A Change Management Perspective and Impact of Information Technology on Customer Service

Article One: A Change Management Perspective

Change management also referred to the organizational change combines both the study of the processes of change within and between organizations and the role of the change agents in the process. Many authors have offered the conceptual tools to classify the content or magnitude of change in the literature of change management. For example, radical and incremental change is discussed by Greenwood and Hinings 1993, and framework is breaking change versus framework bending change is explained by Van de Ven and Poole 1995. Therefore these conceptualizations are very useful to help in distinguishing large scale transformation of change that is aimed at small scale improvement rather than the organizational turnaround. Apart from the magnitude of change, the author also claimed that it is of importance to consider the reasons for the organizational change. And in the public sector, most often the organizational change is imposed on individual organizations as a result of policy change or the wide reform of the system.

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The emphasis of this article concerning change management is on the public sector reform. Thus, a public sector reform is mostly concerned with intentional organizational change on the level of public organization. Therefore, it involves a deliberate shift in the process and structure of public sector organization with the goal of making them progress smoothly. For effect to be felt, reforms programs and initiatives must result in a change in the work process, attitude and behavior of employees who work in the public sector organization. However, the argument has unequivocally shown that public sector reforms are not always guaranteed to result in the anticipated effects.

The Process of Change

Change management literature highlights the process through which change is implemented. The assumption to the process of change management is that the implementation of change in an organization is dependent on not only the content of change or what changes but also on the process of change through which the organizational change arises. Change in an organization can thus be managed. Where the role of leadership is that, who creates change, therefore, referred to as the prime mover. When the need for change arises, leaders are called upon to develop the vision for change and attempt to build commitment among the employees. Employees are thus seen as the active participants in the change process but not as the passive recipients of the organizational change. Therefore in the change process, managers may only facilitate emergent change, but do not formulate detailed change objectives for the organization to implement. Inspite the fact that the emergent change is always more unpredictable and time-consuming than the planned change process; it may also result in the change of content that is better suited to the situation or the interest of employees.

Actors in the change

The actors of change in an organization are both internal and external, and they help to shape and to interpret the content, they also act and respond to the implementation process. The issues concerning actors both internal and external can be addressed when examining reforms and the organizational change. Examples of domestic actors are the employees and managers while external actors are the citizens, unions, politicians and the partner organization on which public organizations may depend on during the change (Greenwood & Hinings, 1993, p. 1067).

The concentration in this section is on the three general phenomena that are frequently discussed in change management literature and are related to the actors in the change. Phenomena are the process of attitudes and behaviors in change, sense-making and also change leadership. Thus, when looking at who is involved in the change process, the term sense-making is frequently used. Therefore, the phenomenon is referred to that every actor has their perception of change. Thus sense making implies that there is no single objective interpretation of change but the only situational and personal definition of evolution. And this somehow relates to "Thomas theorem" which states that men do define situations as real, and thus they are real in their consequences. In a nutshell in every type of change either great or small, sense-making always takes place.

The General Assumption the Author have Underlying their Thinking in A World view Context

The world view example of the change in management that the authors used to underline their thinking was the City Works Department. The City Works Department is mainly concerned with the urban planning and spatial upkeep of the City of Rotterdam in The Netherlands. The public sector reform for the management change was intended to improve cost-effectiveness and increase responsiveness, and it was perceived as a radical transformation. The City Works Department showed rigid structures, hierarchy, and control to ensure typical public sector values such as accountability, reliability, and equity (Wright, Christensen & Isett, 2013, p. 743)

In conclusion, the reform highlighted private sector values and norms such as efficiency, client service, and responsiveness. Such values are often secondary and essential to public sector organizations. Rather than merely improving the operations of civic organizations, public sector reform may then require the radical transformation of public organizations' core values.

My take about the Article, Agreement or Disagreement

I partially agree with the article to some extent whereby the authors have tried to talk of the reforms that may cause a change in the public organization but giving less emphasis to private organizations. The article also provides more details on the change agents of the organization which is very much crucial for managers to take keen note on the agents. The author did not indicate in the article the factors which are likely to contribute to change in an organization.

Article Two: Impact of Information Technology on Customer Service

The primary purpose of the paper is to gauge whether information technology (IT) has a significant role in transforming market operations which offers the firms advantage by affecting their customer service. The paper also assesses whether management practices differ among different firms. According to the information week' s research priorities study of 300 IT executives, it was found that only top two key IT project implementation priorities, strategic technology, a business can understand and meet the customers by improving services. Despite the massive incentive and continuous improvement in customer relationship management (CRM), many firms still have not been able to improve their customer satisfaction index ratings. This might be because the extent to which IT management practices have been applied creatively to some critical activities which are associated with the customer service varies among different firms.

IT Management Practices

Due to the increase in competition and technological challenges faced by different firms, has resulted in the escalating complexity of the ill IT management. Thus effective IT management requires a set of conjoined efforts which are associated with controlling, planning, organizing and directing the use of IT resources within a firm. Some researchers have also illustrated that the role of IT within a firm have a significant influence on IT planning and the management control system (Applegate, McFarlan & McKellney, 1996, p. 67). Therefore IT management practices are defined and also associated with the levels of IT management sophistication and the IT leaders.

IT management sophistication has been used to characterize a firm's evolution traditionally mainly in its management planning, management orientation, organization and control aspects of its IT functions. It is also described by IT manager being aware of the long term strategic plans of the firm, the future strategic plans largely considered during IT planning by the firm and the performance of IT evaluated on the contribution to the overall firms objective but not on cost saving.

IT Leader's Role

They manage IT functions in a firm. IT leaders spend their share of time interacting with employees within the IT organization especially where IT plays a support role. In firms where there is strategic orientation, and IT is given value in achieving corporate objectives, IT leaders in those firms should have a multidimensional function because they are the ones who are critically dependent of the smooth functioning of IT activities (Cash et al. 1992, p. 35). IT managers should be strategic, business and politically skilled with a visionary and a conceptual mind.

IT's Impact on Customer Service

This article illustrates that according to the previous researches, a report was that embracing IT in the production and service delivery has increased most industries standard of production of goods and services in a competitive market. The fact that most service firms such as banks use IT-based services to their customers. The facilities are expected to provide more benefits such as improved product or service quality, improved financial performance, higher productivity, and enhanced customer satisfaction .it practices help in enhancing customer services by offering extra services to customers, increasing conveniences to customers and also collecting and analyzing service performance information for management use in ensuring continuous improvement. Many firms are still viewing customer service as a little more than a complaint department. Therefore it is essential to know that many things go into customer service which includes personal interaction, ambiance, cost, availability of product and may or may not involve technology. And in a situation where technology is concerned, it may play different roles such as; coordinating role, supporting role, directing role and a role in restoring customers.

Information technology has several competitive roles in servicing which includes, productivity enhancement, the creation of barriers to entry and revenue generation activities.

As a result, IT has developed as a significant factor in satisfying customer needs and wants through various new channels of delivering the service or product to the customer.

Therefore by inventing IT investment in Customer Relationship Management technologies and by embedding information technology in operations and marketing functions, firms can reach their external entities and provide value-added services.

Customer Service Topology

In this article, IT impacts various industries differently as some companies' use IT as a strategic tool to improve their operations and marketing functions. Firms use IT in customer service operations that are focused on meeting the expectations of customers directly through the provision of products and extra services, online promotion and sales, and marketing automation. Focusing on customer topology, IT enables dramatic transformations in operations and marketing area and also strongly positions a firm relative to its competitors. It allows the differentiation of products and services to fulfill the goal of meeting the needs of customers and markets under consideration ( Applegate, McFarlan & McKellney, 1996, p. 78). IT increases integration and assists in the offering new products, catching up with the IT-leader firms, and controlling costs.

In conclusion, firms require a higher level of IT leader and the general management in integration, planning, organizing and controlling to improve customer service. This is because proper IT management practices can lead to customer retention and impact on customer satisfaction ratings. Therefore IT managemen...