Question 1: Does Australia Post face more of a calm waters or white-water rapids environment? Explain.

Calm waters environment sees the organisation as a ship which is crossing a calm sea. The people on the ship knows about the trip that the ship is making since they have made this trip several times. The changes that occur comes in the form of storms which occasionally arrive and disrupts the normal process that the events are going in (Dent 2013). There are three steps to calm waters which are unfreezing, implementation and refreezing. On the other hand, white water rapids sees the organisation as a raft which is being navigated through raging waters and the change is continuous in this situation (McCarthy 2013). Australia post faces white water rapids environment as they are more inclined towards facing unpredictable changes in their technologies and its environment. The company has gone through several changes and advances in the field of technology and have adopted any new and innovative ideas for technology which would help them to face the continuous changes in the external environment. The main aim of Australia Post is to innovate new ideas which can help them to advance in the field of technology so that they can develop methods to satisfy a large customer base and gather a competitive edge.

The external forces which create an impact on Australia Post are their market place and the technology that they use. Australia Post used the traditional marketplace during their earlier operations which is sending letters through courier companies. However, due to the changes that occurred in the market and the new innovation that came, Australia Post adopted the new market strategy which was through e-commerce (AlGhamdi, Nguyen and Jones 2013). Secondly, technology have changed the market scenario, from handwritten letters to sending parcels through Australia Post. The internal forces which create and impact on Australia Post is their organisational strategy. The strategy that is adopted by Australia Post help them to change continually and adhere to the new changes that have been occurring in the market. Since, they are a customer centric organisation, their aim is to develop themselves and adopt strategies which would help them to give better services to their customers. Certain changes that have been adopted by the company are around the clock parcel lockers and e-commerce (Lachapelle et al. 2018).

The change strategy of Australia Post is based on the new changes and the evolvement of the environment. The organisation incorporates those changes in its operations which would help them to get better results. The changes are made according to the different innovations and upgrades that occur. The structure of Australia Post has changed from letters to email. They earlier used to deliver letters from one address to another. They have changed this strategy by adopting the new technology of email services. They have started postal services, e-services, distribution & express services and retail services (Wang, Jie and Abareshi 2015). They have changed their technological sector by incorporating new technologies for services such as transportation, payment and collection. These technologies tend to make their work easier and more efficient. They have also established 24*7 lockers for their parcels so that none of the parcels gets lost or stolen. Additionally, they have started attaching electronic labels which would help them to easily identify the parcels that are being dispatched so that there is no mix up in the deliveries. The changes in the people of Australia Post are made by hiring workers who are skilled in the work that is demanded by the organisation (Kiumarsi, Jayaraman and Mohd Isa 2015). The new employees are also guided and helped by the experienced workers and this helps to create a positive environment and work culture which enables a high level of productivity.   

Question 2: What external and internal forces are impacting on Australia Post?

There would definitely be resistance to the changes that would be introduced in Australia Post. The resistance would occur due to many reasons. The employees who have been in the organisation for a long time might find it hard to adapt to the changes since they have worked in the traditional way for a long time and are comfortable to the old way of working. The changes that have occurred might not stick for a long time with the organisation since none of the changes would be constant (Kunze, Boehm and Bruch 2013). Due to the dynamic nature of the environment that the organisation is functioning in, they have continuously change themselves and their operations by adhering to the development that is being taking place in the environment. The employees would have to be educated regarding the changes that are occurring so that they can accept the changes and not resist them. If they are educated about the changes then they will be able to participate and make the change successful. Stress can be a part of the issue since it has a huge effect on the employees of the organisation. Stress is caused due to variety of reasons such as job insecurity, excessive workload, long working hours and other factors (Matos Marques Simoes and Esposito 2014). Therefore, stress can be an important reason for the issue that is faced by Australia Post. The organisation should act to reduce the stress among the employees so no issue is present in the workplace of Australia Post.

Australia Post have always found new ways through which they can help their business to grow. The purpose of their company have been to continuously grow and adapt themselves to the changes that have been occurring in the market and the communities around them. For this to be happen they have always given emphasis to innovation and the power it holds. Through innovations and new ideas they could gain a competitive edge against their competitors in the market and could be better than most organisations (Dodgson 2018). They also aim to make their customers happy with their services and this is also fulfilled with the help of innovative ideas. For example, they can connect with a large customer base and connect them to their service through the help of e-commerce. The customer can enjoy their services irrespective of the country or region that they are in. The company has a business culture that is customer centric and this is why they want to give the best experiences to their customers through the help of new and innovative solutions. They also invest in the entrepreneurs of today’s time so that it can give support to the several new ideas that emerges from these new start-ups and they can help to empower innovation and also gain profits for themselves if the innovation succeeds in the market (Autio et al. 2014).

Question 3: How would you evaluate Australia Post’s change strategy – what is being changed when it comes to structure, technology and people?

Other organisations and managers can learn a great deal of things from Australia Post. The first and foremost things, that Australia Post follows is a customer centric culture. For them their customers are the first priority which makes them take every decision in favour of their customers (Avilova, Gulei and Shavyrina 2015). To satisfy the needs and demands of their customers they continually innovate and improve upon every one of their sectors so that they can meet the growing demands and the changes that are occurring in the market. They have made advancement in various sections in the organisation such as technology, transportation, equipment which are necessary for the smooth operation of their organisation. Their priority are their employees and they take great care of the people who work for them. They help the employees to grow and develop within the organisation and take care of their career needs. Moreover, they recruited people who had a good skill set and could mix with the culture of the workplace (Kim and McLean 2014). Proper training was given to the employee so that they could develop their skills further and provide better services and even share their innovate ideas with the organisation. Even though there are many other factors that organisations could learn from Australia Post, these are the basic ways through which other organisations could grow like Australia Post.

References:

AlGhamdi, R., Nguyen, A. and Jones, V., 2013. A study of influential factors in the adoption and diffusion of B2C e-commerce. arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.0272.

Autio, E., Kenney, M., Mustar, P., Siegel, D. and Wright, M., 2014. Entrepreneurial innovation: The importance of context. Research Policy, 43(7), pp.1097-1108.

Avilova, Z.N., Gulei, I.A. and Shavyrina, I.V., 2015. Formation of the customer-centric organizational culture of the university as a factor of effective social and economic development of the region. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(3 S5), p.207.

Dent, E.B., 2013. Researching Leadership from a Systems Perspective: Observations and Challenges.

Dodgson, M., 2018. Technological collaboration in industry: strategy, policy and internationalization in innovation. Routledge.

Kim, S. and McLean, G.N., 2014. The impact of national culture on informal learning in the workplace. Adult Education Quarterly, 64(1), pp.39-59.

Kiumarsi, S., Jayaraman, K. and Mohd Isa, S., 2015. Service quality and innovation in Malaysian post offices: An empirical study. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 35(1), pp.55-66.

Kunze, F., Boehm, S. and Bruch, H., 2013. Age, resistance to change, and job performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(7/8), pp.741-760.

Lachapelle, U., Burke, M., Brotherton, A. and Leung, A., 2018. Parcel locker systems in a car dominant city: Location, characterisation and potential impacts on city planning and consumer travel access. Journal of Transport Geography, 71, pp.1-14.

Matos Marques Simoes, P. and Esposito, M., 2014. Improving change management: How communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), pp.324-341.

McCarthy, C.K., 2013. Threats and Opportunities: Collection Development in. Evaluating Acquisitions and Collection Management, p.29.

Wang, M., Jie, F. and Abareshi, A., 2015. Business Logistics Performance Measurement in Third-Party Logistics: An Empirical Analysis of Australian Courier Firms. International Journal of Business and Information, 10(3).