New York Bakery (A) Case Solution

The initial system worked fine in the pre-testing phase, but it failed miserably as soon as it was implemented, causing employee performance to go down, causing mix-ups in orders and deliveries, and caused many invoicing problems. This led to several disgruntled customers which caused the company's sales to go down even further. The top managers were reluctant to the change in the first place, for example, the finance department wanted to keep on using excel and doing the brunt work manually so that it could maintain contact with managers and directors. Sentiments and attitudes of the managers cascaded into their subordinates, and no one was willing to accept the new system or to give it even a chance. The structure of the organization had many outsourced employees and had two separate headquarters housing different teams. This structure created an air of mistrust between employees as firstly the contractual workers only cared about their payday and benefits from the contractor and did not own the company as theirs so their level of motivation was low for improvements within the company. Housing the main functions of the organizations such as Finance, HR, Marketing and Strategy into different buildings, miles apart, created a gap in communication and also failed to unite the backbone of the company. NYB had been using the same redundant methods for several years, and the employees were in the comfort zone with those techniques. Proper change management techniques should have been implemented in order to facilitate the change for the employees.

Blanshard should advise the CIO to first implement change management strategies in order to counter the damage that has already been done and once some positive change is witnessed in the employees, the payroll management systems, etc can then be rolled out as per the demands and the conditions of the organization. The change management process would involve working on several aspects simultaneously so as to create a halo effect, the impact of which would be more effective on the employees. First of all the new CIO needs to identify which employees are resistant to change, as the resistance to change is highly dependent on the personality traits of the individuals being impacted by the change. Some people may have a predisposition to resist change while others may be open to change. The CIO should focus on changing the perception of the people who are resistant by assuring them that the change coming around is good for them and not just for the company’s shareholders. Benefits for the employees should be highlighted and often repeated in order to assure such employees that the organization is acting in their favor (Erwin & Garman, 2010).

The positive individuals who are more open to change should be encouraged and appreciated for their support and efforts for the organization and should be made the agents of change When employees feel that the change is coming from within the organization, they are more accepting towards it and are more eager to make it work. Additional support should be provided o the employees when an organization is undergoing major changes like in the case of New York Bakery. The floor should be open for discussion with employees and attention should be given to addressing the individual concerns of the employees.