As stated by Frank Perdue, “A business that does not change is a business that is going to die”. Every company in the business world facing with the external factor that force them to make a change and adapt to survive (Richards L., 2018). Whether it be rapidly change in technology regarding how the company communicate with customer or improve the quality of productivity and service, customer needs which always change that the company have to follow the demand and seek for an opportunity to meet their needs, and also the economic and political factor that may affect the brand in terms of cost and price. Nevertheless, change management is important for company to ensure that the changing process will be smoothly as they planned, and prevent them from mistakes during change (Thompson J., 2018).
Same as my previous blogs, I am going to discuss about the UK retailer company. In this blog, I decided to analyze and evaluate Sainsbury’s, which is the second rank in UK retailers in 2016 (Retail Economics, 2018). Sainsbury’s is one of the forefront retailer company in UK that was founded in 1869 by John James and Mary Ann. Same as most of other retailer companies, this well-known retailer started from a small dairy store in Drury Lane (Pederson Jay P., 2001).
How Brexit affect Sainsbury’s
Brexit is an abbreviation for “British exit”, which the majority of UK are voted to leave the European Union. Brexit will definitely affect every industry in UK including Sainsbury’s. First, the main source of UK food is from European Union. With the stricter rules of import European Union goods, it will affect the freshness of the fresh product and make it rotten before arriving at the stores (Sembhy R., 2017). Furthermore, the weak pound will also affect the company in terms of supply chain because weaker pound means higher import costs (Kollewe J., 2017). This supply chain issue may lead to the rise of product price which Sainsbury’s have to control it in order to compete with other retailers such as Tesco, and Marks and Spencer Simply Food.
Solution for retailer
As change is needs in order to react the effect from Brexit, Lewin’s change model which contains unfreeze, change, and freeze stage can be applying to Sainsbury’s. During unfreeze stage, it is important for leader to communicate with their employee regarding the reason and way to change. In this case, Sainsbury’s leader need to clearly explain to their subsidiary that they have to focus more on import process, fresh food preservation, and a change in supply chain structure in order to make the employee accept and prepare for changing (Mindtools, 2018). At the change stage, time and communication are necessary because when there are changing in some part of organization structure, everybody need to have more time to understand the process. After change stage, it is the time to ensure that the thing that changed will be used all the time, which job description and organization charge can be used in this freeze stage (Mulder P., 2012).
Beside the Lewin’s change model, there are Kotter’s eight step change model. However, there are many critics who claims whether it useful or not (O’Keefe K., 2011). Unfortunately, more time is required to manage the organization change by using Kotter’s change model, due to there are too many steps (Kotter J., 1996). For Sainsbury’s, the issue affected by Brexit will leads them to loss, which company need to solve it as soon as possible. Thus, this Kotter’s model is not useful as the Lewin’s model mentioned above.
Learning outcomes
As mentioned, Brexit have an impact to Sainsbury’s and other retailer companies in terms of currency and transportation. Thus, Sainsbury’s need to prepare themselves to change by using well plan as a guideline for the change they going to make. Due to long distance product transportation from European Union to UK, the company should restructure their supply chain structure. With the useful Lewin’s model, Sainsbury’s can apply it to the current situation to enhance their change management. Therefore, it is very important for leader to understand how to effectively implement change, to appropriately solve the problem smoothly without any conflict with their employee.
References
- Kollewe, J. (2017) Sainsbury’s warns over ‘uncertain’ impact of pound’s Brexit slide [online] available from <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/16/sainsburys-pound-brexit-argos-growth> [20 July 2018]
- Kotter, J. (1996) Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996
- Mindtools (2018) Lewin’s Change Management Model [online] available from <https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_94.htm> [20 July 2018]
- Mulder, P. (2012) Lewin’s Change Model [online] available from <https://www.toolshero.com/change-management/lewin-change-model/> [20 July 2018]
- O’Keefe, K. (2011) Where Kotter’s 8 Steps Gets it Wrong [online] available from <https://www.cebglobal.com/blogs/where-kotters-8-steps-gets-it-wrong/> [20 July 2018]
- Pederson, Jay P. (2001) International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.38. St. James Press, 2001
- Retail Economics (2018) Top 10 UK Retailers [online] available from <https://www.retaileconomics.co.uk/top10-retailers.asp> [20 July 2018]
- Richards, L. (2018) Why Is Change Important in an Organization? [online] available from <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/change-important-organization-728.html> [20 July 2018]
- Sembhy, R. (2017) Sainsbury’s CEO warns post-Brexit rules could leave food rotting at UK border [online] available from <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sainsburys-ceo-mike-coupe-brexit-food-eu-goods-uk-border-a7927606.html> [20 July 2018]
- Thompson, J. (2018) The Definition for a Business Change [online] available from <https://bizfluent.com/facts-7214659-definition-business-change.html> [20 July 2018]
Leading in a Changing World 
A great article that takes a concept, applies it to the real world and makes it super easy to understand while also allowing me to learn new subjects easily.
LikeLike
Thank Rohan, As change is always needed in today business world, I found that Brexit that have an impact to the retailer company is very interesting. In this case, I decided to choose Sainsbury’s to describe their change management in the situation.
LikeLike
Impressive content, although Lewin’s model is a rather old framework but it’s popular until present.
LikeLike
Yes, As Lewin’s Model itself covered all concept regarding how company manage their changing process, and also provided the step for company to take, this model has been applied by many company in today business world which make it still present and popular.
LikeLike
Lewin model is such a classic example of old school framework that still works,concepts are applied in a proper way…Sandbury is a good example too.
LikeLike
Absolutely agree with you! Although Lewin’s model is old, it still useful for company to manage their changing process. Moreover, I found the fact that retailer company have been impacted by Brexit is very interesting, so i decided to choose one of the leading company in retailer industry, Sainsbury’s as an example.
LikeLike
Great structure, the Brexit impact to business have been discussed clearly and the solution you recommended was very interesting.
LikeLike
Thank Techin, glad that you found my recommendation useful. I tried to think about the possibility for Sainsbury’s to change how they work to reduce the impact from Brexit they faced. If you have any recommendation for this situation of Sainsbury’s, please share!
LikeLike
The content of your change management like Sainsburys and Brexit issue was explained in details. As soloution , you used Lewin’s change model which is pretty outstanding. This blog gives me detailed knowledge about what is change management in retail industry and how could it be solved. Very nice blog
LikeLike
You’re welcome, glad you liked the post! Among the billion company impacted by Brexit, i found the company in retailer industry is the most interesting. Thus, I used Sainsbury’s which is one of the leading retailer company in this aspect. As mentioned, apart from Lewin’s model, there also have Kotter’s eight step change model which is more recent but Lewin’s model still be the one that more useful.
LikeLike
The Sainsbury’s example was perfect. This blog is awesome and I’m going to use this blog in my future research’s. Tell me something please! Do you think that Brexit will only affects negatively Sainsbury’s? You don’t see any advantage for Sainsbury’s with the Brexit implementation?
LikeLike
Of course they have! Everything in the world have both advantage and disadvantage. In this case, i think Brexit which slow down the economic of the UK will encourage people to eat at home instead of go to restaurant. Thus, it mean that there will be more people enter retailer stores which lead to the increasing in sales. In other word, Sainsbury’s will gain more sales due to the rise of eat at home trend.
LikeLike