Running Head: MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 1

Managing and Leading Strategic Change for Ronald

Lu & Partners to Implement Office 365

(Student Details)
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 2

(1) Executive Summary

The report highlights the change process that will be implemented in RLP. The world is
changing in terms of work process and technology. The traditional way of doing business and
tasks is not highly appreciated in the modern global world. RLP is still following old practices in
integrating the employee task and their conduct in business. Therefore, there is an urgent need to
migrate Office 365 in the organization in order to achieve better coordination and profitability.

The report states the complete change plan and defines how the planning and sponsorship,
awareness, learning and adoption phase should be planned and implemented. In the report, the
Leiwn’s Model is also applied to assure proper functioning of change process.
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 3

(2) Introduction

Ronald Lu & Partners (RLP) is an interior design and architecture company. It was founded in
1976 by Ronald Lu. Apart from interior designing and architectural services, it also provides
planning services in different fields including education, culture, community, commercial,
residential, hotel and retail development. It has its headquarters in Hong Kong and other offices
in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shenzhen (RLP 2019). Some of its notable projects include
China Resources Building, Chinese Opera Centre, Zero Carbon Building, Civil Aviation
Department Headquarters and The Opus Hong Kong.

The world is changing every day, customer needs are changing, and there is technological
change as well. Firms who do not believe in change have not marked their place in future growth
and its existence. The most common change witnessed these days is the change due to
technological advancement in the business world. Initially such change is quite disruptive, but
with time it has tendency to enhance productivity and improve service delivery (Harrington
2018).

RLP is an architecture company, and it has to be innovative and updated in order to survive and
compete with its competitors (Partners 2104). The company has decided to implement Office
365 to manage the swift growth of technology all over the globe. Microsoft Office 365 is
basically a suite for cloud based collaboration and productivity that combines all the online
applications of Microsoft, such as, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher,
Access and Sway (Beeram 2018). It integrates all the applications into a cloud service, adds
Skype for business purpose and puts Microsoft team to the collaboration process. All the
enterprises are finding this application very useful and are implementing it to drive productivity
and improve the return on investment.

The main objective for implementing this change is to create better mechanism for the firm to
put employees to service and also to manage their user accounts (Beerel 2009). Office 365 will
facilitate email coexistence as well. To bring more flexibility in the organization is another
objective as Office 365 has multiple options to apply solutions to the basic problems. Office 365
provides better support and security to the company data with minimum licensing issues.
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 4

(3) Change Plan

Implementing Office 365 is not an easy task; it requires continuous planning and attention. There
are a number of things that has to be pre-planned to implement change. Change Plan will provide
conceptual platform for the change process, people involved and to the organization (Aken
2012). Many organizations assume that change is just a training process and effective
communication. But as a result of many researches it has been clarified that, it is an effective
process when it is holistic and requires management methodology. Office 365 has to be
implemented with a specific plan in order to avoid failure and uncertainties.
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 5

Change Management Plan

Steps Time period Objectives Main activities Output

Planning 1 month to plan To ensure the Collect Information, Effective plan to
the changes success of Involve everyone in make changes
change and the process, Discover
assess how the infrastructure
much change is
needed
Sponsorship 10 to 15 days to Communicate Choose appropriate Employees aware
communicate the plan of Sponsor, Persuading about the changes
the plan with change with the the business case,
employees employees explain the behavioral
changes, Measurement
of success criteria
Awareness Around 15 days Apply changes Unfreezing the Successfully
to apply all the changes, Create the create changes
changes changes, Refreeze the
changes
Learning 1 month for the Train the Training and Corrective action
training (this employees after Integration plans and
time can be changes recognize
change approaches
according to the
learning ability
of employees
Readiness Around 2 Increase the Solve the issues and Review the
and Adoption months to work level of motivate the actions
properly readiness and employees
according to the adoption of the
changes employees
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 6

The steps involved in change plan of Ronald Lu are clearly explained below:

(a) Planning and Sponsorship

This step requires intense study of communication plan and sponsorship that RLP should apply
in its change process.

Planning

The most important part of planning is communication. RLP has to plan how it is going to
communicate the change to its employees. The way of communication should be effective and
clear so that the employees are well versed with the reasons for change. Change will affect the
employees of RLP in a lot of ways (Waddell and Creed 2106). It will become very difficult for
them to understand the new process of Microsoft. Their work load will increase and hence, may
lose their initial productivity at work as well. Appropriate communication will drag the attention
and support of staffs and employees (Bradutanu 2015). The following steps will show how the
planning and communication should be conducted:

1. Collection of information for planning Office 365 implementation for RLP

The first step is to gather information about the present environment of information technology
in the company and then develop the assignment of strategies and tactics for Microsoft Office
365 so that it can be further communicated to the users.

2. Involve everyone in the change process and communicate them about the basic
requirements that is necessary for change

Schedule a meeting to announce the change and mention the launch of Office 365 project. It is
the most important task to make the development team familiar with Office 365, so that the team
can lead everyone to move towards the determined direction of goal and objective (Bryson
2010).
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 7

3. Discover the IT infrastructure for Ronald Lu

Gather information about the present infrastructure and check whether it is up-to-date to handle
the new change. It is necessary to check that the on-premises structure is meeting the following
requirement:

o Components and servers

o Network architecture
o Directory designs
o Authenticated solutions
o Certificates

Sponsorship

Sponsorship is the first contributor to make the change project a success. The sponsors have to
be an active part of the change. Ronald Lu should choose a sponsor who promises to give time
and be regular at the events. Sponsors are also responsible for communicating with the
employees regarding the nature of change and reasons. Not only employees, but even customer
feedback and thoughts can be applied in the change by the company to facilitate change
management for Office 365 (Hunter 2103). The initial phase entails the below process:

1. Choosing the most appropriate sponsor and defining the level of engagement

Engagement of executive who knows the value and benefits of Microsoft Office 365 are
considered to be more successful in carrying out the change rollout. They will perform their tasks
actively by adopting the best team for change. It is the executive’s task to drive the top-down
communication and messaging. For example, the sponsor executive selected by RLP will have to
prepare and sign the rollouts through emails. RLP can conduct an information exchange

Before selecting the executive sponsor, the change team should ask the employees to deliver
their opinion on who can be the sponsor and to suggest if they know any key influencer (Melton
2011).
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 8

2. Persuading the business case to the people associated with Ronald Lu

Articulating will help the company to frame rest of the change initiatives. Define goals and
identifying ways to reduce the operating cost by ensuring them maximum return on investment.
Once the goal is defined the awareness campaign can be started to inspire the users of Office
365. The thoughts of the project team have to be clear so that they can provide answers regarding
the desired advantages and issue points related to the migration of Office 365, the change size
and the drivers for change (Newton 2015).

3. Explain the behavioral changes that is expected from the employees of Ronald Lu

The change team needs to recognize what behaviors need to be encouraged in the employees of
Ronald Lu. The change is not easy as the employees have to be dependent on Office 365 for their
daily work. This is the reason why the burden will increase in the training session, for example,
employees may ask frequent questions regarding what to do, how to do, what not to do and
where to do. In order to avoid this confusion, a clear and concise message should be delivered to
reflect the same in their behaviors. The project manager should be clear about the task of the
users and who will be the members of the core team and who will lead the change process.

4. Measurement of success criteria

The change team needs to discuss the success criteria and critically measure its impact from the
Microsoft Office 365. As soon as Office 365 is migrated, its success can be easily seen. The most
difficult part is to measure the accurate gain that the company has achieved. In such situation
Ronald Lu needs to highlight the area that needs strict measurements. Therefore, it is advisable
to conduct surveys to make the measurement process possible (Ray 2011).

The upper management will be the first person who will be informed about the outcome of the
implications. After this the success report may demand for the inclusion of data regarding the
level of user satisfaction, reliability, and help desk traffic and adoption velocity. Many
organizations fail to measure the success of Office 365; it is mainly because they focus on
checking and measuring the entire process (Kotter 2012). To avoid such confusion RLP should
chose only the important measurable term and carry out the process with the help of SMART
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 9

mnemonic. It means that the factors selected for calculation should be specific, measurable,
attainable, and relevant and can be completed on time.

Change measurement will show a clear picture about the success of Microsoft Office 365
rollouts. This will enable RLP to monetize savings at the correct time, capture resources and
qualitative benefits to satisfy the employees.

(b) Awareness (using Lewin Model)

In change management, awareness is considered to be the most important stage. Once the
company is fully aware about the change, the adoption of the plan certainly increases. Ronald Lu
needs to aware the employees about an urge to change the system of Microsoft and also highlight
the benefits of technology that will be implemented. The lack of awareness will force the
employees to resist change (Reiss 2012). When resistance exists, the new technology cannot be
successfully applied as the employees are the main users of the new system. It is their task to
learn the new process and apply its application in their day-to-day work.

The traditional approach for change awareness is not suitable for Ronal Lu as it a large company
and has many employees. A proper training session must be conducted to make the users aware
about how to use Office 365 and why to use it. The training sessions should be measured to
underline the gap and focus on bridging the gap in the next training. The following
recommendations are must to create an effective awareness:

 Aligned communication
 Leverage the sponsors for communicating the business purpose of the implementing
Office 365
 Engagement of supervisors and managers to communicate the change departmentally
 Communicate early to minimize the risk of rumors
 Communicate verbally, allow the users to question and comment; this will clear their
doubts (Nevenhoven 2016)
 Emails, newsletters and posters should be used to complement the awareness session.

Big organizations like RLP usually struggle in implementing change, as there are enormously
changes that need to be followed up. In such situation, RLP can apply Lewin’s Change
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 10

Management Model in the migration of Office 365 in its business practices to diminish the
complexity involved in change. This model was developed by Kurt Lewin and it has three steps
involved: unfreezing, changing and refreezing.

Lewin’s Change Model (Mindtools 2018)

 Unfreezing the change to create awareness

The first step in Lewin’s model is to unfreeze and prepare the organization to accept change. the
change manager of RLP should communicate the reason behind change and state reasons that
why the present way to doing business cannot be carried forward. The present way of creating
the designs for interior decoration is not appropriate in the company, it is unsuccessful in
aligning the works of users and the work performed. Therefore, to cope up with the dynamic
environment and advanced technology, RLP should implement change. The managers need to
show the declining sales, poor financial results and customer dissatisfaction as a reason for
change. Office 365 will bring challenges in relations to beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors in
RLP. It basically means outlining the agenda for implementation and driving and inspiring the
new behaviors.

After mentioning all the uncertainties associated in the present way of doing work in the
unfreeze stage, the challenge arises when the users try to solve the uncertainties. This model
aims at removing the resistance to change and create awareness of status quo and current level of
acceptability.

 Changing

Now the people are ready to change the process and technology, RLP should move or transit into
a new state. This step is also known as moving stage or transitioning stage. This is the real stage
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 11

for change where the users will face fear and uncertainties (Voehl 2017). The changing process
requires consistent education, training and communication as a support.

The examples showing how Office 365 should be migrated are mentioned below:

o Determine the existing business content that has to be migrated

Select the files and folders that have to be shifted from on-premises environment to the new
adopted technology (Templafy 2016).

o Learning of various options for account provisioning

Office 365 serves various mechanisms that help in connecting the employees with the service
and user accounts.

o Booklets, posters and other print communication to create a sense of change in RLP

It is essential to create a visual change for Office 365; this will make the employees aware and
more enthusiastic.

o Incentives and awards

Providing incentives to the users of Office 365 will generate a momentum and result into a win-
win situation in RLP (Microsoft365 2019).

 Refreezing

After the change manager has implemented the change process, it is important to check its
success by measuring and controlling the process; and thereafter refreezing the process as an act
of solidifying, stabilizing and reinforcing Office 365 in the organization. The practical steps in
refreezing steps are:

o Anchoring the changes into the new culture

This can be done by identifying change support and sustainability forces

o Developing the ways to sustain change

MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 12

The change can be successful by ensuring effective leadership. The sponsors and leaders of
change should be selected by analyzing their availability, concept and motive.

o Opening feedback channels for the users

In the entire rollout phase, it is essential to allow the employees top participate in the process.
They should feel free to ask questions or give their valuable feedback.

(c) Learning

As soon as the employees become aware about the change and its reasons, another phase is
related to their learning and training program. Different employees need different types of
training as per their role and task in the organization (Combe 2014). Training programs will be
started in multiple ways featuring different challenges, styles and resource constraints. Roll-out
strategies will also be implemented in this phase. In this program the employees who have
greater roles and tasks will be given first preference to get trained and use Office 365 as
compared to other employees who do not have much role to perform. The program will state the
technology that is being migrated, the number of users of this technology and the training
budget. The training budget will be high, as it will assure better outcome in the future.

The learning program in which the employees of RLP will participate to know and use the new
technology introduced consists of the following steps:

1. To find what needs to be taught

The very first process in the training program is to determine what will be taught to the
employees. There will be different training sessions for the employees, depending upon their role
and status in RLP. As a change manager, it becomes important to determine in advance the
learning needs. These needs are categorized into three types:

 Identify the current skills of employees and what needs to be taught to the new
employees who currently joined RLP
 Identify skills that needs improvement in RLP’s existing workforce (Aisher 2017)
 Identify skills that the workforce should have to support and adapt the new technology
that will be implemented
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 13

Depending upon the above mentioned skills, the staff will be categorized into groups. Guessing
the training needs will cause harm to the organization, so a proper research will be conducted to
know the actual skills and capabilities of the workforce. The research report will include all the
personal and behavioral skills of all the participants who will attend the training sessions.

2. Checking on inventory for training resources

The employee training plan is designed by listing all the training needs. The resources will be
checked and the unavailable resources will be purchased as per the budget set for the training
program.

3. Management assistance

While implementing technological advancement, it is often observed that the employees are
more focused on doing their day-to-day tasks, rather than showing interest and enthusiasm in the
training sessions. Therefore, to reduce this negative impact on the learning program, the
managers and sponsors are supposed to attend the sessions. This will make the employees more
attentive and motivated.

4. Highlight the benefits of Office 365

The employees will show more concern on finishing their tasks more easily and in less time, and
ignore all the functions and usage of Office 365 (Cole 2013). Therefore, to make the training
program more effective, the employees will be taught how to use Office 365 along with the
benefits of each feature.

5. Work scenarios will be applied for employee engagement

The structure of the program will be similar to the work scenarios. The initial lessons will be
very simple and consists of those tasks that the employees are already aware of. The main reason
behind this strategy is to draw the employee attention and to make them feel skillful.

6. Integrating rules, processes and the appropriate practice

This step is a part of the training session because it is essential to deliver information about the
governance model such as information architecture, customization, search, site creation and
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 14

many more. All these policies will be formulated in the training session with the roll out of
Microsoft Office 365.

7. Hire a champion as a trainer

It is not necessary that the trainer has to be a part of RLP; the company will hire a person who
has complete knowledge and an experience of using Microsoft 365. A person who has already
trained many employees and involves excellent command in doing this job will be hired
(Avanade 2019). Such person has a better understanding of the process and can deliver
knowledge in the best possible manner.

8. Designing a pilot learning program

The next step will be the testing of the training content and tactics that will be used in the
program to check whether the program will be effective or not.

9. Integrating of feedback mechanisms

The training program will allow flexibility; it will appreciate suggestions given by the employees
and other members of RLP. No training program can be successful without involving employee
participation and feedback (Andriotis 2018). By taking the employee feedback into
consideration, the further training process can be continued, monitored and controlled.
Therefore, the outcome of this training program aims at increasing the employee engagement and
their satisfaction.

(d) Readiness and Adoption

This phase involves the application of feedback provided by the employees. All the necessary
requirements of the employee are taken into consideration and a new process is framed to
increase the level of readiness and adoption of the employees. The new process involves ongoing
support for the end users of Office 365 (Messageops 2019). The level of support that an
employee will receive will decide the level of adoption. Timely solutions will be provided to
make sure that the employees do not think that the new technology introduced is difficult to use
and understand. Both type of resources that is automated and physical resources will be applied
to bring out maximum employee satisfaction (Acuvate 2018).
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 15

After the training process ends, the company will set up a help desk that will assist the
employees in solving their issues related to the ways and process of using Office 365. The help
desk team has to be very active and supportive, if the company wants the change plan to be
implemented successful to draw the desired outcome out of it.

The level of employee adoption will be checked depending upon the following criteria:

Information: The information that has been delivered to the employees and what have they
learned from it.

Motivation: The level of motivation in the employees of RLP, whether they were interested in
learning new technology or not (Icy365 2018).

Ability: Are the employees capable of using Office 365 or still has confusion and queries.

Confidence: If the employees are using the new technology with confidence, it will indicate that
they have understood Office 365 properly and now can perform their daily task and reports by
using it.

(4) Conclusion and other recommendations

Change is a complex task and should be dealt with ease. RLP has decided to move with the
dynamic environment and to migrating Office 365 in its business practices in order to be more
advanced and enjoy competitive advantage over its competitors. The following includes some
recommendations that RLP should implement in its change plan:

 Change transparency

It is highly recommended that the company should disclose all the related information about
change, hiding things and facts will make the employee feel cheated and they will be misguided.

 Different mechanism for handling feedback

Change process is a long task. It has a different team that handles change; it is strongly advisable
that RLP should keep a separate team for receiving feedback and communicating the relevant
ones to the concerned authorities. They step will save time of higher expertise.
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 16

 Employee participation

Employees will feel valued and important if they will be given a chance to share their thoughts
and understanding about the change process.

This report can be concluded by saying that the change emblements is not an easy task, it always
comes with a set of new challenges and high degree of risk. At present the company has failed to
show positive outcome, and the reason behind its failure is usage of traditional processes in
integrating and coordinating the employees and business tasks. RLP’s decision to in traduce
Office 365 is the solution to make the company profitable and successful.

Therefore, it becomes the duty of change manager to handle the entire process effectively and
efficiently. A properly planned change plan can be easy to implement and exercise if everything
is performed as per the plan. Similarly, RLP has to perform all the change processes as per the
planned criteria to accomplish the determined objective of making the organization work in a
better way and improve its working standards.
MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 17

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(6) Appendices

Change Management Toolkit for Office 365 (Maes 2018)

Lewin’s Change Model (Slidegeeks 2019)

MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE 21