Managing changes in the British Airways organization

This report is the part of assessment of the managing changes in organisation and on-going research and opportunities available for the different changes in the strategies. For this assessment I have chosen the British Airways as my organisation for the foreseen of the management of the organisational changes and how they can be effectively implemented in an organisation. This report covers all the key aspects for the implementation of the changes within as organisation and also suggests some implications for their successful running.

“Good organisation structure does not by itself produce good performance. But a poor organisation structure makes good performance impossible, no matter how good the individual managers may be”. (Drucker in Mullins (2005) p597)

Task 1:

Explore the background to change affecting the current organisation

Discuss the background to change that exists in today’s economy that motivated your organisation to consider Change.

INTRODUCTION

In today’s era we are lining in the organisational world and this world is tending to be change continuously. Organisations in the society are the most important part as they serve many vital and necessary needs and demands of the society and even individuals.

NEED FOR ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Changes are mostly taken as the fears and uneasiness of the unknown. The changes of organisation within a firm or company are subjected to activate by the need and necessity to respond over the fresh opportunities, innovative type of challenges and the responses to the government laws and regulations. There are the external forces that bring the changes are effected by the various factors like innovative technologies, policies, structure of taxes, legislation policies and coming opportunities with different market forces.

Organisational changes for the sectors of private area are vital as there is pressure from the different environments over them. There are some kinds of pressures that are due to the changes in the patterns of the work and referred to the place of work or workforce, customers’ needs and their conflicts regarding the services and products provided to them.

So, here in this competitive environment only those organisations can be successful that are adapted to the changes and accept the changes. They must be able to change themselves according to the environment otherwise they would be unsuccessful in future. They then have the risk to takeover and become stagnant. In order to change or adapt they must be clear to define the following in accordance to the changing environment.

The nature of any kind of change proposed

The origin for the need of changes.

According to the Decent Home Standards set by the Government in July 2000 “ensure that all social housing meets set standards of decency by 2010, by reducing the number of households in social housing that does not meet these standards by a third between 2001 and 2004, with most of the improvement taking place in the most deprived local authority areas”

“http://www.bankofgoodpractice.org/contentmanagement/documents/pdfhtmlfiles/FD7DF6AA-20ED-3428-8A3B720FC2698940.htm”

Introduction to the company British airways and reason for the implementation of changes

British airways

BA is well known and UK’s biggest airline at international level. This airway used to carry a huge number of passengers from the various countries and at the international level. This company is not only recognised in UK as well as in the world as the biggest airline. The destinations covered by this airline to the worldwide routes are 550 around across the world globe.

British Airways is the world’s biggest international airline, carrying a vast number of passengers from various countries to another. Also the company is one of most recognised airlines in the world. British Airways’ worldwide route network covers around 550 destinations across the globe. This company has mainly two bases in the London one it Heathrow airport terminals and the other one is Gatwick airport terminal. No doubt that BA is recognised as the largest international services in airlines though it has to face the high competition with its rival US as they tend to pick and drop the more passengers at the domestic level flights. Some time it has to be struggling to keep ahead in the competition. Following entitled some of the problems which have to be faced by the BA.

Problems faced by BA:

“British Airways have faced threats and due to the long standing arguments with its unions, as well as a possible expensive strike ahead, as the organisation has cut thousands of jobs as a part of its restructuring programme”.

“British Airways are currently struggling with staff shortages as the level of absenteeism for the company’s employees are high above the average and unacceptable figures for the industry”.

“Employees are said to be unmotivated and morale is low, as increase in pay is low and the restructuring of the company have led to 13000 job losses, the reason being the decline of the economy i.e. some ticket prices lowered to attract consumers, thus decreasing staff bonuses, salaries, redundancies etc., or some prices increased due to maintenance, travelling cost”.

“Failures with BA’s £4.3 billion Terminal 5 (Heathrow) at launching stage, BA blamed the glitches on problems with “staff familiarisation”, which had a knock-on effect on bags and flights. Technical difficulties also meant major delays in reclaiming luggage, flight cancellations, and suspension of check in service.”

“Anti-airport expansion groups holding protests. This is because these groups are concerned with the level of pollution and harm already caused to the environment”.

Factors responsible for change in BA:

The problems that are outline above are basically due to the internal influences. However, here it is very necessary to remember that there are different environmental factors that have their influence over the strategies of the British airways and even their image, structure and means of operating. As the high-quality process for delineation of the political, social, cultural economical and technical factors usually affect the changes in the organisations in the form of pest analysis for the British airways and illustrate these factors and how they intend to change in the environment.

Political factors

Upsurges in the prices of the fuel that will drive up expenditures of flying an airplane.

Firmer EU rules and regulations related to the noise pollution have affect over the airlines.

As there is involvement of Britain in the difficulties in the areas of Eastern nations and Iraq results in the unwilling to go with the organisation.

Preferences of Britain regarding not to introduce the Euro has resulted in the decline in the percentage of the travellers to UK.

Economic factors

Due to increase in the rates of interest there is great impact over the customers and they intend to save their money. They don’t want to spend their money and this brings the reduction in the demand of holiday flights.

Also there is increase in the taxes of and the flights become expensive.

Socio-cultural factors

At the instant it is very popular to travel out of the country, nevertheless attitude and taste of the customers changes very quickly.

“Threats of terrorist attack may reduce people’s desire to fly i.e. 9/11 New York, USA”

Due to the insecurity and increase in the number of airline crashes there is decrease in the percentage of the passengers travel through the airlines.

Most of the British airways flights are non-smoking and stop the smoking passengers to choose these airlines.

Technological factors

Technology is proceeding in culture so quickly that in the coming future travelling by aeroplane may not necessary or flat outdate.

British Airways clienteles are gradually discontinuing the usage of phones to reserve their travel documents or tickets.

Having looked at the PEST analysis, it is clear that there is a large threat of the luxury airlines to the British Airways. For this there must be go with the opting the strategic management changes and marketing sources available and to follow up the promotional activities for the BA.

Theoretically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of bureaucratic organizations

SWOT ANALYSIS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS

SWOT analysis is very useful tool for analysing the changes and the position of the company. It makes the company to be aware of the powers and weakness of the company with the opportunities and threats for the market. It is an assessment procedure for the company to find its strengths, and weaknesses and compared these with the opportunities and threats that can be faced in the competitive market (Fry et al, 2004). The strength of the organisation as well the weakness is related to the past and present, and is taken as the internally controlled factors within an organisation. On the contrary the threats and opportunities are related to point out the present and future of the organisation and for the taking of more outward looking for the developments (Brassington and Pettitt, 2003).

STRENGTHS

The skills, resources and other kind of advantages of a company are defined as the strength of an organisation relative to its competitors in the market (Griffin, 2002). Accordingly the strengths of organisation British Airways (www.britishairways.co.uk) can be as follow:

“it continues to dominate London’s major airports”

“it contains the latest check-in technology”

“it’s communication between managers and staff is very good”

“It is still being perceived as the national airline.”

WEAKNESSES

Weakness as the name implies are the deficiencies or drawbacks or we can say that shortcoming of the resources, skills and other kind of factors that create hindrance to get the competitive advantage form the market (Griffin, 2002). Accordingly the drawbacks and weaknesses of the British Airways (www.britishairways.co.uk) are as follow:-

It contains of great labour numbers, particularly in the United Kingdom;

It has a dragging back aptitude.

4.1.3 OPPORTUNITIES

The opportunities obtain data about economic, financial, political, legal, social and competitive changes in various markets the firm serves or might want to serve (Griffin, 2002). The opportunities of British Airways (www.britishairways.co.uk) could be that:-

Expedition in the economic segment of the organization.

Perception of the airlines as the national airlines.

THREATS

The threats of an organisation are defined as the “shrinking markets, increased competition, and the potential for new government regulations, political instability in key markets and the development of new technologies that could make the firm product lines obsolete” (Griffin, 2002). Accordingly the threats for the organisation British Airways are as follow (www.britishairways.co.uk)

‘It has ferocious opposition from low fare airlines e.g. Easy Jet’

‘Its economy is on downturn;’

‘Its companies are investing largely in order to improve their services;’

‘Its technology offers a short-term advantage’

Task 2:

Develop systems for understanding and involving others in the process of change

Identify the key Stakeholders in your organisation and Develop systems to involve those stakeholders in the introduction of change.

Stakeholders

Every organisation needs the change so that they can satisfy their customers, because the view of altogether of the stakeholders is the important to define the success of the organisation. British Airways wants to comprehend its stakeholders (customers, opinion leaders and employees) for the better to inform the various decisions to be taken. Consequently, detailed and systematic dimension of measurement and research are basically placed to give the important information.

Following are the main stakeholders in the organisation to bring the changes and influence the process of the organisation.

Customers

Shareholders

Government

Employees

Community

The brief explanation of these stakeholders is as follow for the better understanding of their role:

Customers:

The customers are the key factor for the organisation and there must be changes according to the needs and desires of the customers. Customer satisfaction is very important as the satisfied customers become loyal and retained for the long time with the organisation by keep in mind the need and expectations of the customers there must be implementation of the changes within an organisation. This is mandatory for the organisation to be ahead in the completion. Here it is also found that it is easy to keep the existing customer while trying to attract the new customers even these loyal customers attend to bring more customer as they go through the word to mouth procedure and if they are happy and satisfied they will promote the culture of organisation and that will be result in the more customers, so there must be strategies and change by having the customers in mind first. The monitoring of the feedback on the key stages of flights is usually followed each month. They monitor customer’s feedback on key stages of their flights each month, using a sample of passengers seated in particular positions throughout the aircraft.

Shareholders:

The shareholders are also very crucial for the organisation as they are the investors and sources of finance for the organisation. The change must happen in the organisation have greater influences over them as they have their investment in the company.so the changes are usually subjected to the shareholders.

Employees:

Employees are very important for an organisation. As they provide the interface between the services and the customers. The position of the organisation has affect over the employees if they would not happy how they can provide the good services to customers and

Community: the community within an organisation includes the working environment with the managers from other countries, employees and to the relevant community and also refer to the organisation that are non-government that enable to manage the processes at the local level and fro bringing up the changes for the substantial advantages for the concerned communities, British Airways is devoted to actuality a good fellow, apprehensive for the community and surroundings. They repeatedly endeavour to develop the social and environmentally friendly presentation, by the objective of guaranteeing that the actions add to the supportable development of the communities in which company perform their function.

The government: “Her Majesty’s Prison Service (‘the Service’) is part of the wider Home Office. Since 1993, the Service has been an Executive Agency of the Home Office and that remains the case. Since June 2004, the Service has also been part of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). NOMS is a huge enterprise spanning several organizations and around 70,000 staff.”

Analyse and evaluate these systems which you had used to involve the key stakeholder in change process.

Change process

There is a substantial arguments related to the most suitable process of change for the organisation being having a wide range of literature present in the writings regarding management of change and even there are many tools and instruments for the implication of the changes into the management. But subsequently change is a domineering for all the organisations in order to sustain in this competitive environment organisation to sustain in a competitive environment, the organisation follow up the planned approach for the changes management in the organisational environment. At first Kurt Lewin has coined this term for the distinguishing the changes that was consciously boarded upon and scheduled by an organisation. (Burnes 2000, p.264) “The planned approach to change is most closely associated with the practice of Organisation Development (OD) and indeed lies at its core.”

There are some apparent values that emerged as given as follow (Hurley et al 1992)

“Empowering employees to act”

“Creating openness in communications”

“Facilitating ownership of the change process and its outcomes”

“The promotion of a culture of collaboration”

“The promotion of continuous learning”(Burnes 2000, p.265)

These are those values that are incorporated in the British Airways and needs to incorporate into the cultural change for the successful implementation of the foster of the new culture in the organisation.

Task 3:

Plan to implement models for ensuring on going change

Identify number of appropriate models for change that suites your organisation.

Models for the changes in British Airways

At present the BA is following that enable changes for the long term advantages in the organisation. These models are followed in the three steps as follow:

Lewin’s 3 Step-Model:

1. Unfreezing:

“This generally entails reducing those current practices and cultural norms that maintain the organisation’s behaviour”. It is likely to taken as the “shake-up” stage for subdivisions related in the management of the organisational changes. The processes of BA consist of the following:

Decrease in quantity of stages in the organisational order.

Economizing of workforce of the British Airways.

Start of improved programs for the training for the staff, so that they become able to avoid such type of situations in order to avoid such situations, so that the employees do not have to face the problems with the new technologies i.e. Terminal 5 incident.

Modifications in the structures and systems of the British Airways.

Amendment in the budgeting process.

2. Moving to a new level

This contains the actions taken by the British Airways regarding the results of the above step. In this process first there is analyse of the situation and then possible measures are taken to solve that particular problem and to implement the changes by choosing the most appropriate way and path for the action to be taken. After that there is selection of necessary move taken regarding the changes to implement. This step helps to make sure that “the new ways are not done for just a short period, and staffs are not reverting back to the old ways”, subsequently the following tasks are carried out by BA:

3. Refreezing

This is the last step of the model and this relates to stabilising the changes in the organisation. From this step it comes to make sure about the appropriateness of new methods that working safely and in an effective way. This phase does by completely supportive and strengthening the new ways of effort, like system of rewards induction and recruitment and even the strengthening of the culture for the British Airways.

Furthermore other big changes that BA has implemented in its organisation are it’s high-level of Information Technology (I.T). This is becuase information systems and managemenet plays a key role in the airline industry. I.T supports almost every task in BA which most imporatntly underpins the delivery of quality service. Also BA have chosen to intergate better technolgy i.e. self check-in service, and more recently an underground lost baggage collection department, which is around a mile long and directly underneath the airport itself. This is is another path for success in uncertain times. By effectively applicating technology it will definately deliver BA’s objectives and goals. Additionally Information Management objectives regarding I.T in BA includes:

Supporting the development of the BA’s workforce, I.T and associates relations, so that it can deliver genuinely faultless customer service across their own route network and their associates.

Improve efficiency of operations and decrease costs as a result of standardised and simplified I.T.

Utilize BA’s capability and knowledge of the airline’s industry processes, in order to deliver the strategic systems, customer service, thus gaining recognition that will help the airline in the future.

There are other requirements that are needed for the changes in the British airways are to have outsourcing in the form of subcontracting, like production of the designs and work with another party. This has been used by the British Airways for their business at most for the core aspects of the business. The outsourcing is used to reduce the cost of the expenditures of the organisation.

In addition to this there is use of strong strategic alliances by the BA. This alliance includes the joining of “American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Lan Airlines, Malév, Qantas and Royal Jordanian”. By following this there is a range of opportunities for the cooperative solutions that are designed in order to provide a world that is seamless. Furthermore BA also involved in the implementing to spent the funds for the advertising of the organisation as it is going to support and sponsor the sports event that are going to be held in London i.e. “London Olympic 2012 under cultural and charitable activities (BACC scheme) around the world i.e. 2012 Olympics is proudly sponsored by BA”.

There are some other aims and objectives that have been set by the organisation in order to meet in the coming future are as follow:

“Encourage 10% of customers to offset their carbon on ba.com by 2012”

“Audit 100% of our strategic suppliers for ethical practices by 2012”

“75% of corporate customers use corporate responsibility as a decision criteria by 2010”

In adding there are some key issues of the environmental preservation to which the organisation is committed. These objectives are as follow:

“Zero waste to landfill in the UK by 2010”

“Reduce the average noise per flight by 15% by 2015”

“50% reduction in our net CO2 emissions by 2050”

“How would you go ahead in implementing one or more model(s) in your chosen organisation and what improvements do you expect to achieve by implementing your chosen model(s)”.

Implementing Change Models

“Planned Change – Change that involves actions based on a carefully thought-out process that anticipates future difficulties, threats and opportunities”

“Reactive Change – Change that occurs when one takes action in response to perceived problems, threats and opportunities”

(Management, Bartol & Martin, 1994, Page 208)

The management of the changes within an organisation in an effective way is taken as the core issue of the development of the organisation. In this there is involvement of the Lewin’s three phase model as discussed above.

Unfreezing – “recognition of the need for change and reducing the forces that maintain the current form”

Movement – “development of new attitudes or behaviour and implementation of change (new policies etc.)”

Refreezing – “stabilising change (are training, structures, new policies and procedures working?). Check, review and re-examine how changes are being implemented”.

Additional model implementation

Mobilising Change:

“Change is the drumbeat in any organisation”. It is unavoidable and that’s why it is very crucial for the achievement of the success for an organisation.

Demystify – “lack of clarity can create a ‘fog’ around your organisation’s purpose, position and philosophy”.

Think ‘outside in’ – “check the alignment to external environment and scrutinise capability to meet the demands of all stakeholders”.

Map the system – “study the leadership team to highlight interdependencies between teams and reveal where development may be required”.

Communicate and engage – “explain any change that is taking place. Do this in a way that engages stakeholders and is emotionally compelling, to provoke thoughts and action from your audience” (Inside Housing, Paul Oliver, Director, Conduco Consulting, Page 32, 9th December 2005).

Conclusion

Overall conclusion from the above report, we have looked into the various aspects of the British Airways’ management of changes, structure and performances and also discussed the processes in which these changes are transferred into the organisation. What’s additional through observing into the several conceivable methods to management change, I must remained able to summary change strategies that require and can be applied by the British Airways, for the effective implementations. However it has to consider here that if all plans for the implementation of changes running in a smooth way. In addition to all it is mandatory for the British Airways to effectively transfer their changes to the organisation so that there must be significant results. There are suggested some key areas in which there is need of investment for the BA are as follow:

• Development in the incentives and appraisal schemes etc.

• For managers and employees there should be provision of training.

• Different franchising actions.

• Outsourcing of the peripheral activities

References