Managing and Leading Strategic Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Managing and Leading Strategic Change - Essay Example However, the increase of the market share of Microsoft, the major competitor of IBM, led to the limitation of the power of IBM in the global market. Accenture plc and Hewlett Packard are other important competitors of IBM (Yahoo Finance 2011). The strategic plans of IBM have changed many times in order to support the increase of the firm’s competitiveness towards its rivals. In 2003-2004 a major restructuring of the firm’s supply chain management framework took place, aiming to enforce the firm’s competitiveness the support the increase of its profits. The above plan is analytically reviewed in this paper, as explained above, aiming to show the ability of the firm to monitor its operations and identify its weaknesses. Also, the willingness of the firm’s employees to support radical organizational changes – in order for the firm’s performance to be stabilized, is critically evaluated. 2. Strategic change in IBM 2.1 Key change plans in IBM As n oted above, the strategic plans of IBM have been periodically changed in order to align the organizational practices with the market trends and the customer needs. The last effort of such type has been developed in 2009 – when the firm established ‘the Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO) consulting service line’ (Soejarto 2009). ... 2005) aiming to keep its market share – against the industry’s major competitors, especially Microsoft. However, the above initiative did not led to the expected benefits – in 1993, the losses of the firm were estimated to $8 billion (Meyer et al. 2005). In 2003 the firm’s strategic planners identified important failures in the organization’s supply chain management strategies; efforts were made for updating existing supply chain management practices. The Integrated supply chain (ISC) has been a scheme introduced for helping towards the elimination of delays in the firm’s operations – as these delays were related to failures in the existing supply chain management framework (Paton et al. 2006). The update of the particular sector of the organization lasted for 2 years, 2003 and 2004 and led to the introduction of an integrated plan for managing the supply chain relations in all their aspects. The above change plan contributed in the im provement of the firm’s supply chain management. However, certain implications were not avoided, a fact that led to the limitation of the plan’s benefits – as planned by the initiators of the particular project. 2.2 Implications of change initiated in IBM Despite the fact that change, as part of IBM’s strategic planning process, has been traditionally aligned with the organizational needs and the market conditions, still, the effectiveness of the relevant plans is rather limited – at least compared to the resources engaged and the preparation made for the particular initiatives. The reasons for the delays in the development of the organization’s performance need to be identified and evaluated; also, the potential failures in the plans of change, as promoted in the