Christina Gold's regional restructuring initiative at Western Union

Christina Gold Leading Change at Western Union

Summary of the case

The case study is about the Western Union Company, which is under the leadership of Christina Gold. The executive officer (Gold) intends to introduce a change in the structure of the company. The company needs to change the nature of its production from the U.S.-centric focus of production to the regional structure. The key main divisions of focus include the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and Asia-Pacific. They needed the change to introduce new organizational culture focused on decentralized management of activities. Through this, Gold wanted to increase the responsibility and the authority of the regional heads in handling profits and losses in their lines of operation. Adopting the change meant that it could provide an opportunity for the company to expand its global operations.

Introducing the change also targeted at increasing the consumer target of the company. This includes increasing the number of consumers utilizing the organizational services across the world (consumer-consumer transactions). In addition, restructuring was necessary to re-define the shape and performance of the company globally. One of the organizational activities likely to increase because of the new changes is the number of consumer-to-consumer transactions, and consumer to business transactions. Introducing a new line of operations and offices in all the regions where the company operates will increase the rates of consumer-staff interaction, as a consumer will gain abilities to inquire and express their desires directly to the organizational staff (Konrad & Mitchell, 2005).

Major issues

It is clear that the Gold faces many challenges as she plans to introduce the desired organizational change. Resistance to change from the organizational senior management team and the other employees is one of the challenges facing the company. As shown in the case study, "the leaders in the U.S. were reluctant to give up the control of product lines." The management of the company also faced the challenge of introducing the desired organizational culture to promote change. This entailed replacing the old organizational culture with a new culture that focused on decentralization and centered to meet the needs of the consumers and the employees of the company.

The company also faced the challenge of aligning the operations and the activities of the company with the newly designed organizational changes. This was done by ensuring that the behavior and the performance of the employees achieved the set organizational goals. In addition, the company faced a challenge of restructuring its activities to meet consumer and market demand. Finally, the company faced the challenge of recruiting and training the employees on the needs of the desired organizational change (Konrad & Mitchell, 2005).

How well aligned is the new structure to the six strategies?

The organizational six strategies align with the goals and objectives of the new organizational structure. The intended organizational structure aims at decentralizing most of the organizational activities. This will improve the development and marketing of a global brand targeting all consumer segments. The new structure developed in the company aims at developing a global network of service providers. This aligns with the organizational strategy of enhancing a global distribution network. The new structure aims at increasing the number of employees recruited by the organization. This implies to its future development and growth of leaders within the company. Creating new offices expands the leadership positions for the employees hence, building their leadership skills. Consequently, these strategies ensure provision of excellent services to the consumers, maintaining the performance of the company (Konrad & Mitchell, 2005).

Recommendations

The company must adopt the most effective leadership styles to ensure the success of their strategies. This entails adopting leadership styles such as transformational and transactional leadership styles to facilitate the success of the interventions. These leadership styles promote the inclusion of the employees in most of the organizational activities and ensure the creation of an environment that foster open communication. The company should also introduce activities that increase employee autonomy, responsibility, and accountability. This entails providing them with the freedom to make decisions and supportive environment. This leads to their motivation and innovation hence, the success of the company and the reduction of incidences of resistance to change. The company should strive to adopt the new technology. This not only enhances the operational management in the company, but also enhances its competitiveness in the market place (Bessant & Tidd, 2013).

Conclusion

Change is important to an organization. It shapes its performance and behavior of the employees. It promotes the realization of the set organizational goals and objectives. However, resistance to change might affect the realization of the objectives of the desired change. Therefore, it is highly recommendable that, organizations adopt strategies aiming at minimizing incidences of resistance to change.