{"id":1105,"date":"2020-04-12T08:12:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T08:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2020-04-12T08:12:43","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T08:12:43","slug":"case-analysis-aligning-culture-and-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/12\/case-analysis-aligning-culture-and-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Analysis-Aligning Culture and Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\napproach of aligning an organization\u2019s culture with its strategies contributes greatly\nto the organization\u2019s success. In the process of culture strategy alignment,\nmost organizations are involved in launching new values, deploying leadership\nroad shows and designing unique reinforcing communications (Volk & Zerfass, 2018). The\norganizations require to concentrate on the culture that goes beyond the\ngeneric notions of high performance and to focus on the elements of the culture\nthat are relevant to the organizations\u2019 specific strategic goals (Chow & Liu, 2009).\nMoreover, focusing on the underlying processes, systems, and behavior in order to support the long-term\nculture change is also very important for the organizations\u2019 success. This\nessay aims at analyzing the case at A.P Nichols to illustrate how an\ninstitution\u2019s structure contribute to the development\nof its strategies and to identify how the needed changes in the organization\u2019s\nstructure would support the changes in its strategies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change\nis an important aspect within the organization because it assists the\norganizational management in effectively advancing and improving its processes\nto ensure high performance. As indicated by the chief executive officer of the\nA.P Nichols known as Roger Dufour, change help organizations to adjust their\nstrategies to avoid being left behind by their competitors. The goal of A.P\nNichols industry that dealt with supplies such as the abrasives supplies was to\nbe ranked among the top 10 distributors in the United States. To achieve this\ngoal, the C.E.O had to come up with a plan to ensure that there was a balance\nbetween its structure and the strategies to be implemented. In this regard,\ntheir goal would have been accomplished by\nrebuilding the sales department of the industry in order to fit its newly\nestablished strategies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nensure that the organization\u2019s strategies and culture align, the leadership\nwithin the organization must be reliable and have the capability of embodying\nthe organization\u2019s culture in order to lead it towards its strategic goals (Darling, 2017). An effective\nleadership helps in setting the tone for the strategy and culture of the\ninstitution whereby the strengths and the weaknesses are well outlined as\npolicies are developed on how to go about the development. The leadership of\nthe A.P Nichols was well established but was faced by numerous challenges.\nTherefore, forming a strong leadership and efficient collaboration of the CSR\nteam would make it easy for the organization to develop a coherent ability for establishing the strategy and executing it\nintensely. However, the CSR leadership had identified the managers and the role\nthat they were to play when implementing the strategies and the advancing the\ncompany\u2019s structure to achieve its objectives. For the goal of the A.P Nichols\nto be implemented, the leaders needed to be credible enough and become talent\nbreeders. This was to ensure that they focused on the firm\u2019s strategy fully and\nthat they remained consistent with the organizational values. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nother concept that the organizations need to ensure in order for the\norganization\u2019s structure to align with its culture is gaining a realistic view\nof the entire organization. Just like how the assessment of the organizational\nleadership is necessary for effective alignment of the company\u2019s culture and\nstrategy, the leaders need to initiate the assessment of the organizational\nmaturity. Individuals within the organization must carry out an evaluation to\nacknowledge where the company stands and understand its current state. This\nhelps in revealing the strengths, weaknesses, and\nopportunities for improvement. Moreover, the management is able to have a view\nof what the organization can realistically handle and allow the staff to build\nthe company\u2019s plan around that knowledge. In Nichols\u2019 case, the management in\nNichols tried to understand the entire organization before implementing its\nplans. The most significant things that the management understood about the\nNichols industry was that its reputation was escalating based on the record of\nservice offered and customer satisfaction. The other significant thing that\nindividuals noted about the organization was that the strengthening of the ISA\nteam would result in the enhancement of\nthe CSRs (Gandz, 2011). If the approach\nof the integrated sales would be implemented, it would be necessary to ensure\nthat the sales agents were jointly aligned and working together to accomplish\nthe collective goal of growing the total business, which would be in the best\ninterest for the clients and the owners of Nichols organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proper\nfunding of the Nichols would assist it in implementing a best-in-class field\nsystem whereby the development of national offices would be supported as well\nas the infrastructure to help the CSRs in focusing on the customers\u2019 needs. In\nthis regard, the clients would be given the best level of services and would be\noffered quality assistance to meet their desires. Therefore, the Nichols\u2019 management\nwould find it logical to include even the relative smallness of the CSR as it\ncould be positioned as an advantage since it is often called to contribute in\nthe consortium of distributors for main infrastructure projects including the\nlarge-scale city redevelopment (Gandz, 2011).\nThus, understanding and gaining the entire view of the organization would help\nin knowing the specific areas that of the company that would require\nimprovements to bring changes in the organization\u2019s structure and support the\norganization\u2019s strategies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nidentify the changes that are required in the organization\u2019s structure, the\norganization is expected to plan ahead where it desires to get in terms of its\nultimate goals and objectives. The planning is initiated by developing the\nstrategies that will be used in guiding the organization in reaching its aim.\nIn this perspective, allocating adequate time for developing the organization\u2019s\npriorities, accountability, themes, and\nprocesses is necessary in order to boost the management of the priorities. When the strategies are developed,\nthey should be tested to ensure that they are capable of contributing to the\nsuccess of the organization\n(Tosti, 2007). The testing should be directed to ensure that the set\nstrategies are suited to the real-life\nsituations and that they are realistic. For instance, in case an institution\u2019s\nstrategy is focused on the innovation, the plan should be based on\ndifferentiating the company from its competitors, which can be ensured by\nproducing unique and quality products. Additionally, the plan can be based on\nproviding the services that the competitors do not offer in order to attract\nmore customers into the business\n(Muafi, 2009). When the strategic plan is already identified, the\norganizational management is required to adopt a culture that supports the\nestablished strategic plan. For example, the culture that the company can adopt\nin order to support innovation entails the one that emphasizes the diversity of thought and opinion whereby risk-taking is supported.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing\nand sustaining the organization\u2019s progress is very important as it contributes along towards the culture strategy\nalignment. Ideally, the employers and the employees need to make plans on the\napproaches of keeping the strategies afloat and adjust its culture accordingly.\nMost importantly, a follow through the need\nto be done to ensure that all the policies that lead to the dream realization are\nwell implemented (Morgan, Malek\n& Levitt, 2008). In this regard, the organizational management\nrequires to keep track of performance\nmanagement, and how the communications, personnel, and resources are integrated to help the institution accomplish its\ngoals. In the case of A.P Nichols industry, the CSRs lacked clear\ncommunications on how the business would be. When a sales meeting was scheduled\nto take place on August 25 at the local\nHyatt hotel, the plans were to initiate a discussion of unveiling Nichols\u2019 new\nsales strategy. This discussion had been planned by Klein but Nichols had other\nplans of meeting privately with the top producers to have a discussion on how\nto shift from the 70\/30 model to another\noperating model. This would be a 50\/50 revenue split, whereby Nichols would be\ninvolved in increasing the share for building infrastructure and supporting\ncustomer service activities. Moreover, the processes would be complicated\nbecause the top producers had earlier had the 70\/30 compensation model, which\nhad been revealed during a preceding restructuring (Gandz, 2011). These producers were the most experienced and\nhighly paid individuals. To make the proceedings worse, the CSRs were\ntransitioned into a corporate model. Idyllically, based on all these plans and transformations, Klein knew\nthat some of the bodies such as some CSRs would be unhappy with these changes. Thus,\nKlein took time to advise the CSRs to\nconsider the future opportunities and create an effective firm in the industry.\nOrganizations need to compare where they are to the baseline and the goals to\nsee how they measure up to the structure culture alignment, which is necessary\nfor goal accomplishment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizations\nhave the responsibility of developing their strategies and cultures. This means\nthat individuals within the company should create the organizations that they\nwant through a clearly defined culture and solid strategies for reaching the\ngoals. A lot of cooperation should be utilized between the superior employees\nand the lowly ranked employees to enhance the achievement of the organization\u2019s\ngoals. The strategy\/culture alignment should be measured using aspects such as\nefficiency, customer service, quality, innovation and reputation or brand (Hatch & Schultz, 2008).\nThis can be accomplished through ensuring that there are precise job roles,\ndisciplined workload allocation, empowerment to improve processes, consistently\nrecognizing new ideas, leadership clarity on future priorities, strong customer\norientation, and ensuring that the clients have a strong belief in the products\nthat are produced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nsummary, strategy\/culture alignment is a significant aspect that helps to\nensure that the organization\u2019s ambitions and goals are accomplished. Initiating\nan effective strategy that would contribute to the organization\u2019s success would\nmean the adjustment of the organization\u2019s culture to boost the success process.\nThus, it is crucial to ensure that realistic plans are established and that future priorities are well-outlined.\nAdditionally, identifying the changes that are required in the organization\u2019s\nstructure assist in improving the strategy and culture of the organization. The\nchanges that should be ensured within the organizations include strengthening\ncommunications techniques, enhancing customer service, improving the brand of the product to be more appealing\nas compared to those of the competitors and emphasizing teamwork to focus on\nlong-term development. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction The approach of aligning an organization\u2019s culture with its strategies contributes greatly to the organization\u2019s success. In the process of culture strategy alignment, most organizations are involved in launching new values, deploying leadership road shows and designing unique reinforcing communications (Volk & Zerfass, 2018). The organizations require to concentrate on the culture that goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1106,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/1106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}