Brief Description of the Company’s Status
Avon is a company that was initially founded as book distributing company. To promote its sales, the company offered free perfume to its sales as a way of encouraging them to make more purchases. However, David H. McConnell, the company founder realized that customers were more interested in the perfume as compared to the books. This resulted to the first major change in the company where the company shifted from a book distribution company to a cosmetic company. Avon experienced exponential growth and by 2005, the company had developed into an international company worth $8 billion. The company revenue growth rate was at 10% and its operational profit was at 25%. The company operated in 40 nations and generated 70% of its total revenue from its foreign investments. However, between 2005 and 2006 the company experienced a decline in its operational profits and flattening of the revenue. The situation was quite alarming such that something needed to be done to safe the situation and to restore the company’s efficiency. Evaluation of the situation revealed that the company had out grown its talent and infrastructure and this needed to be fixed (Effron, n.d.).
The Model of Change Theory
The company can be said to have adapted is LaMarsh management change model. The model contains four major stages that include identifying the change, preparing and planning the change, change implementation, and finally, sustaining the change (LaMarsh, 2014). This model is selected due to its great relation with the steps adopted by the Avon Company to implement the organization change. After realizing that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, the company management team evaluated the situation and identified the changes that needed to be implemented. The major changes that were identified included shifting from regional to matrix structure, delayering, substantial investment in executive talent, and development of new capabilities. This was the company’s first step toward change, a step that matches the LaMarsh initial step to change of identifying the changes that need to be made.
The company then focused on planning on how the organization can manage to move from where they are to the anticipated position. This started by focusing more on the issue that were challenging the company which included talents and resources. In preparation for change, the company change management team critically analyzed the issue of talent, identifying the present content or characteristics of talent. The team established six major weaknesses with the organization present talents which were identified as opaque, egalitarian, complex, episodic, meaningless and emotional. The team was also able to develop its talent based on two guiding principle that included differentiates on how and execute on the what. All this was part of planning and preparing for the anticipated changes and this happens as the second stage of the organization process of change (Kenneth & Anthony, 2005). This matches the LaMarsh second stage of change that involves engaging in planning and preparing for the change process.
In the next stage, embarked on the change process where it anticipated basically changing the talent six identified weaknesses into organization strength. The change processed focused on transforming the opaque talent weakness into transparent strength. The process involves the elimination of the 360-degree process of assessment which was not transparent into a broad-based transparency that involved well defined stages for instance plans for career development, courses development and performance review where a defined performance scale is employed. The complex talent process aspect was simplified where by the simple process was defined in all possible section by identifying answers to three question which produced different answers based on the process in which they were applied in. The tree questions concerns the most essential way the business can attain by employing the talent process, the simplest way possible to attain the benefit and the talent ability to enhance managers’ decision making process (Kenneth & Anthony, 2005). A change process will also be employed to shift from egalitarian to differentiated leadership. This change was enhanced by communicating the change to the leadership teams. The company invested in the best identified leaders in the team. Best leaders were selected based on the performance scale. There was also the transformation of talent process from episodic to discipline where a steady global processes and tools were employed. Other strategies employed in this case include adding management structure of talent at the global level, ensuring that the organization has a dedicated CEO who supports effective processes of talent development and management. The talent process was also modified from emotional to factual a process that was enhanced through adding qualitative facts, as well as adding quantitative facts. The last change involved transforming meaningless to consequential where the change management enhanced monetary accountability, CEO-led accountability, and associate-led accountability. The change implementation process in the organization followed the planning and preparation stage, just as defined by the LaMarsh model. In addition, the company clearly describes the processes that will be involved to enhance the anticipated change just as it is anticipated in the implementation of the LaMarsh model of change.
The Avon Company change implementation process is followed by measures employed to assess the success of the implemented changes (Effron, n.d.). This was done by performing management rating survey, checking on the workers job satisfaction and involvement in defining new performance strategies, and finally, by evaluating the financial performance of Avon Company. This process plays a great role in change maintenance since various processes may be adjusted to better the success outcome while others are maintained under a close monitoring level to ensure that the change has been maintained and its results enjoyed throughout the company’s life. This stage is similar to the LaMarsh model final stage of change which is ensuring change sustainability. This involves close monitoring and adjustment where necessary to maximize the change outcomes. In this regard, it can be concluded that the company employed change into four stages that matches the LaMarsh change model and thus it is the best model that can be used to model Avon company new changes.
Types of Evaluation Information
The Avon change process involved a number of information evaluation which included the current state of talent process in the company. The evaluation resulted to the identification of six talent processes weaknesses that are listed in the section above. This information was used to identify ways in which the company can change its talent process to develop new processes that will strengthen the talent process and promote efficiency. More survey, research both qualitative and quantitative research were done during the change process to establish the effectiveness of a certain path or to establish how efficient certain measure can be. The first evaluation in the change process was the assessment of Avon 360 process which gave a clear reflection of the organization transparency. This assisted in defining a new system that solved the transparency issues in the initial process. The second evaluation happened while conducting a survey on the efficiency of a talent in different sections of the company in the global level. This evaluation was done to satisfy that the selected talent will be of great benefit to the company. Basically, all effort employed in information evaluation aimed at establishing the problems in one procedure and the effectiveness of the alternative procedure. This evaluation was also enhanced after change implementation with intention of establishing the efficiency and success of change. This is done by evaluating the organization’s financial performance and also by evaluating individuals feedback based on the management efficiency (Todnem, 2005).
Speculation about Success
The organization has employed new measures to enhance the organization performance. Based on the provided information, the manger rating had increased by 17%, directors rated their immediate manager at 90% and workers efficiency rating had increased by 16%. This is a clear indication that the company was experiencing the positive impact of change. With this result, it is anticipated that the company will record revenue of $11 billion in 2009 which is 3 years after the implementation of change. Using this growth trend and assuming constant growth, the company will be anticipated to record revenue of $13 billion after five years. In case the company fails to meet its anticipated growth, the change team should re-evaluate the new talent process and establishes the section that still has a problem. A new measure should be defined based on its efficiency. Alternatively, the change management team should consider reevaluating the entire company operation process to establish any new barrier to the company’s success where new measures will be employed based on the evaluation results (Goldsmith, 2006).
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