New York Baker Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Introduction

NYB employs 20,625 full-time workers in its bakeries, distribution system and customer service. It operates two separate headquarters. About 90% of employees are covered by one of the 250 union contracts that NYB has signed. It is a complex task to manage pay and benefits to meet the agreements in each of these 250 contracts. Pay isa sensitive issue for employees as they expect to get paid on time and any delay could result in strikes.

Problem Statement

It is 2009 and the company is on the verge of going bankrupt. In May 2009, a consortium of private equity firms agreed to provide the debtor-in-possession financing in exchange for a controlling share in the firm. The new Chief Information Officer found that the current payroll software program would not support the company’s massive scale for more than six months; therefore, he decided to implement an ERP system for the purpose and appointed Blanshard. However, there are many forces who would resist the implementation of new program and the management of NYB should manage it and install the ERP successfully.

Explain what you think the sources or categories of resistance are that Blanshard would likely find?

There are many dimensions to resistance. It involves the response of individuals to change, their perception about the change, and their feelings about the change.The cognitive dimension involves how an employee perceiveschange. For instance, what is the value of the change? Will the change benefit or harm an organization? Cognitive negative reactions or attitudes towards the change include a lack of commitment to the change and negative evaluations of the change.

The affective dimension of individual reactions involves how one feels about the modification.Affective reactions to the change include experiencing such emotions as elation, anxiety, anger, concern, enthusiasm, and understanding.Affective negative reactions include tension, anxiety, and wrath.The behavioral dimension of individual reactions involves how an individual acts in response to change. For instance embracing it, complaining about it, and/or harming it.

Blanshard may find that the managers will not support the change at NYB and comfort their sub-ordinates about the new payroll software. They may follow the orders of Blanshard but will not be actively involved in implementing the software. In order to implement the payroll software, he will require information about the existing processes of payroll to get them incorporated in the ERP software. Employees may provide complete information to Blanshard in order to stop the implementation or to delay the process.

Trade Unions may not cooperate with him denying him the information of 250 union contracts which has to be incorporated in the software.Strikes may follow and the entire operations may come to halt forcing the management to change their minds. Employees may not be ready to change their work practices. For instance, they will not agree to get their salaries transferred to their bank account instead they like to have local control over payroll and want to rely on old payroll software system to manually print cartridges.

In order to implement the project, the coordination between departments is necessary. Blanshard may not get the level and extent of coordination between different departments. The previous experience of the company and the employees with the ERP software has been disastrous. They expected that their problems would decrease but instead they increased.

The employees at NYB are very sensitive about pay. ERP Payroll software may not work as efficient as possible and many problems may occur such as late disbursements of salaries or incorrect salaries being transferred to incorrect accounts. This may cause frustration amongst the employees who may call for the immediate discontinuation of the newly installed system causing the company to lose a lot of money.

As the idea is to move to a paper-less system, managers and their subordinates are afraid that there will be redundancies on the large scale. Even if people are not made redundant on a massive scale, the redundancies of few employees will create the perception amongst the remaining employees that they would be next to be made redundant.New York Baker Case Solution

Given that information, what do you think he should advise the CEO to do once he leaves?

I would recommend CEO to take following actions once Blanshard leaves. These are given in detail below:

CEO needs to create sense of urgency amongst managers and employees about the need to get the new payroll system implemented. He should emphasize to everyone in the company that the survival of the company is dependent upon the successful implementation of this program as the company will not secure debtor-in-possession finance if this software implementation fails.The company would go bankrupt if it happens and all of them would lose the jobs.............

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