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19 Strategies for corporate

transformation

Introduction

Any book dealing with change needs to address the issue of transformation. The
very nature of our organizations is being recreated. The command and control
mind-set has been reformulated, albeit not necessarily to empower people. Oddly
enough, while we increasingly seek to empower people with sufficient informa-
tion and flexibility to allow them to resolve issues locally, this combines with
other pressures in the opposite direction.
Supply chain pressures push the need for predictability in the process. Even a
small business can be affected. Thus a small firm supplying timber to a national
do-it-yourself chain such as Sainsbury Homebase (in the UK) or to manufacturers
of furniture for IKEA must deliver ‘right on time’ and ‘right first time’ – by which
is meant the right quantities of various sizes between, say, 8 and 9 p.m. on a set
delivery day later in the week in which the weekly order arrived electronically
over the previous weekend. Similarly structures based around the value-added
concepts explained in Chapter 7 are more ‘transparent’. There is no place to hide
in the value-added organization.
Alongside these new pressures has come a recognition that planned change

does not always deliver and that, in pursuit of rapid change and achieving shorter
time-to-market lead times, market mechanisms have a role to play in creating
more innovative and adaptable organizations. For many of the changes we need
it is more effective to achieve change through creating the conditions for adapt-
ability upfront. Increasingly, therefore, organizations seek to utilize ‘market-
induced’ change.

‘Market-induced’ change

In essence ‘market-induced’ change is an organizational change strategy relying
on ensuring that market pressures and changes are recognized early, and that
those close to the marketplace are also influential over product–service decision
making. Reuters is a good example.

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