Change Forces: The Stimulants for Progress

Though “actors” and “processes” linked with an enterprise create forces to maintain continuity, continuously changing business “situation” (in particular due to globalization) generates forces that direct organizations to strive for change. The situational change forces could be both external and internal. The external change forces may emanate from changes on political, economic, social, and/or technological fronts. The internal change forces may be because of poor performance (low profitability, loss of market share), change in top management, and so on. In the last two decades, a plethora of literature is created around the issues linked with “change” and “transformation.” The mantra of organizational success is proclaimed to be effective management of change as if “change” is inevitable. The guiding line for most of change theorists has been “change is the only constant.” The forces of change might result into either a gradual or continuous change, like Total Quality Management, or a radical change like business process reengineering or strategic/organizational transformation. During such a focus on change, concern for “continuity” is left far behind. Some of the significant change forces that are discussed here include globalization, new opportunities/threats, changing competition, changing customer needs, new technology, e-business models, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), changes in government policy and legislation, emerging environmental concerns, and imposition of global standards (Fig. 5.1). These are generic change forces that are indicative in nature; specific change forces need to be identified and assessed in unique case situation. At the end of the chapter, select change forces are illustrated using running case study of IBM.