Question

Implementation can be a tricky process, especially in international circumstances - what issues can you identify from experience or from a personal point of view? Please use references for your submission.

You can use any example where there was a project that required implementation, and there were some challenges, even put it in general terms as to what are the challenges from certain sources.

Answer 1

Implementation can be a tricky and challenging process. It involves setting up the basic things in place to have the right foundation.

• Mission - it answers the reasons, 'why', the purpose of what is planned to be done
• Values - how and what will be involved in the journey to achieve the same
• Vision - what is the end objective. It answers where are we trying to reach through the process.

In the current organisation, I have faced many issues to implement and it involved:

1. Getting the team participation at equal energy levels and commitment
2. Operational & business development issue of growing business through web presence as currently, our products were only at the physical stores

Here is how I addressed and implemented both challenges:

First: Improving team participation. I set up general guidelines & training objectives for the managers to take care of the following things:

1. It is important to provide a team with a healthy and pleasant work environment: It is important to provide a clean, challenging, feedback based work environment. The office should provide support and help in growth, learning and development.
2. The group project leader must offer opportunities for self-development and career development: The team members must feel that the organisation is people-driven and they are valued. It is important to provide the team with adequate training and development.
3. To improve team participation the members must be offered ample opportunities for self-development, learning new skills and adding knowledge to advance their career and growth inside the organisation.
4. Team participation can also be improved if collaboration is promoted inside the team. It is important for team members to enjoy participation, give & take feedback and implement the ideas and solutions.
5. It is important to encourage happiness and positivity in members. Mentally happy employees are able to participate well. Leaders must evaluate the kind of work environment you are creating.
6. Another guideline is to ensure that failures are not punished. It is important to make team members learn all the lessons so that all these can learning can be applied in the best manner in future.
7. To improve team participation it is important to set clear goals and have clear expectations with employees. Employees waste a lot of time if the work and job role is not clear. Once the goals are clear in the team they are able to help, understand and contribute to each other in an effective manner.
8. Another important guideline to improve team participation is to make sure that team members are not being micromanaged. It is important to give employees freedom and let them figure the best way to achieve them.
9. Another guideline is to ensure that meetings are productive, have clear agenda, timelines and output. The agenda and objectives of the meeting should be given in advance so that all come prepared and the meeting is quick.
10. The team members should be asked to socialise and open communication environment should be cultivated. It helps to develop mutual trust, respect and coordination between team members.

Communication plays a key role. Open communication environment helps the employee feel they are part of the conversation within the group.

Problem 2: Implementing change to move towards web platform based sales

Here are steps I followed to strategically implement the same:

• The first step important is to ensure that the business identifies many alternatives and solutions for the problem. It is important for an organisation to figure the alternatives of shifting to web presence. The effectiveness will be determined if other alternatives don't offer a better solution. If the firm doesn't figure alternatives and jump into a web presence strategy it will have a negative impact on the brand of the company. Once the internet presence strategy is adopted it is important to ensure that real-time communication and feedback with customers is maintained.
• The evidence needs to be carefully analysed & the feasibility must be weighed: As discussed in the example above, the managers and leaders need to carefully analyse the decision. The management needs to understand the impact of having a web presence decision on the market and customers. The management needs to ensure that the team understands the product, associated services and unique selling points hence making it easier and more effective to implement the decision.
• Taking the right decision among alternatives: The management must choose and decide the right alternative. Even for a decision like an increased Web presence, it is important to decide whether the firms want to invest in technical areas like increasing web traffic through paid advertisement. The wrong choice of alternatives can lead to bad communication and in the long run, a business will lose its customer base. The decision to increase web presence can help the traditional communication to find the right target audience and this modification can also help in the personalisation of the message to the overall consumers of the product.
• Creating a solid plan of implementation/ moving to the actionable zone: The step of decision making is important as post-analysis of pros & cons a decision must be selected and implemented. For increased web presence it involves taking actions for training the team, having the right technology, defining the communication agenda etc. A content marketing strategy by management is a must to build a brand, build a customer base and keep increasing leads. Having an action plan helps to implement the decision better and prepare management for any risk management.

With these steps using strategic & logical thinking we were able to implement the online / web strategy to grown our business and it has been positive till now.

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