Research Paper on Inner & Outer Pressures Affecting Company Performance: Strategies Explored

Introduction

In any company operating for profit-making, it must experience pressures which, in a way, affects the performance of the company. These pressures are usually in two categories, which are internal and external pressures. Internal pressures are the ones that a company has the power to control. In most cases, they relate to the internal affairs of the company. Upon their identification, some strategies are put on place to ensure that there is full addressing of them. On the other hand, there are those external pressures that are beyond the control of the company. In simpler words, they are external environments, and they have greater impacts on how the company carries its commercial activities.

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About the internal and external pressures, the company under study is known as Tiger. The company traces its origin in Britain in the year 1862 though later it became Chinese and it's headquarter shifted to Hong Kong (Snell & Hui, 2000). The head of this company was a local tycoon who held more than 30.0% of the shares (Snell & Hui, 2000). Due to the significant ownership of the shares, this tycoon, known by the name Mr. X, assumed the role of managing director in the year 1997(Snell & Hui, 2000). Before the assumption of that role, Mr. X has initiated some changes in Programs at Tiger Company. Some of these changes in a way contributed to the pressures, either internal or external, within the company, as it is discussed below.

The Internal Pressures

As it has already mentioned in the introduction part, assuming the new leadership came with some adjustments within the company, which contributed to internal pressures. During this transition, the company has experienced a boom period of more than ten years of steady growth. It is an aspect which suggests that all production activities were carried as per requirements. As leadership changed, there was a corresponding change in the market base of core products (Snell, 2002). Furthermore, these changes were followed by the fresh challenge of economic crises, which happened in the year 1997 in Southern and Eastern Asia (Snell, 2002). As one method of fighting these crises, there was establishing strategies for developing new products and services that will fetch higher prices in the market for an attempt to achieve recovery. Some of these strategies were evaluating costs as well as improving customer services (Hemmert, 2017). All these strategies were to be implemented to ensure the reduction of internal pressures and also making sure that the business is booming in China, which had a larger and ready market.

It is a fact that Tiger Company required fighting economic crises, and therefore it was necessary to have change programs. In an extreme way, these changes resulted in internal pressure since they were to be fully adopted by employees. To introduce a change, especially to employees, becomes one of the difficult aspects, and in most cases, it can lead to internal pressures (Hemmert, 2017). In order to remain relevant and competitive, there was a need for a company to embrace those changes even though they had internal pressures. The first change was an improvement and full embracement of Total Quality Management (TQM). The change was from being a traditional bureaucratic engineering mindset to the mindset, which is market-oriented and highly competitive. Furthermore, TQM was to consider how to remain productive while adding value to the services and products. One aspect which has pressure was instilling change to the workers and trainees for them to adapt to the working system of Tiger Company (Orridge, 2017). The aim of instilling the change was to ensure that employees are educated in all concepts relating to quality. Also, it was a way of imparting a sense of responsibility to the employees while encouraging the aspect of creativity among employees and trainees. To remain relevant, Mr. X, the head of the company, had the urge that everyone should know the importance of supporting TQM.

The second aspect, which is in the category of internal pressure, was the BPR program. It was a program that was meant to create a more efficient and streamlined structure that defined the roles and responsibilities of each employee. The program also concerned with redesigning most of the processes within the Tiger Company, which led to scrapping off the functional departmental structure. As was observed in TQM, BPR was also characterized by changes and had a specific aim. The aim was coming up with the concept of creating awareness of how employees should provide the best and quality services to clients at the lowest cost possible (Manu, 2016). Since it involved a lot of changes, the BPR program was to be implemented in phases, and later, it was fully implemented.

External Pressures

As Mr. X assumed the role of Managing director of the Tiger Company, there were those changes that were not well welcomed by employees. In one way or the other, Mr. X was seen to be more authoritative, and all employees were to adhere to them. An aspect of seeing Mr. X as the facilitator and advocate and champion did not augur well with those employees who had a lot of experience. Mr. X was in a dilemma between firing them and maintaining them due to their high level of experience. Some of these employees were close-minded, which was among the vices that Mr. X fought. Among the agendas of Mr. X were employees having a full understanding of business empathy with customers as well as creativity of the new product orientation. No matter how Mr. X was determined to achieve the objectives of the Tiger Company, some of the experienced workers hindered these achievements. It was a situation that left Mr. X to either make a decision, which could lead to economic crises again. In this scenario, therefore, Mr. X has to be very cautious about firing those experienced employees since it could lead to the retardation of the company. He was not able to fire them due to fear of having a repeat of economic crises.

However, as a manager, he was not supposed to leave in that situation, and there was a need for developing a strategy that will neutralize the situation. One of the methods Mr. X used was to inspire those employees who adopted to change and worked according to his directives. As a managing director, Mr. X introduced the act of rewarding those employees who became creative and also recognize them. There was also an aspect of promoting with cash or awards those individuals that worked in accordance with the director's directives. Mr. X was interested in understanding the details of the work of the employees to assess their progress in adaptation. The Managing Director kept on insisting that employees have to keep updating their work and have full knowledge of how it is done.

Image of Change in Managing Change at Tiger

Figure 1: Image of discussing change management at Tiger Company

As a managing director, Mr. X knew how to instill change within an organisation. First of all, Mr. X defined the goals of having change within the company. For any change to be well - received by people, there must be a full explanation of why these changes are to be implemented. The manager should be in the front line when it comes to defining the goals of the introduction of change (Kakakhel, Muhammad, & Shah, 2018). Mr. X used the commonly known strategy and is that of creating sense while introducing that change. It is a concept known as sense- approaching to change. In this approach, the manager provides comprehensive on the change introduction. After assuming the leadership position, Mr. X new that the company has suffered economic crises, an aspect which needed change. The change was concerned with how a company can come out of economic crises to remain competitive. Since change resulted in internal pressure and urgency in service and product improvements, the manager has to be very creative on how to modify that change. Mr. X introduced a concept of Total Quality Management as one way of introducing change and at the same time, maintaining it. The concept of quality played a major role in the adaptation of change within the company. Understanding the sense of introducing change is one of the key issues of maintaining change in an organization. It aids employees a lot toward understanding that change instilled in the company is for the betterment of all relevant stakeholders.

Depth Analysis of Intended Change at Tiger

One of the aspects observed at Tiger is about some resistant to change introduced. From the manager's point of view, the intention of introducing that change is for the better of the company. However, as usual, the change is not well embraced, especially for the employees who are old enough and have experience in a company. Resistance is a very real and common problem which is faced by managers when there is the introduction of change. Resistance to change in most cases becomes the reason why there is a failure of attempted change. However, the reality of change may be complex, which may be management and poor communication. In the case of the Tiger Company, poor management is not the cause of why there was resistant. All the strategies put in place by Mr. X towards introducing change are as per manager requirements. The possible cause of resistant may be the lack of good communication between administration and employees. This is a scenario whereby management suggests different ways of doing things that are different from those of employees. In that scenario, therefore, miscommunication rises, and resistance occurs, which disrupts the commercial activities of the business. In the case of Tiger Company, there was a need for dialogue between employees and management to make sure that there is a point of consensus. In that case, resistance, which is external pressure, is converted to internal pressure, which is easily manageable.

Methods Used at Tiger to Deal with Resistance Change

In Tiger Company, the manager, as the manager, introduced change; there was also a need to come up with a method of fighting the resistance to change. One of the commonly known methods is using resistance for productivity, which is achieved using different methods. The method used by Mr. X in dealing with resistance change is clarifying the purpose. It is a scenario where there is a full explanation of the affected one the need to have that change. It also explains to them their new roles and the importance of embracing those roles. As the managing director of Tiger Company, Mr. X used that method of clarifying the purpose of why there is a need for introducing that change. Also, the manager urged employees to consider their new responsibilities and advised them to accept that responsibility with one heart. It is through accepting those new responsibilities that employees can adapt to a new working environment. After the adaptation of change, the results of the changes are seen improvement of services or an increase in productivity.

Effectiveness of Change Program at Tiger

The effectiveness of the change program was among the best strategies that were put in place by the management of Tiger Company. First of all, the change program focused on improving the quality and services of this company. It was a change that was an integrated, desirable aspect of all businesses. It is very advisable to have your employees understanding that quality to customers is paramount, and it should not be compromised. It is a factor that helps employees to work towards achieving the set objectives of the company. In the case of Tiger Company, the manager used the concept of Total Quality Management to make employees develop a passion for adapting change towards the betterment of the company. It is also among the best tools for assessing the specializ...