 2018].