Evolution Of Technology

Introduction

Evolution of technology

“Scientist from the RAND Corporation have created a model to illustrate how a Home Computer could look like in the year 2004. However, the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use”.

That was said in 1954 in an article from the magazine Popular Mechanics, describing a home computer that could look like a wall full of electronic devices, panels and other equipment including a steering wheel, a display that looks like an old TV that is positioned in the up-corner of the room, and a table with a keyboard and other buttons for a variety of commands. All these were designed for a Home Computer, which could be used within the software technological limitations (non-user-friendly interface, a more code-based computer).

In 2004, people were still excited about the Windows XP interface, which is somehow similar to the one we use now in the newer versions of Windows. If we think of the difference about the technological expectation of the year 2004 (expectations from the 1950’s) and the technological reality of the same year, and also of the technological progress, we may conclude that human kind is on an exponential curve of tech-development.

Now, in 2015-2016, scientists are thinking of a way that the “Biological Super Computer” might be created by using bacteria for the CPU of the Computers. They might create a computer that actually lives. For the moment, nobody can say if it will be able to think for itself, but it might. The project started ten years ago, but it didn’t reach to an important conclusion up until now. They say that in ten years they will be able to develop super-computers out of this, meaning that home biological computers will be available sooner.

Again, “the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home”, but evolution proved that our dreams regarding IT and equipment are fulfilled sooner than expected and much cheaper. Furthermore, at the initial expected time, these equipment might even be outdated and valueless.

Do you remember the time when the touchscreen was a dream for the most home users, and only one year later having a touchscreen was mainstream? Or that cloud computing was just an idea, and shortly it became reality? The way technology is changing our lives and levels of expectation is incredible: maybe we didn’t get to teleport ourselves to work or Hawaii, but there are some super-jumps of technology on the steps of evolution.

And don’t forget about the quick steps between floppy disks, cd’s, USB Drives, external HDD’s and, of course, Cloud Storage. I remember that I was a kid and I was still dreaming of a cheap Portable CD Player: one year later I had an MP4 Player, because it was somehow cheap and the MP3 Players were already outdated. We are witnesses to a spectacle of a marvelous technological step into a revolution of all the industries, from medicine to education, from construction to automotive, etc.

Evolution of the IT Market in Romania

In Romania, the IT market started to develop lately, but fast. In 2003, we were far behind the IT world competition. The IT expenses were less than 1.5% GDP, while de average among other countries was over 3%. In 2006, 8500 IT companies were active in Romania, out of which 3500 had a turnover under 10000 Eur. On the other hand, the contribution to GDP was over 9%. The market grew by 33% until 2008, and it was still growing.

Between 2005 and 2010, the Romanian IT Market was export oriented, 55% out of the total production being recorded outside the country, and 85% of it was related to the European Union: the Romanian export of software and technologies was over 350m Eur in 2006.

The number of IT engineers also grew very much in this period, from 35000 employees to 50000. In this statistic the specialists that worked in other industries than IT were not recorder. It they were, the number would overcome easily 100000. In 2014, there were 120000 employees in the IT companies, out of which more than half were IT engineers and specialists. IBM, HP, Gameloft and Computaris are only few of the companies that enlarged their IT teams in Romania.

The salaries also grew consistently: In 2006, there were salaries of 700-1000 Usd. In 2011, the salary on the entry level was of 2000 lei, and grew by 10% until 2012. Also, in 2012, the salaries expectations for 2017 were doubled in relationship to the ones in that moment. The average salary was 200% of the average salary in all industries active in Romania.

In 2014, the IT Romanian Market was called the “Romanian Paradise”, meaning that there will be no IT engineer unemployed: many employing offers started from 1000 Eur. As a consequence, in 2015 there were 7000 young people which just finished the university cycle in the IT field, out of which most of them followed the classical IT career path, and the others went to video gaming field or IT positions in companies that were not active in the IT industry. Very few of them chose to work in other fields than IT.

A statistics shows the number of employees in some of the segments of the IT industry between 2008 and 2010. The number of employees in the field of Software and IT Services have been growing from 54300 to 56600, while the total number of IT&C employees has decreased from 124100 to 114800. Also, the number of the employees in the Telecommunication field has decreased by more than 6000, from 49800 to 43100, similar to the number of employees in the field of Hardware and Electronics: they went down from 20000 to 16100, representing less than 15% of the total work force active in the IT&C field in 2010.

The IT industry has a contribution of 6% to the GDP of Romania, having the potential of reaching 10% in the upcoming years. But this is an index dependent of the local entrepreneurs in the industry: they need to invest in and develop their own products, then successfully sell them on the global market in order to capitalize on this potential. For instance, BitDefender developed the BitDefender Box, being called by the foreign magazines “The start of the internet of things” and “The best security solution of the smart homes”.

The IT sector doubled up in comparison with 2011, adding a value of 9b Eur to the Romanian GDP in 2014, overpassing even the agricultural contribution to GDP, very close to the construction sector. Despite the fast growth, the smallest sector in the Romanian IT field is the Software one now. In 2016 it is forecasted that the Software sales will reach 300m Eur if the IT market value will also grow up to 1400m Eur.

Main Romanian IT Hubs

There are cities like Cluj, Bucharest, Iasi, Brasov, Timisoara, with different prospects for the future of IT, but all having a high contribution to the Romanian IT Market. Bucharest settles on the first place regarding the IT industry, contributing with 67% to the national turnover, and more than 50% of the IT work force and no less than 60% GDP contribution to services and software, telecommunication and hardware. The top 25 companies in software and services have their headquarters in Bucharest: the city is like home for the companies with the biggest IT potential.

Brasov is a small IT hub, but only 3 hours away from Bucharest, so it is chosen as a secondary office for the companies that settled with their main offices in Bucharest. Also, German investors prefer Brasov for their large number of German Language speakers.

Cluj, the second city by the IT companies based locally, is a hot spot for BPO services and R&D Centers. It is in the Top 30 world destinations for foreign IT investors. Also, it ranks amongst the first 100 outsourcing sites, at the moment having a demand for IT talent which surpasses the candidate pool. Its software market developed by 50% in the last two years, hosting 250 IT companies and more than 5000 active IT engineers.

Timisoara Ranks for one of the best developed areas in Romania, having unemployment figures almost identical to the ones before the crisis. Before the fast growth of Cluj in the IT industry, Timisoara was the second biggest hub in Romania. Also, Iasi is well-known for its high pool of fresh graduates that are to become software engineers or IT specialists. It is not really an attractive location for foreign IT investors, and many of the fresh university graduates are leaving the city in the favor of Bucharest or Cluj, but Iasi is considered a generator of IT specialists.

IT Industry now in Romania

A good opportunity for Romania IT Industry is the cloud computing one, because Romania can easily benefit from the high speed internet: there is a strong infrastructure, at low cost and the labor skills are high ranked. Most IT specialists are software developers, almost half of them. The others are Technical Support Specialists or Quality Assurance engineers and Testers (21% Technical Support and 16% QA/Testers), followed by the few percentages which consist in specialists working in different niches of the IT industry. Among them is a very wide range of programming languages that Romanian IT engineers know very well: Php, .Net, C#, C++, Java, JavaScript, Html & Sql, and others. But all these do not cover the needs of the market: many external investors are looking for skilled Romanian fresh graduates, and during time, it a company needs an experienced specialist, it has to persuade him to quit his actual job for a better offer: it is very hard to find an IT specialist unemployed, but very easy to find companies with an immediate offer for a possible candidate.

Let’s split the IT market into his main three segment: Hardware, Software and IT Services. Then, let’s properly analyze the competitive landscape.

Hardware

On the hardware market, there is a decline in the average price at selling in the past years, but despite that, the market continues to expend, with major efforts, both in what regards the volumes and the total turnover. Approximatively 880000 personal computers and equipment with similar functions were purchased by Romanian customers in 2012, fact which includes desktop computers, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, etc.

Talking about tablets, in 2014 their sales volume and value overcame the sub-segment of the desktop computers market, and the high competition on the tablets market became more and more intense at the end of the year, close to holidays, fact that generated a rapid growth in sales on this market. Almost half of the tablets on the market are imported, the other half being manufactured locally by companies like Evolio, Allview, E-Boda and Serioux. The Romanian market is very sensitive when it comes to money and prices, so tablets manufacturing had to be done at very low-costs. Of course, they were not at all the best tablets on the market, but they were easily purchasable by anyone with at least an average income. Also, the expansion of the tablets’ sales in the business environment (B2B and B2C also) and the cloud opportunity of information storage enabled the local manufacturers to develop a variety of products.

Software

The biggest demand in Romania is for IT solutions regarding Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), SCM Solutions (Supply Chain Management) being placed on the second place. Despite that, ERP Solutions (Enterprise Resource Management) are the ones covering the majority of the turnover in IT solutions: their implementation might not cost very much, but their support may last for years and the costs are very high. The ERP sector has a strong performance, growing annually by 20%, ranking on top of the general software market. Also, many IT solutions and tools feel the need to shift from local application to cloud services.

There is a strong competition between SaaS and PaaS (Software as a Service and Platform as a Service), the first one being online and representing the largest cloud market, the second one needing installation on hardware components. SaaS seems to be wining lately, which is why many IT Tools and Solutions developers try to create online versions of their desktop programs. In 2014, only 6% of the Romanian companies have implemented one or more cloud solutions. As expected, the office software ranks first in the top leading SaaS application, covering 25% of SaaS market, Office 365 from Microsoft being the most representative tool.

Services

This segment is expected to grow by 8% in 2016 and to reach 473m Eur in 2019. IT Services might outperform the other sectors of IT on long term, the reasons being the continuous growth in outsourcing and the adoption of cloud services, which require support (which is, usually, given by outsourcing companies).

Growth Opportunities for the Romanian IT Industry

Talking about outsourcing, Romania ranks first for outsourcing in Europe. This is due to several fact, like: our geographical position is in the proximity of Western Europe, our IT Specialists are very well prepared, we have a tendency to learn many foreign languages, our universities are in a continuous process of preparing IT students in the best possible way, we have a very good price-quality ratio, and we are cheap in comparison to the amount of work. Most probably, these are the reasons why we rank so high globally among outsourcing locations: Top 10.

In 2014, the Top 50 Software companies in Romania had businesses of almost 1 billion Eur, having a growth of 25% in comparison to 2013. There is a high demand of IT Solutions, especially in the foreign countries, and this had a high contribution to this growth. Also, their total net profit was of almost 70m Eur, and the number of employees have raised by 2500. This is how the number of employees of the Top 50 IT Software Companies in Romania was of 19000.

The leader is still Oracle Romania, with a turnover of 700m Ron and a net profit of almost 9m Ron in 2014. Also, their employees’ number have raised by 1000, from 2500 to 3500 in 2014, and continued to grow. The following companies are BitDefender and Siveco, which are of Romanian entrepreneurs. They are far behind Oracle in terms of turnover, each of them having a turnover of 250-280m Ron, not even half of what Oracle could do in Romania. On the other hand, the most profitable companies were BitDefender, SAP and Endava. BitDefender had a net profit of 42,5m Ron, five times more than Oracle, which seems to be the main competitor.

Due to this progress, Romania has now a higher opportunity to access an inflow of European Funds, in order to develop continuously and to enter into the European Information Society. 850m Eur are expected to be received from the European Operational Program funding in the period 2014-2020, ensuring a continuous support for IT&C development in mid-term. The growth of Romania’s GDP is expected to average 3.4% yearly during 2015-2019, while the level of private consumption is expected to be lower. This means that the IT market will have to gain higher levels of consumption and high business confidence. Also, it means that the IT Market has to persuade the consumers to buy mostly from local manufacturers and developers.

The foreign investors show high interest in Romanian IT world, fact that is confirmed by global ratings and reports which can prove a good position for Romania in the ITO world. It is ranked the 25th in attractiveness for IT Services, and Delloite’s Top technology Fast 500 EMEA, an event showing IT companies with the fastest revenue growth, placed four Romanian Countries on the list. Vola.ro, an internet airline ticker retailer, ranks on the third place.

After all these, despite the fact that we are not such a big country, neither in terms of surface, economy or demography, we seem to be able to make important changes and generate best solutions in the IT world. I guess that after the end of the communism, and even during that period, there was a hunger for evolution and technology development which motivated us to go further and further with innovation in the IT&C environment. The investments in this sector have grown massively in the past ten years and they seem to continue.

I believe that in the following years we will still keep the balance between the local and foreign investment in this industry, maintaining both the wish to progress with internal resources and the desire to grow in the best foreign IT companies globally. I must say that this is also a reason why we keep raising the quality level and the efficiency one in the IT background. I strongly consider that even if there are still many changes to make to reach a higher rank in this market (and not only this market), we will be able to have the right solution for them. But how will we manage these changes?

Change Management Concepts

Approaching Change Management

Companies need to begin change processes in order to satisfy the market’s needs, to maintain or raise the wealth of the organization and to fulfill the governmental and legal tasks required by the state. There are also many other reasons, but these are the main ones for which a company would enter a change process. Also, these change processes are started in order to maintain the organizational stability and to support a continuous balanced economic growth. Change management is able to help the company in modifying any part of its structure so that it would face efficiently a business environment which is continuously changing. This process includes activities meant to support, accept and approve the necessary and wished changes. The main task is not the change itself, but its effects: changes make it hard to maintain the integrity and quality of the work environment. In the past, the work environment was more based strict and severe rules, and every decision was imposed. Nowadays, people are sensitive to changes, competition is huge, and a single mistake made in the internal environment of the company could mean the external decline of it. It is a vicious circle which is likely to lead into a fast failure, or even into a fast escalation on the market.

Organizational Development (OD) is a way to approach the organizational change planning process, involving the behavioral science in a well-organized environment and on long term, improving organizational effectiveness. Most changes nowadays are related to technology within a company, and Organizational Development is looking forward to finding the best IT solution for the employees and the wealth of the company. Still, the process of implementing any technology within a company is incredibly slow, unfortunately.

People seem to be afraid of technology, and in many cases the resistance to change is due to the massive lack of technological knowledge of some managers: they fear that they might lose their old dominant position, sustained also by the old management system. They fear that the younger employees with better technological skills and good management knowledge might be chosen for the management position, even if they have less managerial power and less influence among the employees.

This is becoming a critical issue when it comes to the case when the ones that fear new technologies are the same ones that are able to change and improve the technological environment of the company. Here, only some pressure from the authorities or the legal power can force the situation to change.

These are cases when Organizational Development must start the necessary processes in order to achieve its goals: develop the capacity of the employees for self-renewal, develop the team-work efficiency, and also the department (or the external company hired for that) is not imposing some ways to change: if the change is not mandatory, it is chosen at the organizational level, not only managerial level, allowing the employees to have a freedom of choice, which will make them see their importance in the change process. Also, this shared power of internal democracy is a way to develop the way colleagues trust each other working together towards a certain choice. Organizational Development is trying to make changes in the employees’ self-trust by allowing them to take part to a change right from the beginning, just like helping them see a house built from nothing to its final state. Starting a project from its null state and seeing it finished is very helpful when it comes to raising self-reliance, Organizational Development taking advantage of knowledge about human behavior in organization in order to help the employees achieve their goals and the company’s goals.

Issues Encountered when it comes to Changes

The evolution of technology

In the IT world, there is also a time limitation regarding the fast way now technologies appear. While the employees get used to a certain tool, a newer one shows up. Also, the implementation of a new software tool within a company is very expensive, especially when it comes to its maintenance. The change regarding implementing new internal IT tools is now only expensive, but the employees are inefficient for a while. On the other hand, these are necessary changes: as an IT company, you don’t only have to keep the pace of the industry externally, but internally too.

Organization Development Process means gathering data and feeding it back in order to plan and assess from both points of view: subjective and objective. This is why, when choosing which software would better fit an organization, there are more factors to be analyzed: besides the indexes which show which IT solutions are most effective and could generate more profit on the long-term, there is the subjective factor: the compatibility with the work environment. How do the employees organize their activities and how do they fulfill their tasks? How is the information organized in the actual system? Which IT solution is best and, simultaneously, closest to the actual one? To which solution would the employees adapt best? There are many questions to be answered when choosing a tool to be implemented within a company. Indeed, some of the tools are mandatory, but for every mandatory step there is a choice to make, even if the choices are only two. Which is best?

New tools show up on the IT market every day, as a consequence of the fast development of technology. Each product is bringing new updates in order to offer a better way to fulfill tasks in comparison to similar products that were used before for the same task. A problem of attitude is arising when the decision to bring a new tool is delayed until the following year, because there is a high probability that in the following year a new tool will rule the market: more expensive, more efficient, more productive, more complex, but easier to use. And after the following year, the decision is delayed again from the same reason. The system remains outdated.

Also, this happens in many fields of activity and many cases: for instance, let’s say that we own a bank and that our way to organize files is outdated. As much as we delay the way we organize files, either physically and electronically, there will be newer and newer ways to do this, there will appear new tools, many of the files will become useless. Years ago, a bank would have given you few files for opening a current account, and too many files for opening a savings account. Now, there are many files for the current account and very few for the savings one because the savings are associated to the current account now. In the past, not all the banks were structured similarly. But some banks didn’t change too much: they give you all the files required by the law regarding the current account, and for the deposit they still give the old type of files, along with the new ones. They changed only because it was mandatory, but they were not seeking the efficiency of the change. If they would want to change now, there would be too many things to be changed. Sudden and massive changes are not good at all for the wealth of the company, especially when they are mixed.

Changes required by law

There are, for instance, changes required by the law. They are mandatory, and as a CEO, you decide that the change is necessary because you want the company to continue with its existence and you wish more of it in terms of profit, clients, or benefits. Basically, you want your company to benefit from the change. Or, at least, you don’t want to lose more than necessary. And this is impossible unless the change is managed correctly before, during, and after the implementation.

The changes that we want are proactive, and the changes that are imposed by law are reactive. In both cases, change management refers to a professional method, allowing the way change management is perceived to be more similar from a person to another, restraining the meaning of it to a truer one. Also, change management is recommended to be done by the management (and other employees) of the company and an external consultancy company, specialized in change management. Of course, each company can have its own Change Department, but it is recommended that they have it when the changes are often. In most cases, the specialists recommend to the company that they should also have a proactive side of the change, in order to be one step further than the competition and also to forecast future new requirements of the law. The forecast cannot go too far because there is a time span for each change, and the biggest part of it is the accommodation period. For example, everybody could guess four or five years ago that smoking will be forbidden in closed public spaces, but that required a change that could consist in a restriction that did not exist even in the law.

Let’s take the example of Computer Generated Solutions. Inside there, in many departments, nobody is allowed to access their phone, not even inside the building. Nobody is allowed to send emails externally (only to the clients through certain CRM tools), nobody is allowed to write something on a paper and take it home, it is like they took the meaning of work strictly: you come to work and do nothing else, and you go home and do nothing regarding your work. All the work must be done at the office, and nothing else can be done there. That would be ok if they weren’t so exigent. Their requirement are very high, but it seems that their strict rules regarding security of information and work have placed them pretty high in the IT Industry. The internal situation is that the IT department has some freedom, like a normal company, but the other departments have too many employees with an employment time span of at most 4-5 months. And the salaries are at the average level of the industry, excluding the IT ones: there are very high salaries.

They said that they can see this as the future compulsory way for a company to work, regarding the security of the information. They might be mistaken or not, but even if the employees are not pleased with this, the clients are: there are usually huge amounts of money which the clients pay for the quality and security of their products/services. CGS is a special case regarding this subject, because even if they change frequently their security policy adding always new clauses and principles, they do it within certain organizational values that they respect.

The employees

Once people start to get used to a certain way to fulfill their tasks, they gain a natural tendency to resist to new approaches. This is understandable, of course, because it is natural to become familiar and to feel comfortable with the things you get used to. Even though, if the behavior is not well enough keen on its own management, it might become a serious issue when people stay anchored in their past and systematically refuse to grow beneath the limitation of their routine.

In order to get to know the organizational (and also personal) behavior of the employees, it is very important to establish and pay attention to the working relationships. After creating links with them, there is a stage of diagnosis where data is gathered and analyzed, setting change objectives. The changing process starts with the intervention of the collaborative action, whose target is to implement the desired change. Of course, the change itself is not the hardest thing, but its maintenance and support is essential: following up and reassessing periodically the situation is compulsory if a change is wanted to last. The whole Organizational Development Process is finished with a terminal relationship, leaving the employees and the whole system self-reliant on its change.

Change management, as you can see, is a science of people. In the end, an enterprise exists as an agreement between human beings. Also, it is managed by people. Each definition of change management is interpreted subjectively by each of us, and even if the words remain the same, the meaning is different. Even the word “change” could mean different things: to some people, it means upgrade; to others, it means substitution. To my mind, it means anything that can switch the initial state of something into a final state, which is compulsory different from the first one. Also, changes can be done according to a plan, being managed systematically, or they can be left as simple changes. This is also a way to manage changes: once the change is done, do nothing about it, just let’s see what happens. What I am trying to explain is that in life, not only in the business environment or IT industry, changes should be seen from many points of view and should be associated to a risk management, also, which should forecast all the outcomes and prevent the bad ones.

Change management is difficult because it involves changes in people's behaviors. Reshaping people's behavior requires a significant amount of knowledge to raise awareness and bring new skills. To change the organizational culture and customs in interdepartmental teams and collaborations are crucial for success. In addition, support from management is also needed to reinforce the importance of change and to highlight negative consequences for employees and the organization.

Stress within employees is a very important matter regarding change management: this tension experienced by everyone in the company affected by the change through constraints, extraordinary demands or opportunities which are to be faced. Also, stress from external causes can be an obstacle in the efficiency of the change process. Change management tries to deal with stress by identifying it with a motivator: the stress will act as a positive influence and it can be energizing and performance enhancing. Of course, stress comes with damage no matter what you do, and it can break down a person’s physical and mental system, leading to a job burnout or rage. The question is if the employee can transform this rage into energy and motivation for better professional outcomes. Psychologists believe that if a person is stressed, it should be either helped or given hope, or given something to do. Of course, the favorite options are the help and the hope, but when it comes to things which are to be done, people have the tendency to destroy because it is easier. Here is the challenge or turning this feeling of destroying into constructing, into creation. This can channelize all the negative energies of the stressed ones into motivation.

Change management can also improve the efficiency of communication. Better communication between employees and the organization will lead to a better understanding of everyone's needs and priorities, because business units do not operate in isolation. With communication and high availability, users will feel more empowered and less frustrated when the systems are changing.

Benefits of Change Management

There are many benefits a company can get out of change management: most of them are associated to risk management, reducing the forecasted damage and improving the quality of services and products. Change management is necessary to achieve a high level of IT, availability and service quality. Through effective management of change process, both unplanned and planned transit time can be reduced. Thus, service quality is improved, IT support and business’ costs are reduced during the change timespan.

Change management can simplify and support the flow of information and operations. The change process will help organizations in rationalizing the information flows on simplified levels, maximizing the use of existing software in order to reduce unnecessary reports and improve productivity.

Creating a series of analyzes that can be used to achieve reduction in cost of the product / service is another benefit of change management. This can help the organization to grow and focus on revenue and profits. These analyzes include cost analysis for service and product, which are very useful for the decision-making service. These also include the matching with the estimated costs, the analysis of the direct utilization of labor, and the corrective actions and plans.

However, change management is one of the hardest fields of management to be implemented. It takes a great inter-functional team of application and businessmen that are keen on the whole business service and also on individual changes of the business units. It requires project management and a parallel configuration to define relationships between business processes, IT services and basic applications and infrastructure.

How Change Management Works

Change management is a process of finding and solving problems. Change management is a matter of moving from one state to a “problem solved” state. Three types of objectives and activities are implicated: transform, reduce, and apply. Transforming the issues is a process concerned with identifying differences between the two statuses, the problem status and the expected outcome status. Reducing the problems is an activity that identifies the ways of lowering the number of differences. The application itself is like a game of “find and solve” the problem.

Specifying and defining the change issue is the core of change management. In this process, the future state is identified, the initial state is described and defined and there will be taken decisions regarding the whole process, structured as to cross from one state to the other through intermediary steps. If the problem is taken into consideration early enough in time, the more participants will be capable of planning and recognizing the effects and risks that were not identified during planning. These steps also answer to questions like “how, why, what?”. The initial form of the problem statement regarding change often has its core on the change means. This is also stated as a “how” question, with the initial status more or less specified. Despite this, the outcome fall on the question “what”. This answer needs a diagnosis of the issue and a discussion about the expected and wished result. The questions “why” have to be answered in order to discover the meaning of the change and to generate a range of new ways of doing the change. Together, these questions seek the true and final outcome that should fit best for the certain issue, as a result of the collective effort.

Three basic steps of change management are mandatory in this process: unfreezing, changing and refreezing. This point of view takes into consideration the concept of stabilization of dynamic systems. These being said, the starting point and the ending point of the change process are the stability points. Unfreezing consists in gathering and analyzing data, setting change objectives; Changing is taking collaborative action to implement desired change; and Refreezing is following up to reinforce and support change.

The importance of Changes

Again, why do we change? Globalization along with the continuous technological development are constantly evolving, creating a need for change in every business environment. Otherwise, the companies that are not open to changes might fail sooner than expected for not keeping the pace of the market. Also, knowledge has a very important meaning now, technologically and accountably: while technology was in a constant innovation process, knowledge became not only power, but money: it is an asset that might decide the future of the company. Technology is used for storage and, most important, security of information, ensuring the wealth of the company.

Being updated constantly is not only a stressful factor that might have a great influence upon the business, but if it is not done right, the business might fall few steps at once on the market ladder. But going further that the competitors is a great advantage: the stress of change is diminished for a short, but meaningful, period.

With so much change in the technological industry, the companies have to turn from pragmatic to flexible and open to change. This is the reason why the abilities regarding flexibility and adaptation are becoming more important than the managerial ones. Also, it is very important to know how to fight the resistance to change: changes are recommended to be done in a proper period of time, because big and fast changes are extremely difficult due to the complexity of the structure, culture and routines of the company.

We are talking about people, who are not robots that are programmed to do things however we want. Human being cannot simply change parts of their behaviors, they need time, because the past is imprinted, so changes must be done erasing parts and/or adding other parts to the routine.

Technology grows fast and managers prefer the adaptation to external innovations more than internal development: internal development is slower than, let’s say, a new revolutionary software of internal database of files. It is easier to buy tools than create them, it is much quicker, but more expensive. On the other hand, time is money. Buying a new tool might create a competitive advantage, placing far behind the companies that are resistant to change. Also, this can generate a huge profit and market share difference between the ones that suddenly fell behind and the ones that manage to maintain their position, at least.

Change Management – A science of People

I have always thought that things like Change Management, Sales, and so on, are just different ways of saying “treat other people correctly and try to see how it is to be them”. Change Management addresses to the emotional side more than it does to the rational one. Also, I think that this side of us must be addressed systematically. Any factor that perturbs a stable state of being, turning it into another state, different from the first one, is creating people issues. When a change occurs, the managers must lead the change in an organized way, new skills and abilities will have to be developed, job descriptions will change a bit (at least in the eyes of the employer) and the work force will act with resistance and uncertainty.

These issues can be dealt with reactively or proactively. On any of the approaches, the efficiency and the motivation of the employees will be reduced, at least for a while. Of course, the managers should choose some key stakeholders also, and try to begin the change in a formal way: if there are emotions from the beginning, even good emotions, they can be easily turned to black and have a worse effect than expected. A formal approach would be the best way to send the message of the change by the least emotions.

Also, a formal approach requires a rational analysis of the data that would be collected preliminarily. The plan should be done respecting a certain structure that can create less negative effect upon employees’ efficiency. The implementation strategy seems to be the hardest part: this is the true beginning of the change, as it is perceived by the employees. If the change begins badly, then most probably this state of the whole process of change will turn even worse.

Another best-practice example of change management is a principle which says that starting from the top levels is extremely important. When it comes to changes that require the attention of all the layers of the company, all of the eyes of the employees’ turn towards the CEO and the top managers. They must be the first subjects of the change, embracing it professionally as a challenge, motivating the whole company. They must be careful, because he change must be perceived very similarly from all the top managers, in order to send the same message about the change and o model the desired behaviors. The top managers will be the most stressed, but they have to be aware that the change is not only about them, but the whole company. The change itself consists in a stressful process, this is why the stress of the managers must not be felt by the employees.

A great team-work of the managers will place the company on a position for success. They must be all committed to the same target, understanding the business environment from a behavioral point of view, in order to be able to control within some limits the way employees feel about the change.

Talking about layers in a company, all of them and all the business units must have a role. The efforts for the change have to include the identification of the change leaders and the responsibility for design and implementation. This is how a change has the effect of a “cascade”, from the top managers to the bottom employees. Each layer has trained leaders, having to share the same vision with the whole company, fighting for the same mission, being motivated to make the change happen.

Understanding the Change

I said earlier that the change is recommended to be formal. The workforce is rational and it will be asking itself of the necessity of that change, not being aware if the company is in need of it or not, or if the company is on the right way, or how much do they want to be involved an or how much the change is wanted. The answer will be searched for and it must be provided by the managers. The vision of the change and its formulation must be written and visible to every employee.

Firstly, there must be a realistic and convincing formulation of the change statement. It needs reasons, a beginning and an ending. Also, the demonstration of the future of the company is a second very important factor that influences the change. The future of the company must look promising and the change plans must be feasible. The third thing to do is to explain briefly the proper behavior and the decision making strategy. On the other hand, there are always people that that don’t embrace the change. For those ones, the leader must create a separate and special message, which must be perceived the same as the initial message, which was perceived by all the other employees, even if it looks different.

Employees need to feel ownership over the things they do and over the ones they are involved in. They all have a special role in the big change process, they must identify the issues and they have to offer solutions. This, many times, is reinforced by monetary or non-monetary rewarding.

Unfortunately, the change initiators and leaders believe that all the employees understand the problems and the change reasons, that they all feel the necessity of the change, and that they can forecast as clearly as the leaders do. This mistake is done too often because employees lack knowledge about aspects of the change and they are either disinterested, or lazy, or they think that they would not understand anyway. Others believe that they can do nothing but obey, and due to many reasons the employees do not ask questions, and the managers think that the message was completely understood. This is, actually, the mistake of the managers: they should educate their teams and provide all the details. A smart thing about involving the employees in the change process is that they become more interested in the change and they understand in better.

A best-practice is to strengthen the core message by periodical advice and clarification, which is recommended to be both motivational and feasible. Another nice thing that can be done by the managers is to ask for feedback. By this, the employees really have a role (a collective one) and all of them will share opinions and analyze the change, understanding it. Also, question will rise in their heads.

The Organizational Culture

Change Management is strongly related to the culture of the company: as long as the change doesn’t fit the organizational culture, the chosen change is wrong. The assessment of the cultural landscape at each level of the company is critical, because the leaders must understand and take into account the cultural and behavioral factors, which directly influence the change process. If something goes down, the speed and intensity of the change will grow in the same direction. Too often, in business environments, the organizational culture is assessed too late or not at all.

Organizational Culture is very important, as it can provide information about the readiness of the company to change, emphasizing the important issues that are to be dealt with. This diagnosis of the culture is offering a path to the core of the internal business environment: it brings to surface the difference between the reality and the values that the company should have had. Through changes, the companies try to return to the common baseline of the organizational culture, and using these beliefs and values the changes that are to come would be managed properly.

The culture should be addressed explicitly, as any other part of the change process, once it is understood. The top managers and the change leaders should transmit the message of the culture explicitly, mentioning and emphasizing the behaviors that would best fit for the forecasted environment of the company, after the change is done. Also, finding ways to reward and model the behaviors of the employees, in order to be according to the change, is compulsory.

As organizational culture is a sum of shared beliefs and values, attitudes and behavior, all defined during the history of the company, change management can either create a new culture, combine different cultures, or reinforce the existing one. The organizational culture is the core due to and according to which the company works. If it changes or if it needs a change, this must become a priority for every company. Each employee should identify with the culture of the company, otherwise it may not be the right company to work with, subjectively.

Changing – Part of anyone’s life

As I said earlier, change management involves risk management: always be prepared for the unexpected because only rarely change programs go properly. Human’s behavior is full of surprises and unexpected things can happen. Any resistance that could be anticipated falls apart in front of the unexpected behavior. The assessment of the changes’ impact must be continuous in order to effectively manage them, as to proceed to the following transformation. Change leaders must adjust by necessity the situation in order to maintain its balance, taking decisions according to both rational data and feedbacks from different stakeholders.

The main idea is that change management is not only about the enterprise, it is about individuals, too. Officially, it is an institutional transformation path, but it is also an individual journey. Mathematically, people spend around 40 hours/week at work, which is a big part of their lives: placing apart the sleeping time, work occupies half of the people’s lives. There is a second family there, and any change might turn into a conflict between individuals, or the opposite, also. Any change is important, employees want to know how is work affecting their lives, what will change precisely, what are they expected to do, how will their performance be assessed, and most important: what will be the environment like? Being a second home, it is just like a house: let’s say that the only internet source was a desktop computer connected to a cable. What would the future be like if there was installed a wireless router?

As a change leader, it is hard to deal with that. They have to involve many people in the change process and to reward them, but also they must sanction or remove the obstacles, even if they would mean firing. Even if many leaders are aware of the matter of the people, dwelling on the processes on changed, planned previously, looks easier and more approachable tan fighting with the human issue: not concerning with that looks simpler and many managers simply impose the change. Still, the most successful Change Management cases were the ones where the soft side of the process was well managed.

http://anonhq.com/

http://semneletimpului.ro/

https://ro.wikipedia.org

http://rbd.doingbusiness.ro/

http://unpan1.un.org/

http://www.strategy-business.com/