Systems Management Problem: Cincom Company Operates in Essay

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Systems Management Problem:

Cincom Company operates in a flexible business environment that allows participating business enterprises and customers to be flexible. This flexibility translates into the ability of these businesses to choose the best software option from available options like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud option, and one or on-premise enterprise software. Generally, the availability of this software options and the flexibility of the business environment implies that Cincom Company can choose the type of software to implement based on its specific needs. However, the company is faced with numerous challenges including difficulty in implementing change, customer lock-in strategy, and lack of flexibility due to its particular organizational structure and culture. Actually, the major challenge for Cincom is the difficulty to adapt to and implement change that will reflect the new business environment it is operating in. This challenge is characterized with the CEO's approval of all products, pricing, sales, and services strategies. Moreover, Cincom's CEO is not necessary savvy with the latest technologies while the company has an organizational culture that does not encourage or approve change. Therefore, Cincom needs to develop a culture that encourages and approves change through examining different aspects of its organizational culture and factors that impede change.

Business Environment:

The first step to understanding aspects related to organizational culture and factors that impede organizational change is the evaluation of the global business environment that a company operates in. Yip & Hult (2012) provide an evaluation of how companies function in a global business environment where they argue that many companies lack a suitable strategy for operating in a global environment just like Cincom. Despite operating in a flexible environment, Cincom does not have an appropriate business strategy for the global framework because of having an old CEO who approves all strategies and is not accustomed with new technologies. In order to develop an appropriate and successful business strategy, managers must evaluate the globalization of forces for their industry and market and develop a strategy based on this analysis. In essence, an appropriate strategy involves the combination of standardization and local adaptation based on industry and market conditions (Yip & Hult, 2012, p.5). Cincom Company should develop a core business strategy rather than adopting all strategies and maintaining a customer lock-in approach. This process would involve identifying forces in its flexible business environment and the series of available software options.

Notably, the process of developing an appropriate business strategy would require aligning challenges of the market external to the company with its internal processes like product development, marketing, and pricing strategies. According to Yip & Hult (2012), these internal processes should be based upon the company's exploitation of its own competencies and resources. The external processes are market factors or forces that play a crucial role in promoting the success and profitability of the business and its ability to achieve its business objectives and goals. As part of developing its business strategy, Cincom Company should not adopt all strategies but evaluate each of them based on the external market forces and internal business processes.

Lindvall, Rus & Sachin (2003) provide a different aspect of analyzing the business environment and developing an appropriate strategy. They argue that this process requires knowledge management, which incorporates various aspects such as organizational, socio-cultural, and technological factors. The authors demonstrate that knowledge management is an important aspect of successful business strategy since human capital is a company's main asset whose knowledge should be preserved and leveraged from personal to company level. Through knowledge management across various aspects, the company will promote ongoing learning and improvement. Lindvall, Rus & Sachin (2003), analyze the importance of knowledge management from a technological perspective, especially available software systems that support various activities in knowledge management (p.137). Their use of the technological perspective is based on the belief that knowledge management is heavily dependent on technology.

Organizational Change:

Ford (1999) begin his evaluation of organizational change by providing an excellent definition of this concept and looking at social realities in organizations. He states that organizational change is precise examination and representation of reality and choosing and implementing interventions that are suitable for that reality (Ford, 1999, p.480). Ford proposes that organizational change should not be perceived from a structural-functionalist view where it is seen as a means of aligning the organization to certain objective reality. Organizational change should be regarded as a social construction through which the organization in understood and maintained based on reality constructed for it by people.

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This is primarily because organizations are networks constituted in and by conversations.

With regards to promoting organizational change, Ford (1999) states that the process involves shifting network of conversations by purposefully inventing and maintaining new conversations while completing and eliminating the existing conversations (p.496). Therefore, organizational change is a series of chronological and synchronized conversational episodes that are based on a specific theme. Ford's idea of promoting organizational change through shifting conversations is supported by Golden-Biddle, who argues that organizational change usually resemble Big Bang theory since it occurs on a large scale and usually in reaction to crisis. Golden-Biddle (2013) states that organizational change should not be carried out on a large scale since such approaches usually fail, promotes employee dissatisfaction, and generates mediocre solutions with minimal long-lasting impact. She proposes that the process should be based on continuous adoption and implementation of smaller-scale changes that provide a middle ground between large-scale transformation and small-scale projects that will enable the organization to function more effectively. This involves three major techniques i.e. work discovery (examining what is actually conducted), better practices (evaluating how work is conducted and generating new ideas), and test training (experimenting potentially better alternatives).

Cunning & Worley (2004) provides a different perspective of conducting a cultural change within an organization. Even though they do not state whether the change should be carried out on a large scale or tentative pilot projects, they provide an outline of what should be conducted as part of adopting and implementing organizational change. This process includes developing a clear vision for the change, including the top management in the process, ensuring commitment to the process, and modifying the organization to the extent its supports the change. Therefore, the process is undertaken across all levels in the organization because businesses operate in extremely competitive environments. However, Anderson & Anderson (2010) argue that while the change is carried out across different levels in the organization, breakthrough results are achieved through conscious change leadership. They state that this can be achieved through a greater understanding of human dynamics and unleashing human potential (Anderson & Anderson, 2010, p.17). Sagle & Vera (2012), state that organizational change that contributes to performance improvement is achieved through innovation. While innovation leads to the creation of better products and better processes, the resultant performance improvement is tangible in some ways and quantifiable. As organizations consider ways of adopting and implementing change, the process should focus creating better processes and better products.

Organizational Culture:

Burman & Evans (2008) propose that leadership and management play a crucial role in developing a culture of safety within an organization (p.22). The importance of these two components in organizational culture is attributed to the fact that one of the potential problems an organization may face is leadership resistance to change. Following recognition that organizations are not only driven by numbers but also run on cultures, Deal and Kennedy state that organizational culture is crucial to the achievement of business goals, success, and productivity. They state that the health of an organization's bottom line is not ultimately guaranteed through focusing on rational management aspects like personnel policies and financial planning. The long-term prosperity of an organization is dependent on its culture i.e. inner values, rituals, and rites across all organizational levels (Deal & Kennedy, 1982).

In concurrence with Deal and Kennedy, O'Donovan (2006), argue that an organization's cultural change requires joint efforts through which all workers assume an active role in promoting and implementing change. On the contrary, Cameron & Robert (1999) propose that the process of diagnosing and changing organizational culture involves choosing two variables i.e. flexibility and focus. While flexibility will show the willingness of the organization to change, focus demonstrates whether the organization has taken an internal or external approach. Levin (2012) seems to agree with O'Donovan that a bottom-up approach is the most suitable way for promoting changes in organizational culture since everyone tends to resist change.

In conclusion, Cincom Company faces tremendous challenges in its operations because of an organizational culture and structure where the CEO makes all decisions. The company needs to adopt and implement organizational change that would help in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of its operations in the flexible business environment. This can be achieved through a clear understanding of processes and factors that promote organizational change. The articles mentioned in this literature review provide great insights into the processes and considerations the company should undertake to transform its business.....

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