By definition, change management refers to the continual process of renewing an organization’s structure, direction, and capabilities to serve a dynamic internal and external environment for customers (Todnem By, 2005). As such, within an organization’s lifecycle, change is as inevitable as it is ever-present both within strategic and operational levels. Ultimately, it is entirely foolproof that the significance of needs identification and vision selection for the future of a company remains paramount. Subsequently, organizational strategy and organizational change are inseparable. Over time, due to the significance and need for organizational change among management circles, it has become a highly sought managerial skill (Todnem By, 2005). Indeed, against a backdrop of augmenting deregulation, an emerging workforce, technological innovation, increasing globalization, and alternating demographics and social trends, the sole objective of present management remains organizational change.
Inasmuch as organizational change remains momentous within a business environment, the need for change is capricious and tends to be spontaneous and reactive, often ad hoc, discontinuous, and initiated through occurrences of organizational exigency. The need for change is apparent and accepted by most enterprises globally to emerge as business leaders in the present competitive and dynamic business world. Nonetheless, Balogun and Hope (2004) state that around 70 percent of change programs fail during their initiation processes. In essence, this failure indicates the lack of specialized frameworks in terms of change implementation and management, as well as the presence of a wide range of contradictory and confusing approaches and theories. In this regard, superficial and personal analyses are often reminiscent when it comes to change management. Moreover, existing change practices and theories often have unchallenged assumptions regarding the structure and implementation of modern organizational change management. Todnem By (2005) ascertains that numerous change processes over the last two decades often prevent successful change management. In this regard, this paper assesses the rationale for change based on Intel Company.
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Intel: An Overview of the Present and Future
The Intel Company is an American international technology company that is the largest maker of semiconductor chips based on net revenue and company bottom line. Besides, it is the inventor of the x86-microprocessor chips present in nearly all personal computers. Founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore of Moore’s law, the company has been a leading frontier of technological innovation with a rich history of big undertakings and newsworthy designs by the decade. The company’s conception, though inconspicuous was one that represented a high focus of solutions provision when it came to integrated electronics, hence the name Intel. From the outset and for the better part of the subsequent two decades, the company’s focus had always been the design and production of processors with an x86-based architecture (Deffree, 2018). This became the norm to the point that in 2005, Apple succumbed to their design success and incorporated Intel processors in their Macs to this day.
Presently, the company focuses not only on the production of processors but also on other technological innovations as per current business dynamics and environments. According to Brian Krzanich, the current CEO of Intel, the vision for the company is the acceleration of transformation through aligning business segments such as people, projects, and places to the company’s strategy ("Brian Krzanich: Our Strategy and The Future of Intel," 2016). Moreover, Intel itself focuses on the transformation of the company from an aim on personal computing development to a company at the helm of connectivity through harnessing the opportunity and potential of cloud computing. Thus, the future according to Intel is heading towards five key aspects and core beliefs that are undeniably true for the technology world. Krzanich notes that within these aspects, connectivity is the core foundation of the future.
To begin with, Intel’s focus of the future rests upon the cloud: the most significant trend shaping the dynamics of connected and smart worlds. According to the CEO, software and virtualization are an increasing dynamic within not only the business world but also the present socially connected world. As a focus on the future for the company, the design of increasingly defined infrastructures catering for data centers and the cloud is eminently paramount ("Brian Krzanich: Our Strategy and The Future of Intel," 2016). Therefore, the company’s change aligns to the driving of more Intel architecture footprints within current and future data centers.
Second, Intel’s vision centers on the myriad variations of connected things referred to by the term “Internet of Things.” As such, Intel’s plan is on exploiting the ubiquitous nature of connected “things” through cloud connectivity access and provision. The company has a future focused on autonomous vehicles as well as the industrial and retail sector in addition to its present portfolio of PCs and mobiles. In this way, the company plans to achieve both segmentation and differentiation within the contemporaneous emerging business that is the Internet of Things.
Third, the company’s future focuses on memory and programmable solution. Within this docket, the company’s plans range from the 3D XPoint tm memory, Rack Scale Architecture, and silicon photonics to FPGAs ("Brian Krzanich: Our Strategy and The Future of Intel," 2016). Although such technologies have been in constant development for several years at Intel, their production has yet to start. Nonetheless, Intel presumes these technologies will undoubtedly bring about breakthrough products and innovations relating to the infrastructure of data centers as well as the cloud, thereby, revolutionizing the architecture and performance of data centers resulting in the provision of a long growth development map for the coming years. Ultimately, the focus on connectivity remains Intel’s foundation of the future that threads all the aforementioned virtuous cycles together. According to Intel’s vision, the provision of computing power to a device is merely the first step, and providing the necessary connection is a subsequently added advantage in the present dynamic business world.
Change Implementation
In all businesses, change remains a consequential part in realizing the vision and the strategies needed to achieve this vision, Intel notwithstanding. As mentioned above, present business environments remain dynamic owing to various factors such as globalization and the evolving nature of technology. Being determining factors of Intel’s progress, technology and innovation require high-level initiatives to realize success in terms of implementation and sustainability. Igbalajobi (2015) notes that the most imperative aspect of realizing change is having a Leadership Development Forum with methodologies that advocate learning as the most effective process in the decision-making matrix, predominantly when such leadership is both active and imaginative.
Participative Leadership Skills: Vision and Strategy Establishment
For successful innovation, participative leadership management skills are paramount. As such, the establishment of a vision and strategy should take place within an organization, and this is increasingly true for Intel. The underlying principle here is the fact that there can be no focus within an enterprise without the formulation of a plan. This vision and strategy is typically the initial phase that CEOs focus on when meeting with leadership teams. Therefore, to realize the future through change, Intel needs to involve everyone in the innovation process on a constant basis through objectives that look into the business vision through a particular timeframe (Al-Ali, Singh, Al-Nahyan & Sohal, 2017). In addition to this and, encompassing the leadership perspective, Intel should take into account its position within the industry, the company outlook, and eventually corporate culture, which are all part of the leadership framework. Hence, team members should contribute to change by being involved in major business publications and writings to senior leaders on the various aspects relating to change that eventually lead to the actualization of a collaborative effort. Ultimately, such leadership development sets the tone for organizational culture and eventual change through leadership involvement and support.
Shared Value Formation
To achieve sustainable and accepted change, the formation of shared values remains imminent. Under shared values, workshops, as well as executive meetings, transpire. Such occurrences establish solutions to problems relating to change within the workplace, taking into consideration all viewpoints and not necessarily those of immediate stakeholders but also those of the subordinate staff. Huggett and Kaplan (2011) note that within diverse organizations, human capital often has diverse perspectives. Therefore, to achieve lasting change for Intel, the formation of shared values needs to encompass the organization’s top executives and the participation and contribution of everyone within all departments, ultimately securing everyone’s buy-in in the establishment and implementation of changes as per the company’s objectives and vision. The causal assumption is that without coaching top executives, the implementation of changes becomes elusive.
Nurturing and Mentoring
As per the examples of the development of Hewlett Packard and Silicon Valley, organizational culture remains paramount in the actualization of sustainable change (Igbalajobi, 2015). From this example, Intel needs to develop an intelligent risk culture with a positive outlook that mentors firm and realistic temperance without being critical. In a business attuned to innovation and change, such as Intel, the incorporation of a moderate mentoring attitude is paramount in realizing sustainable change. Coupled with nurturing, the consequential company culture will have a positive outlook on change, thereby, resulting in prompt implementation.
Investing in People
Change requires the involvement of people within a company, which is an excellent business practice that is not only rewarding for managers and leaders but also all members within a team involved in the change process (Igbalajobi, 2015). Supported by leadership for sustainability, investing in individuals should be an on-going process at Intel to realize proper change. According to Carter et al. (2005), the practice and emphasis on constant learning and change inclusion remain Intel’s forte and should be emphasized to realize meaningful change.
Challenges to Organizational Change
As continually exemplified within the paper, change remains an inevitable part in an organization’s life cycle. Nonetheless, as mentioned above, and reiterated by the Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI), 70 percent of change programs remain unsuccessful (Dunphy, 2014). Follow-up surveys also show that leadership is to blame for most of the unsuccessful rates among these programs. Often internal apprehension is to blame, which often becomes apparent in various ways.
Commonly, the foundational basis of the resistance to change is the fear of change itself. At the forefront, among the senior management and employees, a concern of technical and procedural changes remains widespread with cues that proposed changes often lead to alterations in the social and business environments. Particularly in initiatives that render the restructuring or downsizing of departments, employee apprehension is a leading challenge to change.
Another challenge is the “force of habit” nature inherent in all individuals. While organizations may attune themselves to novel systems, in most instances, individuals continue to use previous methodologies due to innate habits rather than having a conscious decision to oppose change. Such force of habit typically affects all strata of employees within an organization and remains an opposing force to change.
Lastly, the challenge of uncertainty and confusion is also common and transpires due to the lack of clear-cut communication before or during change transitions. This confusion leads to uncertainty among team members on how to complete tasks effectively. Moreover, leading to an exacerbation of a counterproductive nature and pushback among employees, such confusion is typically associated with the transformation itself rather than an autonomous problem.
References
Al-Ali, A., Singh, S., Al-Nahyan, M., & Sohal, A. (2017). Change management through leadership: The mediating role of organizational culture. International Journal Of Organizational Analysis , 25 (4), 723-739. doi: 10.1108/ijoa-01-2017-1117.
Balogun, J. and Hope Hailey, V. (2004) Exploring Strategic Change, 2nd edn (London: Prentice Hall).
Brian Krzanich: Our strategy and the future of intel. (2016). Retrieved from https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/brian-krzanich-our-strategy-and-the-future-of-intel/#gs.J=SRwC0
Carter, L., Ulrich, D., &Goldsmith, M. (2005). Best practices in leadership development and organizational change : How the best companies ensure meaningful change and sustainable leadership . San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Deffree, S. (2018). Intel is founded, July 18, 1968. Retrieved from https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4390653/Intel-is-founded--July-18--1968
Dunphy, D. (2014). Driving sustainable change in the Australian workplace. In Focus Conference (p. 4). Perth, Australia: Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI). Retrieved from https://www.ahri.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/39324/Workplace-Change-Insight-Report.pdf
Huggett, M., &Kaplan, G. (2011). Human capital values and returns: Bounds implied by earnings and asset returns data. Journal of Economic Theory, 146 (3), 897.
Igbalajobi, T. (2015). Organizational solutions learning and change: A short case study on intel. International Journal Of Economics, Commerce And Management , 3 (3), 1-8.
Todnem By, R. (2005). Organizational change management: A critical review. Journal Of Change Management , 5 (4), 369-380. doi: 10.1080/14697010500359250.
