Change Management in Toyota-Free-Samples for Students-Myassignment

Question: Discuss about the Change management in Toyota. Answer: Introduction The purpose of this report is to highlight the recent changes in the organizational structure of Toyota Motors Corporation (TMC). The directors of the business organization wants to modify the structure of the organization in order to improve the decision making, to strengthen the oversight of the management and to give a necessary boost to the rate of innovation to the business organization (corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com, 2017). This report highlights all the relevant aspects of the organization and demonstrates how the business corporation is going through the structural change to achieve the newly set targets or objectives. Organizational changes The management of Toyota Motor Corporation wants to alter the structure of the organization so that the employees can achieve the newly set target by the management and the organization can improve in sectors like decision making, management oversight and unique innovations (Hayes, 2014). In order to promote the organizations target of making better than ever cars by incessantly continuing the development of the general workforce. The business corporation has already made some significant changes in its structure to make sure that the organization becomes a product based company rather being a function based corporation. The management of the business corporation wants to make these necessary changes so that they can sustain the growth and development of the organization. The board of directors have realized the fact that while facing two significant challenges if the board members does not make necessary changes in the organizational structure, it would become impossible to sustain the growth of the organization (Kubiske et al., 2015). The primary challenge for the organization is to decide how to train and develop the workforce so that the employees can make quick and accurate decisions for the best interests of the organization. This aspect is immensely important as to come out from the issues that the organization is presently facing, it would require strong decision making skills employees with higher level of efficiency (Cummings Worley, 2014). It can be said in this context that change is necessary for sustenance and the change management is all about transforming and modifying the business o rganizations to sustain the effectiveness, productivity along with profitability. Change management is vital for the business corporations whose objective is to achieve and sustain success rate in complex, uncertain and ambiguous environment. The change management can be referred to as a major source of the competitive advantage (Doppelt, 2017). If a business organization is able to adapt to the market changes and modify them accordingly, they would surely be achieving more success and they will be having competitive advantage against the rival organizations. Change management model followed by Toyota It has been observed that change is a common factor that is present in all the business corporations irrespective of the industry, size and age of the organization. It is seen that, for long time sustenance, adapting to the changes is vital (Samuel, Found Williams, 2015). The notion of change management is familiar to most of the business organizations nowadays and the growth and development of the business organizations immensely depend on their rate of adaptation to the changes. It is seen that the management of Toyota Motor Corporation has chosen Kurt Lewins 3 stage model of changes for their organizational change. To get to the bottom of the model prescribed by Lewin, it would be easier to explain the model with a real life example. In this regard it can be said that if someone has a cube of ice and h wants a cone of ice instead, he will be needing to melt the ice first and then mold the ice into the shape of a cone and then refreeze it (Hayes, 2014). Figure: ice cube changing to a conical shape (Source: Cummings, Bridgman Brown, 2016) It is observed that this change has a process with three distinguishable stages. In this regard, it should be mentioned that to initiate any process of change, the individuals should understand the reason for the change. First stage (Unfreeze) According to the model of Lewin, the initial stage of the changing process includes the preparation of the management of the organization to accept the fact that change has become necessary and that includes breaching the present status quo before building a new way of operation. Developing a compelling message is the key that demonstrates why the existing structure of the organization is failing and why changes is needed in the organizational structure. The reasons can be like decreasing figures in sales, below average satisfaction level of the customers or poor financial reports and many more. The changes should take place at the core of the organizational structure (Doppelt, 2017). The existing values, beliefs and the attitude of the organization need to be challenged and the management must have adequate preparation to change the foundations of the organization that is present. The initial stage of the process is stressful, as the management of the organization needs to destroy the ways of operation and also putting every aspect of the organization off balance. In this way, the actions of the management can evoke strong reactions from the stakeholders of the organization and that is essential for the process (corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com, 2018). Second stage (Change) After creating the phase of uncertainty in the previous unfreeze; phase, in this stage, the management should initiate to resolve the issues of uncertainty and search for new ways to accomplishing targets. In this phase, the workforce starts to regain their trust and act accordingly to support the organizational changes. The transition from unfreeze state to this phase does not occur suddenly and the workforce needs time to get used to with the changes in the organization (Hayes, 2014). To make the process successful, the people needs to understand the fact that how these changes will benefit the organization as well as the employees as it is necessary for them to know. In this regard, it should be mentioned that the process of change might harm some of the stakeholders of the organization but will benefit the organization and most of the external and internal stakeholders of the organization. It has been observed, that communication and time are the two vital aspects of the changes that takes place in the organizational structure. While managing a changing process, the management has to go through a lot of odd situations and to resolve the issues; it would require immense effort and time. Final stage (Refreeze) When the changes in the organization takes shape and the internal and external stakeholders adapt to the changes, it can be said that the business organization is ready for the final stage; Refreeze phase. This phase needs to help the individuals along with the organization in order to institutionalize or internalize the changes (Cummings, Bridgman Brown, 2016). This depicts that the changes are used at the every possible sectors and they are also included into the regular business operations. In this way the organization gets its stable form slowly and the workforce starts to give production with much more confidence and loyalty towards the organization and the metamorphosis gets completed. Changes in Toyota Motors Corporation After implementing the changes in the organizational structure of Toyota motors, some significant strategic changes has been observed and those are mentioned in this section: Quality management To increase the quality of the cars, the management of the organization uses TPS (Toyota Production System), as quality is one of the most important areas that can determine the success of the business organization (Doppelt, 2017). Design and services The management of the organization wants to improve the designs of the cars and the services of the organization by technological advancements as that can potentially attract more customers helping the organization to thrive in odd situations (Suh, 2017). Supply chain management The Toyota Motors generally use lean manufacturing for the supply chain management and the management of the organization use automation system for real life adjustments in the activity of supply chain management (Samuel, Found Williams, 2015). In this process, the organization diminishes the bullwhip effect in the supply chain. Inventory management To address the strategic decisions in the operational management, the organization tries to diminish the inventory level through just-in-time inventory management. The objective is to lower the size of the inventory and the corresponding cost. The change models: The 7S model: The McKinsey 7S model is a model to manage change in organizations which helps in improving the performance of the company. The model examines the likely impacts of future changes, aligns the departments and their modes of operations towards embracing the changes and finally determines the best procedure to implement the changes. The multinational companies like Toyota can use this model which takes into account strategies, structure, system, shared values, skills, styles and staffs (Hayes, 2014). This means that the company must judge factors like its current organizational value, structure and quality of the present human resources. Thus it can also plan to bring about changes in them so that it can embrace the organizational changes to make its decision making more dynamic. Figure 1. The 7S model (Source: Suh, 2017) The star model: The next change model which multinational companies like Toyota undergoing changes in their decision-making structure can adopt is the star model. The model would first take into account the strategies which are directing the changes within the organization like the need to make decision-making more dynamic. The second step is to consider whether the structure of the organization is eligible to support the change followed by an analysis of the process that would come into play to materialize the changes (Suzuki et al., 2017). Then the apex management considers the positive rewards or outcomes which the change would bring about on the people of the organization, the fifth component of the model. Figure 2. The star model (Source: Doppelt, 2017) The congruence model: The congruence model takes into account how a company processes information it gains from the internal and external sources. The model to make organizational changes more dynamic breaks down to the whole process into parts. Then it considers how the people of the organization, culture and formal organization coordinate with each other to bring about the changes (Samuel, Found Williams, 2015). Figure 3. Congruence model (Source: Samuel, Found Williams, 2015) The Burke Litwin model Burke Litwin change model takes into account the twelve factors namely, external environment, mission and strategy, leadership, management practices, work unit climate, tasks and skills, organizational culture, structure, systems, individual values and needs, motivation and individual and overall performance. The model assumes that multinational companies like Toyota come under strong influences of external environment which in turn impact the other elements like structure and processes. The model is efficient because it takes into those external factors of change force the internal factors of multinational organizations like Toyota to change. For example, increasing international competition requires Toyota to make its decision making more dynamic which requires it to change its entire decision making structure (Topel, 2018). Four frame model: The four frame model is especially appropriate for companies like Toyota which continuously bring about innovations in their operations, business models and organizational structures. The model takes into account four attributes of organizations namely, structural frame, human resource frame, political frame and symbolic frame (Hayes, 2014). Figure 4. Four framework model (Source: Suh, 2017) Case studies The following case study describes about the recent changes of the Toyota Companys Information Technology processes. Toyota has invested on 1Tech process for engineering expertise. 1Tech is one of the most successful as well as innovative companies of the world. Toyota has made this smart investment in order to integrate as well as improve their Information Technology processes. In addition to this, this investment has helped the company in transferring the skills to the information systems community of Toyota (Yamaguchi, 2017). The company has in turn, developed their collective procedure as well as standards by the help of their Information Systems department, which is also referred as Information Systems Methodology. This change has proved to be highly beneficial for the company itself. In addition to this, the company has also taken initiatives in managing both the business processes as well as software development cycle that governs it (Koopman, 2014). Furthermore, in Japan, the companys plants as well as those of the suppliers have been clustered near the Toyota City. The suppliers who were located at the greater distance have also been situated to the narrow corridor of delivery. Therefore, in the country of Japan, the suppliers made quite frequent as well as small batch deliveries along with the orders shipped from the individual suppliers. For frequently used and large parts, the trucks hauled the supplies directly between the consumers and the suppliers. For less frequently used and smaller parts, the trucks usually followed the looped routes and made quick as well as frequent stops before delivering the orders to the companys plants. One of the greatest advantages of localization is the closer relationships as it helps in facilitating the collaborative problem solving scenarios. In addition to this, the joint problem solving approach can also help in mitigating the overall impact of the unexpected disasters or crisis (Suh, 20 17). Executive Lineup: Toyota Group must adopt executive lineup strategy to acquire talented employees both within and outside the group. The aim of the organizational change within the group is to streamline decision making. According to this management decision, it can be stated that executive lineup would allow the group to bring new talented employees onboard who would be able to take more appropriate decisions to counteract the losses the company has suffered due to delayed or wrong decisions (Doppelt, 2017). The system of executive lineup would stand on the principles of appointing right people for right positions and stronger diversity management like employees more female and non-Japanese employees in higher posts. Executive positioning: The strategy of executive positioning would result in positioning of chairmen and presidents of the different business divisions of Toyota Group in more decision making positions to help the president and executive vice presidents. This significant organizational change would enable the chairpersons to supervise strategic areas of business of the Toyota Group more closely thus looking into customers needs better and ensuring their satisfaction. These strategies would encourage more active role in the management of the group. The experts executives are to be given the title of fellow and this would encourage more executive development. This conferring of titles would be given in January to align the process with the organizational changes (Koopman, 2014). The apex management would supervise this executive empowerment initiative to ensure strong next generation strategic human resources aligned with the organizational change (streamlining of decision making mechanism at Toyota Group). The corporate management divisions and business planning and operations are to be restructured as far as the persons holding those positions are concerned. The lengthy corporate strategy function which used to take decisions earlier would be reduced to in line with the executive positioning. Even the corporate strategy dvisions and the strategic top executive meeting offices are to be restructured. The organizational entities like overseas divisions of the Toyota Group are to revamped to align the to the new decision making vehicle (Suh, 2017). The Japan Sales Business Group would be categorized as per markets to enable decisions taking tailor-made for specific markets. The Toyota Production System (TPS) Group is to be newly restructured. These two strategies namely executive positioning and executive lineup would consolidate the strength of the Toyota Group which would boost its productivity in every business aspects. This would help in promoting the Toyota Production System in the entire automobile industry (Koopman, 2014). Conclusion Thus to conclude, it can be said that the business organization recently has gone through a changing process and that is for the best interest of the organization and all of its external and internal stakeholders. 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