Sears Case Study
Sears Case StudyBy: Manish AgarwalFor: Prof. Kara LombardiDate: 06/25/2012 |
Evolutionary or revolutionary? Sears needed a huge strategic and behavior change to transform the organization for profit making business i.e. employee-customer-profit model. One of the key objectives Sears identified was to improve customer experience via employee behavioral change. In order to leap from billions of dollars in loses to millions of dollars in profit in few years can only be described as a revolutionary change. But, looking back in history, no large organization has ever survived a change which was based on revolution due to the risks and unknowns involved, especially when organizations aimed to get results in few years i.e. in short period. After researching and reading various articles I come to the conclusion that Sears, keeping in view the objective, adopted a hybrid model i.e. the combination of revolutionary and evolutionary change. The overall change was revolutionary in nature but some of the components of this change could only be achieved via evolution like employee behavior change, which could only be achieved slowly by proving the new rolled out strategies. Human behavior can never be changed as a part of big bang approach, which was one of the key ingredients to achieve the objective. Sears organization change was not only about change in marketing strategy but also change in the logic and culture of the business. Sears identified TPIs (Total Performance Indicators) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Organizations have to visit and monitor these performance indicators and change the direction accordingly, which is an evolution of processes based on certain factors i.e. you react and adapt. Tracking of success from management behavior through employee attitude to customer satisfaction is an evolutionary process. Change in employee attitude cannot be driven through a mechanical formula, it is changed slowly making sure that the
Evolutionary or revolutionary? Sears needed a huge strategic and behavior change to transform the organization for profit making business i.e. employee-customer-profit model. One of the key objectives Sears identified was to improve customer experience via employee behavioral change. In order to leap from billions of dollars in loses to millions of dollars in profit in few years can only be described as a revolutionary change. But, looking back in history, no large organization has ever survived a change which was based on revolution due to the risks and unknowns involved, especially when organizations aimed to get results in few years i.e. in short period. After researching and reading various articles I come to the conclusion that Sears, keeping in view the objective, adopted a hybrid model i.e. the combination of revolutionary and evolutionary change. The overall change was revolutionary in nature but some of the components of this change could only be achieved via evolution like employee behavior change, which could only be achieved slowly by proving the new rolled out strategies. Human behavior can never be changed as a part of big bang approach, which was one of the key ingredients to achieve the objective. Sears organization change was not only about change in marketing strategy but also change in the logic and culture of the business. Sears identified TPIs (Total Performance Indicators) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Organizations have to visit and monitor these performance indicators and change the direction accordingly, which is an evolution of processes based on certain factors i.e. you react and adapt. Tracking of success from management behavior through employee attitude to customer satisfaction is an evolutionary process. Change in employee attitude cannot be driven through a mechanical formula, it is changed slowly making sure that the
References: Books Burke, W. W. (2011). Organization change: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Articles Rucci, A. J., Kirn, S. P., & Quinn, R. T. (1998). The employee-customer-profit chain at sears. Harvard Business Review, 76(1), 82-97.