The two retail companies picked are Walmart and Costco whose 2017 Financial statement links are provided below: WALMART https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ wmt/financials?query=income- statement COSTCO https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ cost/financials?query=income- statement Both organizations are well known brands and position themselves well with their customer base. Walmart’s value proposition is “We save people money so they can live better”. On the other hand, Costco’s value proposition is “All-in-one convenience and everyday affordability”. Both retailers focus on cost saving for their customers. Looking at their financial statements and by analyzing them a few key areas are evident when comparing the two organization. Looking at the current ratio and quick ratio we can determine the short-term solvency of each organization. The current ratio can be determined by dividing the assets by the liabilities. Walmart’s current ratio sits at 0.86 while Costco’s sits at 0.99. The quick ratio is c...
Change occurs in various ways for organizations and the leaders within them. However not all leadership styles are suited to each type of change that can occur, and so an agile and self-aware leader must have the situational intelligence to understand when to switch to one leadership style of another (Beheshti, 2018). This piece will consider the five stages of radical change and which leadership style is most fitting (Reardon, Reardon, & Rowe, 1998). Then, a look at the industry I am in, the stem cell health sector, will be given to highlight a real-world example of radical change and how leadership style was subsequently affected.
Reardon, Reardon, and Rowe (1998) highlight five stages of radical change including planning, enabling, launching, catalysing, and maintaining. Planning maps out the direction for change and requires creativity and the acquisition of information, and as such requires leaders to be logical yet inspirational. The enabling stage of radical change is characterized by explaining the plan and convincing others it is the right plan, in addition to empowering those who have been convinced. The enabling stage still require both an inspirational and logical leader, but also requires the ability to be actively supportive in order to help employees acclimate to the change occurring. Next there is the launching phase of radical change which is marked by steps being implemented, goals met, and an assessment of the progress. As such, a leader overseeing the launching phase needs to remain logical but must shift to a more commanding style since results need to be achieved and measured. Penultimately we have the catalysing stage of change that is characterized by a focus on the people of the organization, since they will be the ones to allow the change to succeed (or fail), and thus a leader must shift into the role of inspirational supporter. Finally, we arrive at the maintenance stage of change. Here, progress is overseen, and staff are guided, energized, and assisted where required. In the maintenance stage of change a leader must be akin to those overseeing the enabling stage; logical, inspirational, and supportive. This is often an overlooked stage of change but still very important if an organization is going to maintain its competitiveness.
The biotechnology engineering start-up I co-founded, SpectCell, is involved in development of novel systems for the monitoring of stem cell health in response to the growth and differentiation of cells, or during the screening of drugs and drug-like molecules. A recent change occurred thanks to the nascent area of nano-optoelectronics which was commercialized via the Berkeley Lights Deacon machine, a direct competitor to SpectCell (Cross, 2018). Fundamentally, the Deacon was able to do almost everything the SpectCell benchtop system was wanting to do, but they beat us to the market thus having a first mover advantage (Lim, 2019). As the managing director of SpectCell, I had to help navigate how we were able to still be relevant and competitive despite this recent radical change.
This effectively involved moving back to the planning stage and having to logically explain to the other founder and Chief Technology Officer (the actual engineer of the SpectCell system) that we needed to move away from our proposed benchtop system and move towards the development of the lab-on-a-chip technology that we had planned but for further in the future (due to high development costs compared to the other model being developed). This shift would be important to help differentiate us from the extremely large and bulky system of the Deacon, whilst still remaining competitive on price if we could find a suitable manufacturing partner to make use of economies of scale (Echols, 2015). I also had to try and be inspirational to the whole team in order for them to not feel downtrodden and beaten by our company losing a first-mover advantage. This was especially because the team had to rapidly refocus their efforts so we could move away from the planning stage and towards the enabling stage of radical change.
Whilst the technology from SpecCell is still in its R&D phase, and it is hard to say if my strategic planning worked to its fullest extent, I can say that the team is now onboard with the requisite changes that need to be implemented. We have come together to work out the partnerships we require to help bring our lab-on-a-chip development costs down, approximate development and testing timescales, and how we can best position ourselves in the extremely competitive biotechnology marketplace. It certainly is no easy feat to get an engineer to drop what they have been working on for years and focus their efforts elsewhere, but that is where having both the logical and inspirational approach really can help (Reardon, Reardon, & Rowe, 1998).
Conclusions
The modern marketplace is fiercer in terms of competition and disruptive change than ever before, which has been catalyzed by rapid technological advances. It therefore behoves leaders to be self-aware of their predominant leadership style, the stage of radical change they find themselves operating in, and the optimal leadership style to move to (Beheshti, 2018; Reardon, Reardon, & Rowe, 1998). Leaders who fail to do so will effectively be selected out due to competitive market forces.
References
Beheshti, N. (2018). An Agile Leader is a Self-Aware Leader. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/
Cross, R. (2018). Berkeley Lights raises $95 million for its automated cell therapy manufacturing machines. Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved fromhttps://cen.acs.org/
Echols, C. (2015). Reaping the benefits of economies of scale. Manufacturing Chemist. Retrieved from https://www.
Lim, S. (2019). First Mover Definition. Investopedia. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/
Reardon, K.K., Reardon, K.J., & Rowe, A.J. (1998). Leadership Styles for the Five Stages of Radical Change. Acquisition Review Quarterly. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.
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