Strategic Change in Scania Angers Plant
Changes in the strategy of the company often happen in organisations whether it is a small scale or a large scale. The changes could be in the marketing strategy or corporate strategy. The strategic change could be either applied in a particular department or to the whole organisation.
This paper gives analysis on the change of management strategy in the plant of Scania in Angers France. Moreover, this paper examines the implementation of the new management strategies in the Scania Angers Plant and the impact on the organisational performance of the workers and managers. It also provides discussion on the significant challenges enclosing the management of change in the organisation.
Scania is a Swedish multinational company which is chiefly involved in the production and marketing of trucks and buses. The trucks for the French, Italian and Iberian markets are assembled and built in Angers which is a former harvester plant about 50,000 square meters. The production has significantly increased and because of more plans on production it suggested a continuous increase in the coming years. Scania’s (2006) ambition is to supply the world’s most demanding consumers with the most competitive and most desirable solutions for their needs. Scania’s products and services shall satisfy the organisation’s customer expectation. In order to attain the ambition, the leadership of Scania is focused on common values, principles and working methods. The identity of Scania is formed by values, principles and working methods in addition to the products and services of the organisation. The three core values that are the most important for the company are; customer first, respect for the individual and quality. These core values are the fundamental basis of Scania’s corporate culture and business behaviour. Focusing on the value chain is the key why Scania’s managers and employees are able to meet the needs and expectations of the customers.
Organisational change theories according to (2003) have a huge influence on business and not-for-profit companies. The author stated that the scope of the impact of the popular organisational theories like the culture change, total quality management, business process re-engineering, organisational learning and the recent theory the six sigma is very evident in the world of business because these theories are utilised by a number of companies and the results are often reported in various journals, business presses and books.
In the case of Scania, the company employed the change in the company’s culture. The change process includes the new mission and vision which redefines the organisation’s business. The previous statements focused on product orientation, and the company’s new statement gives attention to a broader meaning of the business wherein it embodies broader concept on transportation and customer service via creating a lucrative partnership between agents and dealers, and between Scania and its customers. The new mission of Scania states that “Scania is committed to providing optimum solutions to meet customers’ needs by building profitable partnerships driven by all quality in all we do.” And the new vision of the company is determined by the powerful environment and the existing and developing values and beliefs of the organisation. This vision is a great help in identifying and developing new direct value-added services and seamless value system, cultural reorientation and success-enabling mechanisms.
In Scania Angers plant the Swedish managers implemented a cultural change, in which according to (2006) is a form of organisational change which is both radical and important. It includes the substitution of the fundamental values, norms and beliefs of the members of the organisation with the main reason of enhancing the performance of the organisation collectively.
In Scania, the company transformed its corporate culture starting with the change in the mission and vision statement of the company. From stressing on the products, the Scania’s mission changed into taking account the business collectively. Scania transformed its vision and mission in 1994 so that it could cope up with the competition as well as address the needs of its customers. As the trend of globalization occurs at a rapid pace paying attention to products mostly so that a good reputation could be developed is not enough. The management of an organisation must view other aspects in the business that is also valuable in building a good reputation such as the customer service and the relationship of the organisation with its consumers. Aside from the customers the organisation must also pay appropriate attention to its employees, and develop and implement new strategies and approaches in management that would be beneficial to the employees as well as the whole organisation in the long run.
In the Scania Angers plant the Swedish managers implemented the Teamwork approach. According to (1998) teamwork is an important feature in a wider trend of decentralised and flexible groups in which promotes a culture of involvement and expression, and currently the most famous form of restructuring an organisation. Moreover, teamwork develops lean production and workforces having a high commitment.
Teamwork approach is a very effective method in developing strong communication and commitment among employees and managers, however upon implementation of the approach Scania faced a number of challenges before attaining their goal. The challenges are mainly because of the cultural differences between the French and Swedish. Teamwork is not common among French firms, that’s why implementing the teamwork approach is very challenging for both nationalities working in Scania Angers Plant.
There are substantial discrepancies on the culture of the Swedish and with French people have high appraisal on hierarchy and looks at it as relevant in the work place, on the other hand the Swedish assays equality. The French people have a strong culture of masculinity than the Swedish. And individualism is very unmistakable among French while on the contrary the Swedish values collectivism. Furthermore, in France the French regards the distance between employees in higher ranks and employees in lower ranks in the workplace as substantial, on the other hand the Swedish people reduces the distance and as an alternative they seek for equality and desires equal opportunities whether it would be in politics, social, economic or civil rights. Another distinguishing feature of the French people which is different from Swedish are, the French have the tendency to be inclined with rules and bureaucratic processes in the work place, in other words they are authoritarian, on the other hand, the Swedish are more complacent and less organise in the work place.
Teamwork approach is new to the French workers and needed a great amount of effort and time so that all of the workers could assimilate in the new structure of the management. The teamwork approach the culture of the Swedish which is equality is very visible. Like in the clusters, all of the workers are equal except for the manager, and all of them have the opportunity to be promoted to a higher position regardless of the educational background.
Teamwork Approach
This approach has two key strategies which are the improvement of the skills of the managers and the employees and the relevant source of personal encouragement. Scania regard teamwork as a significant and useful tool in work processes of the plant and in wider aspects of the activities of the company.
Moreover, according to (1995) the teamwork approach has many advantages in an organisation such as it intensified the efficiency, enhances the quality of service to the consumers, fewer levels of management at the same time it raises the spirits of the employees.
Cluster
In the new management of Scania the basic structure of work organisation is the cluster. According to the managing director the clusters are “technical units of production made up of workers who assemble components forming a semi-furnished or manufactured product.” The clusters in Scania are responsible for a specific part in the production of the goods. For example, clusters have various tasks and responsibilities, some clusters are in the area of manufacture, and another is for the quality control and some in marketing. What separates Scania Angers from other Scania plants is that the entire cluster managers defined clearly their objective which is to impose that all activities in the plant must be reasonable in terms of their value added to the operation of the cluster.
Scania determined the three factors that makes an effective cluster, these are: multi-skilled, training and job enrichment.
The change of the management strategy which encourages individualism to teamwork is a huge challenge for any company, establishing a new strategy in a society where Individualism dominates is a difficult task for any manager. In order to face the challenges more efficiently, managing directors must understand first the culture of the society. A change in the work area will not be effective if the managers do not understand the culture, aside from it, the directors must talk with the managers of that specific organization in order to know the issues so that they would be able to create risk managements. A number of factors must be considered by both parties in order to implement the changes because the change made in the company might not be effective for another. Thorough deliberation of the organization, the culture of the society, the people and the new changes that will be implemented must be made to avoid a state of difficulty that needs major solutions.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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