Impact of Change Management: Case Study of Select Indian Manufacturing Organizations

The concept of change is ‘a new state of things, different from old state of things’. However, it is more difficult to define in a manufacturing organisation. Change management in general refers to change in all the operations of the organization whether it is human resource, production process, customer relations, supply chain management or sales and marketing (Tripon & Dodu, 2011). According to Raju (2010), organizational change involves the implementation of not only the new tools, but also change in the procedures or technologies. This had been necessary so as to face challenges due to the changing business environment and to create new business opportunities. Change management has been a widely debated and researched topic in management. Managers in Indian organizations have experienced radical changes at their work place in the last few years. Stable business environment is now a history and change is the only response to continuously evolving conditions to stay in the market. To survive in the market, the management has to adopt multiple strategies and make change a continuous process. The turning point in the growth of the organisation is to adopt the change not only in the processes but also in the culture. According to Raju (2010), change management refers to the making of changes in a planned and systematic fashion. The aim is to effectively implement new methods and systems in an organization which leads to its growth. Change can also be synonymous with or can be called innovation. Innovation is defined as a technology, product or practice used by the members of an organisation for the first time regardless of whether it has already been used by other organizations or not. Though some authors define innovation implementation as the process of determining the appropriate and continuous use of an innovation by the certain members of an organization; yet it applies to change management to some extent. Change management prepares each and every arm of the organisation for a new working system and ensures its success to meet the organisation mission and vision. Silva (2011) had stated that lean manufacturing is a manufacturing philosophy which was originated and developed in the "Toyota Motor Company" Japan. The philosophy is based on the implementation of systems which leads to improvement in productivity and quality in organizations, thus, gaining a competitive advantage. This concept has been followed by various industries to improve their bottom-line. The implementation of this philosophy has been successfully carried out not only by the automobile industries but by other manufacturing organizations like garment manufacturing etc.

In this fast changing business environment the change can be due to internal factors like technology or new product development. It can be due to external factors like customer requirement, government rules and regulations, and cost competitiveness (Passenheim, 2010). In the Indian context, change has occurred due to two major factors

1. The globalization of the Indian economy

2. Innovation in the Fourth industrial Revolution.

Prior to the opening up of the Indian economy, the Indian manufacturing organizations were satisfied with serving the Indian market. It was more or less a sellers’ market. Customers were satisfied to buy and use whatever was available in the market. They had no choice but to buy the products at the price decided by the producers and at the profit margin decided by them. Since the competition was minimal, the quality of goods was not very high though the prices were high due to poor cost efficiency. According to Garg (2007), though the Indian automobile industry had made efforts to manage change in socio-technical, technology, systems, structure, people and culture, yet the industry has to strive hard to be innovative, technologically superior as well as working-culture conscious. Major changes that occurred in various industrial sectors in recent years have had a direct impact on almost all organizations. Environmental factors such as globalization, innovation, technology changes, increasing changes in human behavior, and tough competitive conditions have necessitated the organizations to go through a natural process of change. Organizations inevitably need to adapt to the changing conditions. To sustain in these conditions, the need is to achieve effectiveness so as to contribute towards organizational success (Vivek, 2016). Organizations who did not emphasize the introduction of new technology and innovation were given a backseat. Upto early 1980, there were only two car manufacturers in the country. One was Hindustan Motors selling under the brand of Ambassador and the other was Premier Automobiles Limited selling under the brand name of Fiat (Premier Padmini). The technology and the features remained the same over the years and customers had to wait for about six months after the initial payment to get the delivery of a vehicle (Garg & Singh, n.d.). In 1982, the Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) in collaboration with Suzuki Motor Corporation brought in new technology and cost efficiency based on Japanese Technology and methodology to manufacture cars in India. This ushered in a new era in automobile engineering. MUL dominated the Indian automobile market and commanded a share of approximately 80% by the end of the decade. The same was the case with white goods products, consumers durables, two wheelers, and other four wheeler automobiles. Though the Indian manufacturers, realizing that the competition is increasing, tried to bring in changes in technology and started working on cost efficiency, yet the pace was too slow and only little could be achieved till the Indian economy was opened up and the new economic policy was announced by the government of India.