Change Management

According to Nimmo (2018), businesses are uncertain on how they will be performing their activities after the Brexit has been accomplished. Brexit refers to the fact that Britain have voted to leave the European Union as they want to have overall control of the operations. Due to this, there are various impacts on the businesses for example, the import prices have become higher, the value of the pound has dropped, and have no longer have access to the single market. 

According to Morris (2018), it was perceived that the exported goods from UK have amounted to £133bn.Nonetheless, it is anticipated when the accomplishment of Brexit will occur, they would be confronting a minimum loss of £4.5 billion per year until a new agreement of trade has been established with the European Union. One of the important impact that people in the UK are worried and concerned are they would be losing their jobs one is the Brexit have occurred. This is because European people would require a visa to work in the UK and it has been anticipated that the rate of unemployment would be rising by 6.5% which refers to the fact that more than 500,000 people would be unemployed. To understand the impact of Brexit on a particular industry, the author of taking into consideration of a telecommunications provider.

Vodafone is a well-known telecommunication provider in the UK and they have more than 20 million consumers and have provided employment to 30,000 people. After the Brexit had occurred, the CEO have mention that they would be relocating their headquarters to another region apart from UK (Davies, 2018)

According to Sheffield (2017), Vodafone had made an announcement that they would be shifting their headquarters and this is due to the fact that they believed that they would be confronting limitation from the capital, goods, and people. Moreover, as the pound have fallen, the economy would be slowing down which means the customer confidence would be getting lower. This will have a huge impact on the sales performance of Vodafone.

To implement new changes in the organisation, the author has employed the three step change model (Hussain, 2018). If Vodafone are taking into consideration of this model, this will provide assistance to the employees to be prepared beforehand so that they can shift a different location. Vodafone needs to be stable on your own so that the employees feel that the organisation will help them. Currently, the situation can be categorised as unfreezing stage as there are still thinking whether it would be beneficial to leave the UK or not. At this stage, they are looking at various options and preparing documentation which will help them to implement changes in the future. After they have understood and taking the preparation they would be moving to the change segment where they will be mentally prepared to counteract reality and shifting their headquarters to a different region apart from UK. Practically, it is very difficult as Vodafone has been operating in the UK since years. After Vodafone has made their mind and they have already relocated some of their operations outside UK they will be then transferred to the refreeze stage where they would be monitoring the changes whether the company is being able to combat the current situation or not.

Change management is a very difficult process and in reality it needs high cost, capital and labour to bring the theory into reality. However, to avoid losses and be ahead of the competition, companies like Vodafone are taking preparations from beforehand so that they can still maintain their position in the telecommunication industry (APM, 2018)

References

APM (2018). What is change management? | APM. [online] Apm.org.uk. Available at: https://www.apm.org.uk/body-of-knowledge/delivery/scope-management/change-management/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2019].

Davies, R. (2018). Vodafone among firms that may move HQs from post-Brexit UK. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/28/firms-plan-investment-freeze-amid-brexit-fallout-cbi [Accessed 8 Jan. 2019].

Hussain, S. (2018). Kurt Lewin’s change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), pp.123-127.

Morris (2018). BT, Vodafone Still Fretting Over Brexit Costs, Uncertainty | Light Reading. [online] Light Reading. Available at: https://www.lightreading.com/regulation/bt-vodafone-still-fretting-over-brexit-costs-uncertainty/d/d-id/744314 [Accessed 8 Jan. 2019].

Nimmo (2018). Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao warns on Brexit as he quits. [online] This is Money. Available at: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-5748655/Vodafone-chief-executive-Vittorio-Colao-warns-Brexit-quits-decade-helm.html [Accessed 8 Jan. 2019].