Software quality management, compliance, and collaboration across the entire organization also need to be integrated at the process and role level with the LMA supply chain. As the LMA supply chain is very unique in that it specifically deals with prototypes often that are under covered under security guidelines and clearances, there needs to be continual focus on change management and task ownership in this area as well. For LMA supply chains is their major source of pricing competitive advantage as the company ahs been responsible for several innovations in this process area (Cheung, Myers, 2008). In conclusion as CEO of LMA the challenge of attaining and strengthening global competitiveness begins with being a transformational leader followed by concentrating on transforming compliance into a competitive advantage, and also striving to create a high level of task ownership, mastery and collaboration within and between the company's teams and outside partners including the supply chain. Please describe how you as the CEO/President of a company would effectively address, manage & use John Kotter's 8 STEP approach to evolutionary change in order to gain and sustain competitive efforts in the global marketplace. Specifically, evaluate each STEP; identify the strength and weaknesses and the pros and cons of each STEP; and highlight / illustrate specific actions within each STEP which could be taken using various organizational examples to support your arguments.

As the CEO of a software company focused on how to keep the software produced for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as competitive as possible relative to larger competitors including Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and others, I would use the Kotter 8 STEP Model as follows. Having referenced Kotter's work on leadership (Kotter, 2001) I would also focus on change management strategies that gave each employee an opportunity to see how their contributions are critical for the success of the company. As a start-up the 8 STEP Model is critical for getting lasting change in place to make the company more competitive on a global level. Step 1, Increase Urgency, centers on the development teams who will need to get software applications' key features and attributes completed quickly. Sales needs to constantly have a high sense of urgency to go after new potential enterprise and small business accounts to sell the software to, and services need to be focused on developing training materials. The positive aspects of this first step is that it gets the entire company moving rapidly ahead to objectives, increases the level of intensity of effort to attain specific objectives, and also creates more collaboration as teams strive to get to deadlines by helping each other. The downside is that often in organizations each department has its own perception of time. Second, infighting and often arguments can emerge quickly when a sense of urgency is injected into an organization quickly. Third, the entire project could be sabotaged if team leaders don't trust the lead on the entire project. The second step of building as guiding team is get the most effective leaders aligned and organized onto just a single team. These are the most credible and most trusted leaders in the company. The advantages of this strategy is that it can serve to minimize conflict by creating trust and communication across teams early on, and also create a greater level of communication. The downside is that often the strongest personalities dominate these teams. There is also the potential team members will become disillusioned and cause the entire project to fail. The third step of getting the vision right is critically important. The benefits of a strong vision sit hat it can greatly alleviate risk, make personal sacrifices more "worth it" in the eyes of team members for the goal to be attained, and...

The disadvantages are that the vision of a team may not match each person's beliefs all the time, and may be especially challenging in global teams that are linked virtually through working relationships (Smith, Kuth, 2009). This can be seen for example in the approach Oracle has in the development of software in their Indian development centers (Arnesen, Thompson, 2003) or the challenges Dell has in making their value chain scale into Malaysia where the majority of their laptops are produced (Walters, Rainbird, 2007). The fourth step is communicating buy-in for the program and is typically the phase where people begin to accept the program. This is a very critical phase in the overall 8 step process as repetition is critical for keeping the change alive. The strengths of this phase are that if the strategy has been successful significant change in people's commitment to the program is taking hold. Additional advantages are that trust is created, collaboration is more efficient and progress is made. Disadvantages are that this is an area where employee cynicism can often derail progress (Wu, Neubert, Yi, 2007), costs of the project can spiral out of control as scope creep begins to be seen in the project as teams begin to define their own vision, and the project begins to languish without strong momentum. It takes a strong leader to get through this fourth phase. The fifth phase of empowering action is where the processes and systems in the way of attaining the projects' goal are removed. The disadvantages of this step are that this phase can take an inordinate amount of a leader's time to ensure that team members' needs are being met. Second, there is the disadvantage of having to change long-standing processes within a company which can take literally thousands of dollars and hours. It can be daunting to have to face a long-standing process that stands in the way of getting to the goal. In the context of the CRm software company, working with Salesforce.com to get the application on their AppExchange could be one such obstacle. The advantages of this step however are significant, as accomplishment is attained. Second, the advantage of trust being shown in actual results tends to reinforce the belief on the part of teams that they can attain their goals by working together. The sixth step of creating short-term wins has many positive aspects. It provides assurance that the goals of the project can in actuality be accomplished. It shows in actual evidence that the goals of the team can lead to significant accomplishments, and it gives teams a sense of mastery over their work. The downside of this step is that it can often lead to a sense of overconfidence and scope creep, in addition to a letting up on the urgency to finish the project. These can all cause a project to stall out. It is critical for leaders during this phase to actively focus on getting their teams focused on the larger, more significant goal. The seventh phase of not letting up is also a delicate balance of attempting to do too much vs. not enough. The advantages of this step are that it begins to engrain ownership and mastery of the tasks into the company, allows even more concrete evidence of trust and collaboration working, and also satisfaction of the goal being met. The disadvantages of this step is that by pushing for additional improvements could po0tentially lead to teams becoming disenchanted with the goal, becoming disillusioned and giving up. The last phase of making it stick has the advantage of bringing lasting change into the company, nurturing new roles and processes, and gaining competitive advantages as a result. The downside is that if the change is seen as potentially impacting a person's status in the organization they will fight it and attempt to sabotage its success over time. With all these steps in place to guide the development of a new CRM application to work with salesforce.com, the challenge would be keeping the momentum moving forward over the long-term and ensuring the lessons learned from the process were engrained into the culture.
As the new CEO/president of General Motors in today's current economic environment, including all of the economic and political activities which have taken place over the past year, please describe how you would address, manage and use business processes, information & knowledge and information technologies to enable GM to effectively undertake a major business transformation, major change, in its organizational structure, its management and its products and services in order to remain competitive in the global marketplace. Use various organizational examples to support your arguments.

If given the role of CEO of GM feasibly by President Obama and the current administration as the U.S. government now owns approximately 60% of the auto maker I would aggressively pursue a strategy of drastically trimming back unneeded, antiquated and inefficient processes in the automaker. Using the core concepts as defined in this course from Dr. Micheal Hammer I'd completely redefine core product development, supply chain, sourcing, compliance, manufacturing, fulfillment, dealer service and post-sales service using Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). Using BPR as the foundation of change management would also undercover large…