Team Members: Abhilasha Bhatt Rohit Agarwal Sarvasidhi Phaneendra Tarun Gupta

OTICON
Oticon founded in 1904 began production of hearing aids in 1940. It dropped from a position of being a market leader to 3rd position owing to the following: o o o Lack of innovative products Less responsive to customer needs Rigid Organization

To change this Lans Kolind was hired to bring the company back to leadership position. Some pointers on Kolind that help us understand his actions: o o o o Trained in Organizational behavior Understands behavior of employees Participated in compulsory Military service Not afraid to arm-twist employees Considered lack of formality of academic environment as an ideal working environment prefers less formal working environment Demonstrated converting troubled organizations into profitable ones reason for confidence

Kolind worked towards the process of transformation of Oticon. Q. What are the rights & wrongs about the process of transformation of Oticon? Kolind identified the strategic changes needed to bring about change. He implemented a lot of changes, which were met by resistance primarily because of the following reasons: o o A sentiment among employees that Oticon had already changed The changes will spoil the professional standards o Traditional managers feared losing control

The changes he took can be classified in 4 major headings: o Right Wrong

Style of Management o Clarity of Core Argument Thinking the Unthinkable o One on One discussion with managers Difficulty in handling all at once

Organizational changes o Multifunctional organization Each person does more than one thing o Projects based

Symbolic Activities o Having press conference Company of the future (Resulted in everyone asking

Political activities o No fixed isolated cubicles - people could move from one place to another o Ownership to employees

o Communication to behave like responsible adults emphasizing if Oticon treats employees fairly the employees will do the same.

organization projects owned by manager and a member in management team

o Kolind envisioned a spaghetti organization (Knowledge sharing, Cross functional project teams and Transparent Organization) Either accept the changes or leave the company attitude with employees Forced changes on the employees rather than giving them time to adjust Lack of Hierarchy Complete abolition of hierarchy led to confusion in workplace. Planning process was long compared to the execution Rapid change can destroy value if not executed properly

employees about the story, making them brand ambassadors.) o Acquiring 17% of the company (shows personal commitment & confidence in changes) o Launch of Multifocus (E36) despite rejection by the team Radical but not a tempered radical Changes made were fast with employees not given time to react

shares at a good price o Gifting PCs for home on Christmas resulted in employees telling every guest about how good Oticon is.

Lacked strategic alliances No strategic alliance with managers who are most likely oppose the change. Involved Employees from lower down the hierarchy in the change process can be source of unrest among managers

The resistance faced on all the three areas mentioned above, were handled by the political activities and style of management undertaken by Kolind. The wrongs in the process of transformation were mitigated by the rights, there were chances of managers boycotting the entire change movement given that the changes were pushed on them. But the support for upper management and commitment of Kolind towards this transformation helped it to result in a successful transformation.