Change Management At Fabulous Fashion: An Interview-based Essay.

Internal and External Drivers of Change

Change management can be defined as the procedure including planning, diagnosing, controlling, implementing as well as learning from changes. It can also be categorized as the attempt for mastering as well as gaining the control related to the change. Fabulous Fashion has undergone change management situation, specifically the change regarding the transformation of the business mode (Jayatilleke 2018, 164). Fabulous Fashion is the fashion and apparel company which is based out of United States. The company has been facing some of the serious organizational changes related to need of high investment for the incorporation of new technologies, declining market as well as high rate of competition in the fashion industry, reduced turnover of the products, lack of proper organizational capability and need of business model and strategy (Tudor 2018, 41).

The report focuses on the interview conducted with the Assistant Manager of Fabulous Fashion, who started the employment journey as a Secretary for the CEO of Fabulous Fashion. The main purpose of the report is based over the change project that has been undertaken at Fabulous Fashion, the fashion and the apparel company based in United States. With the need of waking up from the slumber and embarking over the digital transformation for survival, Fabulous Fashion have navigated change management with the use of technology for incorporating new fashion design and new age marketing techniques.

The globalization has been impacting the entire world of business at each and every level. The overall purpose of the business has been to maximize the profit and also provide the best possible services to the customers. The overall environment of the business includes the totality of the factors influencing the process of decision making (Umam and Sommanawat 2019). The drivers of the change within organization can be categorized as internal and external factors to organization.

For Fabulous Fashion, the internal drivers include low level of sales due to lack of innovativeness in the fashion apparel, dysfunctional culture, cost cutting, need of rising the capability of the organization, need of increasing turn over of product and low revenue. The external drivers of change for Fabulous Fashion includes increased level of competition on the fashion industry,  increased trend of digital marketing and fashion photos, constant changes in the preferences of customer regrading fashion, the economic forces (Irfan et al. 2019).

One of the most prominent challenges experienced by the fashion company is the need of developing new designs and innovative fashion apparels since the industry is constantly changing and require fashion experts. Incorporation and influence of new designs, colours as well as accessories as per the current trend that influences the buyers needs to be incorporated to heighten the brand value . Also, proper advertising and marketing of the fashion accessories and apparels is one of the areas that Fabulous Fashion, as a fashion company lacks. The redevelopment of the intervention of the operation framework of Fabulous Fashion was guided by the interviewee and positive behaviour committee   was introduced in the organization to make sure that all the existing employees are receiving proper training and teaching regrading upgradation of their fashion innovation as well as other skill of fashion marketing.

Perspectives on Change

This particular section of the report examines the diverse view points on the driving changes that has been taken under consideration while implementing change with Fabulous Fashion, the fashion and apparel industry. In the case of Fabulous Fashion, it is very much appropriate to focus over the below four perspectives.

One of the major drivers for the change at Fabulous Fashion was the need for training of the staff members and reshaping the developmental duties of the organization. Restructuring the departments for meeting the new trends of the fashion will require utilising as well as growth of the existing level of staff resources. Also enabling the staff members with the correct set of knowledge and skills for supporting a positive and innovative skill falls under resource-based view (Palacios-Mateo et al. 2021, 20). As per the interview, the need of controlling the fixed and the operation cost, the implementation of a new approach of the business model and the need for cutting out on the unpopular products and closing down the unprofitable outlets are the resource-based view for the change perspective for minimising the loss structure (Dicuonzo et al. 2020). Ensuring the strengthening of the loyalty of the employees and absence of efficiency regarding the firm’s competitiveness are also some of the resource-based view that triggered the change management at Fabulous Fashion. 

Institutional environment has been the shaping force which was recognised during the interview with the assistant manager of the organization, regrading the planning as well as the implementation of the change over of the systems, positive support program culture that also included the standards of the culture, efficient system for the fashion business and the careful implementation of the Intellectual property laws. These change forced are set within the institutional environment. According to research studies, these perspectives views the operation with the organizations being influenced majorly by their specific social environment (Karell and Niinimäki 2020). Consideration of older employees who are slow, weakening the resistance of the employees and managers of Fabulous Fashion, challenges due to the change in the marketing technologies and IT and restructure of the communication system through change programme needed to be considered.  Fabulous Fashion ensured the change management under an adaptive or incremental view that ensured the organization to evolve through the accumulation of small changes over the time in the field of fashion industry (Clark 2019, 311). The entire change has been an evolutionary change emphasizing the character and process of the change for the betterment and the development of the organization in the field of fashion industry.

The biological perspective towards change is driven by the understanding and acknowledgement of the change within the organization like changes in the fashion industry, like adoption of new techniques and tools in textile production and design elements. Evolution on the use of technological tools like the use of phones as well as the current smart devices are some of the factors falling under the biological perspectives. According to the research reports, the change management within the organization under the biological perspective is majorly driven by the implementation of the Darwin evolution theory (Mukendi et al. 2020). Regrading Fabulous Fashion, the theory can be implemented by evolution of the fashion trends, the need for the innovation of marketing and fashion tool techniques and finally survival of the existing organization in the competitive market.  The theory can also be applied to the services and the products like rising the efficiency of the company, the long term benefits like the profitable management and leadership approach, the strengthening of the employee loyalty, restructuring of the communication in programs, departmental restructuring and designing of the workflow of the department, updating new reward and recognition system and implementation of feedback management system (Putra et al. 2021). Another significant perspective under the biological context includes the understanding of the life cycle of the products that ensures development of the fashion industry. Shorter cycle of the products and fashion trends contributes to rapid innovation and also helps the organization to stand out in the competitive fashion field. The punctual equilibrium model can also be considered for the discussion of the biological perspective ensuring the longer period of stability or equilibrium that has been punctuated by short bursts of some of the major fundamental changes in the staff training, photography, digital marketing, control in the operation and fixed cost (Famiola, Melia, and Amia Wulansari 2019).

Incremental and Evolutionary Change

Organization like Fabulous Fashion experiencing uncertainty while looking future, specifically on lack of proper and clear goals, shorter cash flow, lack of efficiency of the organization, lack of financial reserves for maintaining market position and lack of proper finance for investing in good competitive marketing strategies tends to manipulate the environment for reducing existing organizational and cultural challenges. The contingency perspective regrading the change management of Fabulous Fashion is majorly driven and governed by behavioural view situation. The change decision for Fabulous Fashion is majorly accountable for the situational factors for Fabulous Fashion like need for digital marketing and fashion photography (Warnecke et al. 2018, 371). Efficient system is required to continue and run the business with recruiting of the design professionals and strategies to capture interest of the public like investment in the commercials. The contingency perspective for Fabulous Fashion explains the organizational change from the behavioural perspective where managerial decisions are taken in account based of the factors relating to structure, size and technology. Use and adoption of technological innovation in fashion industry, cultural positive factors and also strategies have ensured Fabulous Fashion to fit among the environment and the organization (Sánchez and John Polga-Hecimovich 400). Some of the key contingency for Fabulous Fashion that are subjected to internal and external forced for the change management includes competitiveness and ensuring high level of productivity by cutting down on the unpopular and unprofitable resources.

The implementation of the change management process at Fabulous Fashion as per the assistant manager included the training of the staff, development of the organization culture, ensuring reduced cash flows, careful assurance of intellectual property rights, financial reserves for market position and adoption of good and competitive marketing strategies (Wiederhold, Marie and Martinez 2018, 420). However, the organization experienced resistance from the employees and managers due to the family style culture model and existence of slow and less capable resources. Also challenges regrading employees who were not able to adopt new technological innovation and marketing technologies contributed to resistance and lack of co-operation.

This section includes the category and the type of approach Fabulous Fashion underwent while developing, planning as well as implementing the change management process. According to research studies, there are two significant types of approaches. These are planned approach and emergent approach. Change management process for Fabulous Fashion adopted planned change of the approach without taking any comprehensive strategic plan. The assistant manager who was interviewed stated that this approach relied on the managers who understood the need for the changes, as easily became comfortable on the initial resistance that came in the way (Irfan et al. 2019). The planned change approach included group dynamics and the field theory that can be related to the change of Fabulous Fashion. The group dynamics included the changes which required to be introduced within the organization at the group level due to string influence of the internal factors . The theory of change by Kurt Lewin defines the overall planned change management for Fabulous Fashion ensuring the proper driving force and the restraining forces under the force field analysis. The three step model by Lewin can be discussed under the planned approach for Fabulous Fashion (Sriyaku et al. 2019, 480).

Conclusion

Unfreezing lead to the development of dissatisfaction and picking the challenges faced by Fabulous Fashion like  lack of proper organizational capability and need of business model, regional textile industry protectionism and need for proper fashion innovators and marketing strategies.

Moving or the change step included effective change implementation as per the planning and dealing with the resistance factors towards change from mangers and employees as well as unproductive resources (Bertola, Paola, and Jose Teunissen et al. 2018).

Refreezing including slow adaption of the change with gradual co-operation, decision to update the feedback and the reward system and improved level of communication system.

The interview considered for the study stated that change intervention for Fabulous Fashion has been success due to employee retention practices, strengthening of the employee loyalty programs, training session for easy adoption of IT and marketing technologies for the existing employees (Rosenbaum et al. 2018). Also, collaboration of all the managers in the comfortable space, restricting of the communication system for big change programme and acknowledging feedback from all the members and respecting them.

Conclusion

Fabulous Fashion underwent a rapid change intervention that included planned change approach for the implementation of strategies supporting new sales campaign, development of new design and models for ensuring effective distribution. One of the significant moves of the change intervention has been the development of innovative and trendy fashion design by recruiting new designers with experience and knowledge on fashion technology, textures and colours. The firm majorly focused on the marketing strategies in the change approach with the incorporation of photography and fashion model that ensured promotion and advertisement of the new products and fashion for in commercials for catching public attraction.

Collecting over the materials which was gathered from the overall interview, it can be stated that Fabulous Fashion require massive marketing strategies and segmentation as per diverse range of markets which needs to categorised as per gender and age group, whereby keeping up with the region specific and age specific trends. The transformation of the business mode of the Fabulous Fashion which has already been initiated last year can further more be accelerated by adopting continuous model of change (Smith et al. 2020, 10629). Adhering the competition of the fashion industry, Fabulous Fashion should think of adopting social media marketing and listing their fashion apparels in the e-commerce websites for reaching a greater number of consumers. Regarding the target market of teenage and mid age professional women, adoption of fashion with Suttle, pastel and light weight comfortable wear as per the geographic location can ensure rapid customer response. To stand out in the business market, the organization should improve the customer experience by high after sales services, provision of reward system not only for the employees but also for the consumer in the form of discounts, cashback and suggestion for daily fashion. Introduction of women fashion accessories apart from the apparel, as well as launching new set of men fashion can be beneficial for the firm under differentiation strategy within the competitive market which majorly deals fashion with women.  Designing fashion for different geographic location, as well as different cultural ethnicity can attract a greater number of consumers (Bertola and Jose Teunissen 2018). Recruiting new and innovative talents from the fashion management colleges can help Fabulous Fashion to produce new colourful fashionable clothes. Proper management of the returned and defected products also can to be done under the approach of controlling operating and fixed costs. 

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