Nowadays, “change” is something you are as likely to experience in your private life as in your working environment, where all echelons may have to accommodate new requirements and new dynamics. Quite often, companies can’t just get away with coping with market changes; rather, they must anticipate any forthcoming trend lines. To achieve these goals it will usually be necessary to deploy new corporate strategies, as required to adjust to an ever more competitive business environment.
Changes in one's daily routine
Change frequently plays a major role in our own private life, too. One often has to make substantial changes to reshape one’s life for real, getting rid of whatever would cause dissatisfaction and even misery. Of course, once you realize that someone or something has become a liability, a stumbling block you must overcome, you also have to take on full responsibility for the changes you are planning. This will lend you the sort of single-minded determination which will enable you to adopt the appropriate strategy to improve your situation.
Consider, for example, two people in a relationship. If either of them begins to look upon it as unsatisfactory, he (or she, of course) may decide to break it off—a relationship which has been grinding on for some time is then severed and they shall soon start to rebuild their life. That would not look too complicated to achieve, however some kind of resistance is to be expected on the part of individuals who may demur as they find it hard to tackle lifestyle changes. So change is often checked by fear, or possibly by our inability to face the unknown—even when we do acknowledge that these difficulties will entail an improvement of our state.
Why change management is necessary
A similar need for a change may occur in a business setting, hence the rise of the term change management. By change management we mean every initiative and every method your business may resort to in order to manage technical innovations, oversee structural changes or redefine the way you run your company. As in the case of one’s private life, the first step should always be to analyse the circumstances and discover what can be changed to reinvent oneself and improve. Only once this stage has been dealt with there will be a chance to develop a well-structured design—and let us not neglect the fact that, if it has to be effective as well as efficient, it will have to overcome a certain amount of mistrust and opposition by employees. You will always find some people intrinsically disinclined to face substantial changes, changes requiring altering the way they work. Nevertheless, corporate growth calls for procedural changes as well as technological advances, so that an appropriate strategy will have to be adopted to implement all opportune changes.
Any change in the working environment should involve building some sort of consensus—and so be agreed upon rather than imposed from above. Requesting people to implement measures to which they showed only a lukewarm response is usually doomed to fail; at the very least, they are probably going to turn out to be low performers. All those who work for the company should feel deeply involved in the change that has been planned; the full cooperation of all employees is a necessary precondition for success. Some measures might require remarkably long organization stages; in this case it is even more important to envisage verification procedures to detect any issues as they arise and deal with them. These are indispensable steps you must take in order to figure out which course to pursue to obtain the sort of change you are thinking of. Once the goal has been achieved, external communication should properly convey your business’ dynamism, its proclivity to innovation and the way it can successfully cope with ever changing market developments; also, it shall have to be adjusted to specific different circumstances and perfectly aligned with your mission.
Your corporate identity belongs to you.
Every initiative must adjust to the specific sort of change you are going to bring about, particularly the elements your company will use to relate with their partners and clients, such as corporate websites and the new media. Communication-related aspects should therefore emphasize innovation and development. Corporate goals and strong points must be made obvious by the way the company is presented and perceived from the outside, as it were. That is why people with special expertise are necessary to achieve this goal: they must be able to realize what your core business is and convey the relevant information as effectively as possible. Of course, to take care of a corporate image they will need to acquire a thorough knowledge of the company, the company’s mission and what the company are marketing.
The ability to adapt and innovate must necessarily impinge upon a company’s own image, as this is after all an essential element of any business. The process clearly calls for the backing of communication experts who may provide valuable professional advice as it is the only way a company can actually establish an effective and appropriate corporate identity—one that may positively influence both their clients and the market in general.
The sort of professional relationship we advocate is exactly meant as a way to support businesses determined to give prominence to their potential for innovation.