“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor does the most intelligent that

survive. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change” Charles Darwin

Change is a vital part of life. We can easily notice change in our day today life. The
most common example is our clothing. In a span of 10 years, change in dressing sense
can be noticed. In 50 years, changes in speaking skills can be noticed. In the ever
changing world for businesses to survive, they must be friendly with the changes.
Many leading companies of early 19th century do not exist now and in most of the
case change is the main reason. Change can of many ways. It can be a modification in
the existing system. It can be a top up to the running system. It can also be a total
replacement to the present system. Older systems do not work now and they will
never work again. Maybe in early 18th century, Steam powered ship were the best but
now a day they are nowhere in the competition in front of nuclear powered ship. Same
goes with business strategies as well as technologies.

There are many reasons of introducing changes in an existing business. Very first of
them is competition. Due to revolution by information technology, now a day’s
consumers are much more aware than 20-30 years back. Due to rate of change of rules
in the business world the situation is such that only most adaptive organization can
survive. Cost reduction with maximum quality is the main focus of the production
houses. Technology is the revolutionizing the modern civilization. First computer was
introduced in mid 1950s. It was predicted then it will help in advanced computing but
with introduction on personal computers the whole scenario changed. Now due to cost
competition anyone can afford computer. There are customised software available for
kids aged 5 to people aged 60+, but the real IT revolution come with the introduction
of internet at the dawn of century. Now it is possible to have second to second updates
of stocks on you personal computer or you mobile phone. This helps brokers to make
better decisions.

Other than Competition and Information Technology, Innovation is also a major

factor responsible for introduction of change. Taking an example of production
industry, Lathe machines were said to be highly precise and hence all the machining
was done on these only. Before lathe machines all the machining processes were don’t
by hand but because lathe machines were fast and precise hence we opted those. Then
new machines like CNC (computer Numeric Control) were introduced in the market.
These machines have improved the preciseness of lathe machines. They are faster and
due to introduction of artificial intelligence, involvement of man is reduced. So the
companies who valued these machines are able to give better output in both quality
and quantity. Fourth and probably the most influencing factor responsible for change
is Law factor. People are more aware to their rights now. There are groups fighting
for nature and wild life protection. About a century earlier industries did not bother
about the disposal of waste. It was easy to clear a forest land to set up a plant. Now
scenario has changed. Due to awareness of people, Nature and wild life issues are
main election issues. Government has passes new laws. There is law mentioning the
minimum wages for workers. There is wild life protection acts. Industrial laws to
define the working conditions a company must have for its workers. There are
environmental laws to protect Mother Nature. Likewise there are numerous laws
introduced in last half of the century which have made change a must for survival of a
particular business. These rules and laws are ever changing. The best example is the
European emission standards (EURO). These standards are upgraded after particular
years. Now when European emission standards were introduced automobile
companies were producing vehicle within the emission standards then. Now as
European emission standards 5 have come to play, all vehicles with previous Euro
standards are out of market.

Change is no doubt one of the main issues in today’s business world but
implementing the change is equally important. There are examples where companies
spent millions to change their strategies, work environment, infrastructure and
technology but still results were not as expected. According to statistics from 1990 to
1996, 85% of United State based companies spent billion to implement some kind of
change but results were not as expected. 60% of them didn’t reach expected
productive target. In 80% of them work satisfaction actually decreased and about 68%
of them restructured themselves with in a year. The main reason for such failure was
failed coordination between management and employees. It was like saying same
thing suing some other set of words. So it is must to implement change at all levels of
the system to make it successful. (MANAGEMENT AND THEORY PRACTICE BY
G. A. COLE 6TH EDITION)
Changes once introduced have lots of effects on an organization. No doubt it also has
two faces. If it has good effects, there are also few bad effects too. The very first
effect of change is the empowerment of the existing workforce. Workforce can be
empowered by introducing new tools and technology. Now most of the jobs can be
replaced by automatic systems. No doubt man can be equally skilled as that of a
machine but when it comes of persistence, machines are always better. Man has lots
of physical factors. Our brain cannot work continuously with same pace. Our body
feels tiredness. In case of machine, there is no such drawback. They can work for
hours with same pace. The quality of the work will be same. Hence by empowering
the workforce, both quality and quantity of the output can be increased.

Change also helps in better decision making. In the past time most of the decision
making even in a large company was by a single person heading the highest chair.
Those decisions were by an individual for profit of an individual. Then democratic
system came into play. Every decision was made by the group of people. But the
question is: How decisions are made? What are the various factors effecting a
particular decision? Well there are lots of factors. The factors vary from problem to
problem and person to person. Taking an example of a pharmaceutical giant, A pill
which is best seller in USA can be banned in India. In Mcdonnell, they may use beef
in USA or Canada or in Europe but to survive in India they must strictly ban beef
from their range. Taking a much relevant example, a broker firm deals with selling
and buying of shares for its clients. The price of shares varies after every minute. The
price may vary because of decisions made in company, its new deals, new products
and its market reputation. Now for a broker to make decision about buying and selling
a particular share, all the information about the particular company is needed. Hence
if we implement latest IT technology, Latest information can be updated after every
second and hence it can improve the quality of decision.

Change can also help in resisting negative internal and external forces. This includes
the corruption in a particular organization. For instance, there are always employees
who are lazy and avoid work. Introduction of performance evaluation system can help
in tackling such problems. Change also gives opportunity to grow as change is often
to improve quality or quantity hence a particular company can give better competition
to its rivals. By introducing change in a system we can improve its approach to
problem solving. In older times most of the companies had linear structures. In those
cases many resources including work force were unused most of the times. But now
by introducing matrix system the percentage of unused resources can be decreased to
minimum. Hence change helps in making a system flexible.

There are so much advantages of introducing change in an old system. But the
problem comes up while implanting change in a system. To implement change,
company has to modify its structure, or may be introduce new structure; they will
introduce new technologies and machines to improve the quality and time saving. All
these things bring insecurity to the existing employees. Rumour often spread fast.
People will start thinking they are not made for new system and hence they ill not fit
in new system and will loose their jobs. Such conditions of change bring insecurity to
the person working in a particular system for years. So fear reduces the work output.
Both quality and quantity of the work will decrease. Existing workforce will try to
secure themselves. Resistance to change is a human habit. They will try to resist the
change. There are various methods opted by employees to resist the changes. Strike is
the most common of them. Such resistance can lead to many problems. Loss of work
time and loss of output is most common of them. This can cost company lots of
money. But the real problem is such resistances to change can lead to failure of the
implemented changes and hence can be a disaster to the company as company might
have invested millions to introduce the change. (MEGA CHANGE BY WILLIAM F.
JOYCE)

Indian postal services (Bhartiya dak seva) are the brand name of department of post of
government of India. This is the only government company providing mailing, parcel,
and money transfer services in India. Starting in 1764, it is one of the largest
government companies of India with more then 500000 employees and 150000 post
offices. Like postal services department of all other countries of the world, Bhartiya
dak seva also saw a drastic change in services and profit in the last decade of century.
Due to introduction of personal computer and easy availability of internet, more and
more people were going for email as it was free and instant. Whereas by post, it takes
few days to deliver letter. So after 1996, Bhartiya dak seva introduced computers in
all the post offices to improve the quality of work, save time and implement some
other services to cope up with the loss due to reduction of letter service. Now major
problem was that there were more than 500000 employees and most of them were
computer illiterate. When then news of introduction of computer came out. Most of
the employees got worried abut their jobs. This leads to drop in quality of work. The
unions called off country wide strikes. This happened for few weeks. This strike was
called off only after government took the responsibility that not even a single job will
be laid off. After this an intense training plan was introduced and no job was laid off.
This implementation was really hard but lead to great results. Company was able to
introduce IT based services like epayment, international money transfer etc.
(http://www.indiapost.gov.in/AnnualReport2007-08.htm)

There are lots of approaches available to overcome the resistance offered by

employees for changes. The very first approach is to involve employees in planning,
designing and implementing in stages of change strategy. Employees involved should
of various departments and various levels. For example, there should be one employee
from all the departments and one employee from all levels of chain of command. If
there is an employee from top management, there should be an employee from
workshop floor workers. This gives all the workshop workers a security. This leads to
a sense of faith in the new system. The other advantage is that only wearer knows
where the shoe pinches. This means only a worker can be aware of problems faced by
workers. This can help management better understand the problems of the workers
and to find better solutions to heir problems while introducing changes.

The worst part of change is SURPRISE factor. The truth is none like surprises and
especially when this surprise is about to change an old routine. The best way to
overcome this situation is to start communicating from the day one. Management
must communicate with workers about the changes they are about to introduce and
must spread up its advantages and usefulness to the employees. To make most of this
situation, top management should intact with the low level employees and should ask
for their suggestions. This can help a lot in restructuring as only an employee know
what is missing at his workplace. (MEGA CHANGE BY WILLIAM F. JOYCE)

There are often new individual who are die hard opponent to change. They often
become the one spreading rumours and brain washing other employees. This can
create bad impression of a change before its introduction. The best way out of such
resistance is to buy in those rival employees. Before even implementing, management
should start talking to such employees about the usefulness of the changes and how
these changes can help them as an individual. This may not help to totally remove the
resistance but for sure will prevent rumours form being spread. The best way to
implement a change is to club it with leadership. In every society, there are a few
influencing people called leaders. Management must find out such people. They can
influence fellow employees. If such people are good toward changes and are ready to
welcome them. It is more likely that their fellow employee will show less resistance
to the changes.

According to a recent study, most of the changes failed after they are implemented.
Human resists changes. We are used to do things in some particular way and want to
continue as they are. Even if some change has been made we tend to come back to our
old routine as soon as possible. This can be prevented by follow up the employees
after the changes have been implemented. Motivating them every now and then and
rewarding them for the improvement of quality of work.

It can be said the changes no matter how much technology oriented or employee
oriented, they need to be realistic. Change should be simple only then it can be
adopted. Complex changes have more probability to fail. After all resistance to
changes is a human characteristic. No matter change is in daily life or in business
world, there will always be resistance. This resistance can never be eliminated but can
be minimised only if management, employee and stock holder work together.
REFERENCE:
 MANAGEMENT AND THEORY PRACTICE BY G. A. COLE (6TH
EDITION)
 MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS IN CHANGING
CONTEXTS BY GRAEME MARTIN
 MEGA CHANGE BY WILLIAM F. JOYCE
 DESIGNING WORLD CLASS CORPORATE STRATEGIES BY KEITH
WARD, CLIFF BOWMAN AND ANDREW KAKABADSE.