Change management assignment for Microsoft operations and performance growth

Question

Task: How to evaluate Microsoft’s operational success using Change management assignment research techniques?

Answer

1. Introduction
Change management assignment use a defined method and a set of tools to handle the human side of change. Organisations execute change management by helping change-affected individuals achieve good personal transitions that enable them to interact with, adapt to, and utilise the change. This Change management assignmentdeals with Microsoft's change management process that was taken place by their CEO, Satya Nadella, in the year 2016. Microsoft is the leader in PC software and operating systems market. The company also produces hybrid tablet computers, offers email services, publishes books and multimedia content, and sells computer accessories. The company produces books and multimedia. It has offices worldwide. Microsoft has several R&D centres outside its headquarters in Redmond, Washington(Microsoft.com, 2022). This report discusses the theoretical concept of change management along with evaluating key changes made by Microsoft that were developed to hinder gaining profit and expansion. In this theoretical context, consider Kotter's and Lewin's change management model for a better understanding of change management's importance in Microsoft. It is worth mentioning that this Change management assignmentconsiders the McKinsey 7s model for critical analysis of Microsoft changes, along with deepening on such changes, recommends some strategies that will be helpful to conduct changes in an effective way.

2. Theoretical Context
2.1 Concept of Change Management
The term "change management" refers to the process of transitioning a person, a team, or an entire organisation from their present condition to a desired future one in order to put a company's vision and objectives into action. This will define a workforce for the purpose of gaining a competitive edge (Junnaid, Miralam, and Jeet, 2020). As a result of thisChange management assignment, is it increases employee loyalty and productivity while they are employed at the organisation. Furthermore, it improves the company's ability to retain and recruit new employees. Adapting an organization's structure is a must for businesses hoping to succeed and expand frequently. An organization's change management team is directly responsible for ensuring that change is adopted and utilised effectively. In this way, employees can better grasp the nature of their shifts, become invested in them, and do their best work during their time spent on it. Internal transitions inside a firm can be difficult and costly, both in terms of time and resources, if appropriate organisational change management is not implemented (Schulz-Knappe, Koch, and Beckert, 2019). They have the potential to dampen morale among employees and hinder the growth of future leaders. In the end, the failure of the organisation may be attributed to the ineffective management of the change process.

2.2 Overview of theChange management assignment
Employees Engagement
In the case of Microsoft, the company's CEO discovered that the primary cause of the company's continually deteriorating situation is the insufficient level of involvement of Microsoft's workforce. Their company was operating in an unhealthy comfort zone, which had a detrimental effect on the workers' creative output and audacity to take risks. In order to achieve these types of achievements, the company's Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella, made the decision to implement changes in their workforce that boost the participation of workers in the workplace. According to research done on this Change management assignment, employee engagement promotes the culture of the workplace, which in turn lowers attrition rates, boosts productivity, fosters stronger connections with co-workers and customers, and has an impact on revenues. When employees are very engaged in their job, they become your most vocal supporters.

Toxic working Environment
Unhealthy workplaces are miserable. They may also cause harm. A dangerous work environment may cause employees stress, concern, and fear, which can harm their health. It hurts employee morale since no one wants to work in an unhealthy workplace (Brouwers, and Paltu, 2020). As a result, Microsoft has not launched any new product segments since 2014, whereas Google appears to have constantly launched new cloud computing systems while also modifying its search engine. For that reason, in the year 2016, Satays Nadella took the initiative to improve their working environment along with making changes in their workplace. Firstly, Mr Nadella set up a new team with 5000 employees and asked them to develop a new user-friendly cloud computing system. Also, in the workplace, set short-term goals for employees to motivate them to work while also helping to move the Microsoft working environment forward. It has been observed on this Change management assignment, since implementing such changes in its workforce, Microsoft has been able to maintain its market position and gradually raise its stock prices.

2.3 Theoretical Perspective
Lewin's change management model
Unfreezing
It is the first phase in the Change management assignmentprocess, and it involves preparing the organisation to recognise that changes are necessary at some level, whether organisational, operational, or financial (Burnes, 2020). This is an important step that must be taken, and it may be accomplished by first acknowledging the need for change and then, second, raising workers' understanding of the matter. In the case of Microsoft, CEO Satya Nadella identified the employees' engagement issues in their workforce that were impacting their productivity at work. They found a toxic working environment, putting the organisation in a dangerous comfort zone. When an organisation was put into its comfort zone, it could not sustain its focus on the creativity and making of strategies. It is worth mentioning that before taking charge of Satya Nadella, Microsoft experienced competitiveness with Google.

Changes
When it comes to Change management assignment, the most essential objective is to eliminate any opposition that presently exists. This can be done by concentrating on short-term victories and developing a communication plan that is crystal clear. In the scenario of Microsoft, they found the main resistance is an ineffective team or group (Teck et al., 2018). Their research and development team did not participate to complete a specific work with good teamwork and it was hinder for them to complete a specific work with good productivity. For that reason In September of 2016, Nadella launched a new Artificial Intelligence and Research Group by combining their previous research group with the teams responsible for Information Platform, Cortana and Bing. Because of this relocation, about 5,000 computer scientists and engineers from across all of Microsoft's product lines came together to concentrate on artificially intelligent innovation. It is worth mentioning that with such a team they were enabled to do changes in their organisation effectively.

Figure 1: Lewin's change model key factors
(Source: Teck et al., 2018)

Refreezing
The third phase of Lewin's change model used on this Change management assignmentis refreezing, describes how an organisation returns to normal functioning. This demonstrates that everyone is dedicated to the new method of operation. Consolidation is the most effective method in which organisations evaluate what has been accomplished, celebrate successes, and address any lingering difficulties. The CEO of Microsoft, after analysing key motivations of organisational changes along with rectifying components that were hindering their changing process with the assistance of a new artificial intelligence and research group, developed an intelligent cloud platform and personal computing system. With such an improvement, Microsoft adequately gained their previous market position along with a competitive advantage. According to Rosenbaum, More and Steane (2018), Lewin's change model enables organisations to move forward from their previous positions that will influence the brand image. It has been observed on this Change management assignmentthat by adopting organisational changes, their employees' motivation was gradually increased, along with their ability to adequately participate in every workforce event.

Kotter’s change management model
Creating urgency
Of the organisational changes, the most important task is to identify new opportunities that will influence good productivity in the workplace. When Satya Nadella plans to conduct changes in their organisation, they first look to identify new opportunities that will help them smooth their business process.

Build a good team
The most important task in organisational changes is to form an effective team. Without an effective team, the management of Microsoft was not able to completely change in an effective way (Galli, 2018). For that reason, they were developing a new AI and research group. who helped them to develop new business strategies along with products that will be cut to completion.

Develop a vision
Without a core vision or proper reason for conducting transitional changes, the management leader was not able to do it effectively. In the scenario of Microsoft, their main vision is to provide their customers with better quality services in a flexible way.

Communicating the vision
In the organisational changes, the most important task observation is the proper progress of selective vision. For that reason, management leaders always try to communicate properly with their team members to get past the ogress of selective vision (Laig, and Abocejo, 2021). In the case of Microsoft, CEO Satya Nadella considers a team discussion with their new developing team and defies the progress of their core vision.

Figure 2: Kotter's Change management assignmentmodel
(Source: Laig, and Abocejo, 2021)

Removing Obstacle
Completing organisational changes is not an easy task. The management leader experienced lots of obstacles that hampered the progress of transitional changes in their framework (Galli, 2019). In the Change management assignmentcase study, Microsoft, employee engagement is a big obstacle, and they on a daily basis set up goals for their employees’ engagement in the workforce.

Developing short-time wins
During organisational changes, some employees feel bored and lose motivation to adopt such changes. For that reason, Satya Nadella set up a shower time goal, and after achieving that goal, they appreciated the employees.

Consolidating Gains
Continuous observation is importing tasks in organisational changes; without it, the origination would not have been able to sustain such changes in their workplace. In the scenario of Microsoft, their CEO constantly communicated with their team leader and asked for an update about the progress of selective organisational changes. strict on the changes.

It has been observed on this Change management assignmentthat after some time of conducting organisational changes, the management leader was not able to be strict on such changes, and it put them at a competitive disadvantage (Ullah, 2021). In the matter of Microsoft, their biggest competitor is Google, and to avoid such competitiveness, they consider the evolution of their team members on a weekly basis. If they found that at any point, employees did not perform, then they gave notice to the individual regarding the suitability of their work productivity.

3. Analysis of the Change in the Chosen Company
3.1 Brief Company Profile and the Occurred Changes
The company has been facing a lot of issues in recent times. The current CEO of the company, Satya Nadella, came in charge and made a lot of decisions and changes in the company in order to keep the company in shape and to keep the profit margins stable. It would have been a disastrous situation unless he came forward and took charge of everything when he did. The company has been facing a great challenge in the market competition from Google and Apple. Google has started to dominate the software market, while Apple is taking over the market of mobile phones. On the Change management assignment research it was observed as necessary to make some changes in the organisational structure in order to survive the challenges faced by the company at that time. The changes that the CEO, Satya Nadella advocated are to reinvent the productivity and processes of business, build an intelligent cloud-based data storage system to store the data securely, and more personal computing creation. According to Satya Nadella, the company cannot work efficiently while they are working separately (Microsoft.com, 2022). He took the liberty of joining the Microsoft products and platforms together. He set a common goal for everyone to follow, both the products and platforms teams. It would allow the company to share a common goal and achieve it together. It would also help in the innovative ways the company can grow its business.

3.2 Analysis of the Changes
Various Change management assignmenttheories can help analyse the changes that took place in Microsoft under the leadership of Satya Nadella. The main change that has been taken into consideration by Satya Nadella is the structural change in the organisation. The whole structure of the organisation has been changed by the CEO. The change management theory known as McKinsey 7S Model can help analyse the change in Microsoft to cope with the competition posed by rival companies such as Google, and Apple (Tuli et al., 2022, p.111). The theory has a total of seven stages as it can be understood from its name. The stages are Strategy, Structure, Systems, Shared values, Style, Staff, and Skills. In Strategy, the overall plan for the change is discussed with the fellow leaders in the organisation. In the case of Microsoft, the CEO has a plan to combine the two aspects of the company into one large organisation. This would help the company to be more competent in its operations in the market, and it would also help in implementing innovation in the products and services. According to Kurbanova (et al., 2018, p.171), the change in the structure of the company would be beneficial in terms of revenue and product innovation. The Structure of the model is the overall structure of the change that has been taking place in the organisation. The overall structure of the change is the joining of the two portions of the company into one. This would allow the employees from the products and platforms to work together towards a common goal to achieve it. It would motivate them to work better and more efficiently in order to improve the condition of the company.

The System of change is the day-to-day activities that need to be taken care of in order to successfully implement the changes in the structure of the organisation. It would help the company to achieve its goals in the long run. The Shared Value of the company would be to achieve sustainability in the organisational context. The product and platform sectors of the company are fused together in this change of company structure, and another change is to build an intelligent cloud platform which has to be done by the merging the research group of the company together with the research group of Bing, Cornata, and their Information platform teams. It made the change a big change in the company, and it gathered roughly 5000 computer scientists and engineers together to conduct research on Artificial Intelligence to develop this new cloud system (Gechkova and Kaleeva, 2020, p.843). These engineers and scientists were devoted to the innovation of the product lines of Microsoft as well. They all shared the same value and thus, together, it was possible for them to make this change successful. In the Change management assignmentmodel, Style is the way the change is implemented in the organisation with the help of leadership and other means of motivating the people to go with the changing scenarios. It is often noticed that any change in any organisation is not completely accepted by all the employees, and it is often the reason for the failure of the implementation of the changes. However, in this case, Satya Nadella has taken proper leadership measures to implement the changes, which made it easier to make the employees accept the change and go along with it.

Staff in the model refers to the employees that work in the organisation. The capabilities of the staff of the organisation determine the outcome of the changing scenario in the organisation. According to Ahmad (et al., 2021, p.16), an organisation’s main assets are the staff, and they need to be put first to be successful in the endeavour of being a successful company. The Skills of the employees are the power of the company, and the company’s success depends on the skilful employees and their use of skills. The change in the company can be handled well by the skilful employees as they are capable of adapting to changing environment of the company. This is also beneficial for the company. It makes it less challenging to implement any kind of change in the organisational context (Beehivepr.biz, 2022). However, it is important that the employees are given enough time to prepare for the change. No matter how skilful they might be, it would still be logical to give enough time to prepare for the change to efficiently fit into the system after the change is implemented. In the case of Microsoft, the change occurred by merging two sections, products and platforms, into one. This merged all the employees from both sections as well. Thus, a little time would be required for the employees to effectively handle the change and make themselves comfortable and efficient in the changed condition in the organisation.

Another change that has been proposed by the CEO, Satya Nadella, was the implementation of more personal computing in the organisation. This would give the employees more knowledge and sharing of knowledge among the employees is one of the best ways to improve the production and quality of work in the organisation. The building of an intelligent cloud platform would need all the employees to be able to work with the computers and be more efficient at working on a personal computing system (Researchgate.com, 2022). The Change management assignmentresearchers are figuring out the ways to implement the intelligent cloud-based system in the organisation to improve the data storage and protection. It would also ensure the use of personal computing systems and improve the efficiency of the employees in the organisation. The CEO shared a single goal for the employees to focus on, and together the employees can achieve that goal and make the organisation a successful one in this competitive market.

Even though the overall change in Microsoft was successfully implemented, it was not without a little resistance from a part of the employees. It was expected that some of the employees that lack the skill of communication and other team-working skills would have a hard time managing the new system. The new changed environment requires the people to work together and efficiently. It requires a lot of communication with the people they barely know. Thus, it created issues for some employees and they were the ones against the change in the organisational structure. The process of merging two sections of the company into one was also an endeavour. The resources needed to combine the research teams to develop an AI-based cloud system were also challenging and risky. The development of a new AI-based cloud system had a high chance of being unsuccessful as it is hard to develop AI-based software (Knowhow.ncvo.org.uk, 2022). It also requires a lot of resources to develop AI-based software. Thus, the risk was enormous, but the combined minds of the engineers and computer scientists have made it possible to implement the AI-based cloud system for the Microsoft Company. According to Anisiforov(et al., 2019, p.2051), the overall process of bringing change in the organisation is not an easy task, however, it is worth the effort.

4. Recommendation and Conclusion
The change in the Microsoft organisational structure was implemented successfully by the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. However, the implementation could go much better without facing the challenges that have been faced by the company. Some recommendations are provided in this study in order to make sure that future change implementations can go smoother than this change in the structure of the organisation.

Putting the people first- Putting the people first should be the main motto of any change in the organisation. The people of the organisation should be valued enough that they feel connected to the organisation. This way it would help in getting support from the people in the change management. It would actively help in making sure the change is implemented successfully (Bismarket al., 2018, p.94). Putting the people first would also ensure that they are engaged in Change management assignment. Thus, it would be easier to implement change when the people involved with the change understand the benefits of the change and how it would improve the overall condition of the organisation.

Working with a model of Change management assignment- Just implementing a change has a much higher chance to fail unless it is backed up by some of the change management models and theories. Certain models and theories can help manage the change in the organisation. Some of the useful models are Kotter’s Change Management Model, Lewin’s Change Management Model, McKinsey’s 7S Theory, and so on. These models and theories can help implement the change in the organisational context by following a pattern and way. It would be easier to implement the change in this way.

Communicate and empower the employees- It is necessary to communicate with the employees of the organisation while a change is to be implemented in the company. Communication can help the employees to be empowered and it would help in proceeding with the change in the organisation (Odeh, 2021, p.01). Implementing change needs support from the employees and communication can earn that support. Improve and activate the leadership- Leadership is one of the main aspects of Change management assignment for an organisation. The leaders are the ones that help the employees in understanding the benefits of the change and how it can help them in their work. Thus, the leadership should be capable enough to convey the message to the employees that the change is going to be beneficial for everyone in the organisation. Make the change exciting for the employees- The change would not be accepted by the employees unless they find it exciting and beneficial to them. Thus, it is necessary to implement the change that would make the employees excited about it. The leaders should be in charge of making sure that the employees are well connected with the overall change and that they find it exciting.

Paying attention to the momentum- During the change implementation, there can be moments when the momentum goes high or low. When the momentum goes high, that needs to be celebrated with the employees, and the low position of the momentum should be discussed with employees to make sure they understand the necessity of the change.

Not to ignore resistance- There is a certainty that some resistance will brew up inside the organisation during the implementation of change. It is often noticed that the resistance is ignored by the management and later it becomes the reason for the failure of the change implementation (Cleverism.com, 2022). Thus, it is necessary to take great care about the resistance, and communicate with the people that are posing the resistance to solve it peacefully. This way, it would be possible to earn the trust of the employees that are posing the resistance as well. In this study, it is found that Satya Nadella, who became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014, has successfully implemented a complete structural change in the organisation. It helped the organisation to be in a position of advantage in the market against its competitors such as Google, and Apple. Some change management models and theories have been considered by the CEO during the implementation of the change in the organisation. The most effective theories and models that demand to be mentioned are Kotter’s Change Management Theory, Lewin’s Change Management Theory, and McKinsey’s 7S Model. Some recommendations are also provided in this Change management assignmentto implement future changes without any hindrances.

Reference List
Journals
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Websites
Beehivepr.biz, 2022, 7 Strategies for Effectively Managing Organisation Change, viewed on: 28/05/2022, viewed from: https://beehivepr.biz/7-strategies-for-effectively-managing-organizational-change/
Cleverism.com, 2022, Major Approaches Models of Change Management, viewed on: 28/05/2022, viewed from: https://www.cleverism.com/major-approaches-models-of-change-management/
Knowhow.ncvo.org.uk, 2022, Basics on Managing Change, viewed on: 28/05/2022, viewed from: https://knowhow.ncvo.org.uk/your-team/people-management-skills/change/basics-on-managing-change/fivesteps
Microsoft.com, 2022, Home, viewed on: 28/05/2022, viewed from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in Researchgate.com, 2022, Recommendations for Effective Change Management, Change management assignmentviewed on: 28/05/2022, viewed from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Recommendations-for-Effective-Change-Management_fig2_47739506

Appendices
Appendix 1: Organisational Transformation and New Purpose

Appendix 2: Stock Price of Microsoft under Satya Nadella