Case Analysis of Sunflower Incorporated Essays

Case Analysis of Sunflower Incorporated Essays Case Analysis of Sunflower Incorporated Paper Case Analysis of Sunflower Incorporated Paper Sunflower Case Is a large distribution company that purchases and distributes salty snack foods and liquors throughout the united States and Canada. The company employs over 5,000 employees and has gross sales of over $700 million. The head office has encouraged each of its regions to operate separately in order to accommodate different tastes and preferences. When studied, it was determined that the profits across the regions varied widely and the decision was made that the process needed to be standardized in order to Increase profits, capture market share ND ensure quality remained at an acceptable level so not to tarnish the Image of Sunflower. This decision created the need to hire Agnes Lebanese as Director of Pricing and Purchasing to implement the planned change throughout the organization. The Four-step General Model of Planned Change was not properly followed in the proposed changes in the organization although portions of it were used. Mr.. Statesman, the President of Sunflower, did engage In entering and contracting when he hired Agnes Lebanese as Director of Pricing and Purchasing to Implement the planned change throughout the organization. Statesman felt that such standardization was necessary in order to avoid market loss and a decrease in quality-control due to the practice being employed in some regions to purchase lower-quality items including seconds in order to boost the profit margins. However, Statesman failed to carry out the next step In entering and contracting and while he defined the problem, he did not establish a collaborative environment and instead simply fired off memos and notified parties Involved through a company newsletter. In addition, Statesman as well as Mr.. Mobile, whom Lebanese reported to, gave Lebanese great latitude and encouraged her to establish whatever rules were necessary to carry out the changes. In this environment, neither Statesman nor Mobile established specific responsibilities that Lebanese was to carry out other than the goal of standardization. They failed to become Involved In the strategy set up by Lebanese. Lebanese was encouraged to gather as much Information from each region as possible so that she could understand the problems facing the organization, and she appeared to do so but on a very rushed timeline. Diagnosing, the second step in the Four-step General Model of Planned Change, was tempted by Lebanese as she was encouraged to gather as much information from each region as possible so that she could understand the problems facing the organization. Unfortunately, this task took place on such a rushed timeline that there was no way for Lebanese to take all of the factors Into account for each region. The change program that Lebanese wanted to implement may have been a step in the right direction toward standardization, but it did not accurately take into account several of the issues that the organization was also concerned about including low quality products. Lebanese only focused on increasing the profit margins. After only three weeks on the Job, Lebanese decided to institute a policy that pricing and purchasing echelons Decode standardize Ana to Deign tons step Tanat seen De notified of any change in local prices that exceeded a threshold of 3% or any purchases exceeding $5,000. Mobile agreed to the new policy and worked with Lebanese to submit a formal policy to the president and board of directors who ultimately approved the plan. One of Lebanese critical errors in the model of change was her decision to implement the new procedures right away which meant hey would be go into effect prior to the peak holiday season for Sunflower. In diagnosing what needed to happen, Lebanese should have realized that it would be impossible for the regions to undergo such standardization during a time when decisions and orders needed to be filled rapidly and without interruption. Also, the idea that such a low threshold of change required centralized approval was somewhat unrealistic without looking further into what is a reasonable amount of change expected in local prices. With low quality items becoming an issue, Lebanese addressed price only and did not appear to diagnose how to correct quality control. Statesman and Mobile should have provided more feedback and assisted Lebanese with the data as well as the implications of change within the organization in order to ensure she was in fact addressing the issues that needed to be corrected. The third step which is planning and implementing change also seemed to occur too quickly to be effective. Lebanese did not take the time to design interventions so that she would be able to achieve the organizations vision or goal of standardization. The goals were not clearly set so it would have been impossible to determine whether or not they have been reached. In addition, Lebanese needed to properly consider the culture and power distributions as well as skills and abilities of the change agents in place to properly put the change in motion during the peak season for the organization. The very nature of each region requiring separate items and contracts to cater to specific markets made the idea of centralizing all decisions difficult even under the best of change implementation. However, the idea to communicate the change through email while a good first step, needed follow up and direct communication planned and discussed with the change agents at each region. Mobile should not have signed off on Lebanese plan to implement such fundamental changes with the only communication being by email. In addition, he should have realized that execution of such an implementation could never take place on such a tight timeline. Properly planning and explaining the implementation process is a critical step in successful execution of any planned change within an organization and glossing over this step with nothing but an email left the entire plan ineffective. If the procedures proposed by Lebanese were so critical that they could not wait to be implemented until after the peak season, Lebanese should have ruefully planned out an implementation process that explained not only the new policies and procedures but encouraged buy in from each of the regions. Lebanese overlooked the importance of getting the region managers to buy in on the new process so that they would not only follow the procedures but also encourage their employees to do the same. Buy-in needs to be established from the top down in order to gain effective change. While the executives agreed with the email distributed by Lebanese, none of them actually followed the new guidelines and Lebanese did not receive any notices from the regions about local prices increasing. I en Tall step In ten process Is evaluating Ana Institutionalizing change tonguing the organization. Clearly, upon evaluation the change program was unsuccessful due to poor planning, implementation and execution. The changes were not continued and the organization continued with usual procedures followed for the particular time of year. Clearly, the plan needed to be modified and specific goals should have been set and agreed upon by not only upper management but by each region. Change is usually difficult but without proper planning and getting the right people on board even the best ideas can be difficult to execute. The strategy employed by Sunflower Incorporated management to plan and implement change was not successful because the change program itself was inadequate. The decision to hire Lebanese to oversee and manage the change program was good as clearly Sunflower needed to increase profits while standardizing procedures. Unfortunately, Lebanese was not given the proper support or direction to effectively manage the change program, and even when Mobile disagreed with Lebanese approach, he did not intervene and insist on a different plan of implementation. Lebanese came up short in her diagnosis of the issues at Sunflower, and her plan of implementation and execution was severely lacking. Communicating with regions through no other form than email is not going to develop the kind of relationship necessary to get buy-in from the regions to follow the newly established policies and procedures. In addition, there should have been one-on-one training explaining exactly what was expected of each region as well as how the change would help the organization to thrive and be successful going forward. Lebanese needed to develop relationships with key people to help communicate the message within the regions so everyone knew exactly how to implement the new policies. If travel was too expensive or time consuming, Lebanese could have provided webbing training where participants could ask questions and she could gain a better sense of the direction of the program. There also needed to be evaluation and feedback so that the change program could be properly measured and adjusted for optimum effectiveness. If I had been in Lebanese position, I would have met with key leaders at each region to discuss each step of the change management program and would have made sure those leaders had bought in to the new policies and procedures being proposed. Such a large change should never have been implemented in such a short time during peak season, and I would have spent those three months planning and garnering support for the program. I also would have developed talking points to help the regions get their employees on board so that they understand the change and how it could help prosper the organization as well as the regions individually. In addition, the quality control issue needed to be properly addressed and a strategy to ensure that all products being sold by Sunflower in fact met the standards and inferior ingredients ere not being used in order to boost profits. More research and planning needed to go into the change program in order for it to be successful. Once the program had been properly diagnosed and planned, careful and monitored implementation should have been executed and Lebanese should have remained in consistent contact with the leaders involved in the changes to the policies and procedures. Clear guidelines should have been set and updated as the change program was evaluated and institutionalized. Change is seldom easy but it becomes even more Doolittle wilt not proper planning Ana communication.