CORUS – Overcoming Barriers to Change

Question 1 : Using examples, explain what is meant by internal and external drivers for change.

1. Internal driver, which are the things, situations or events that are occur inside the business and
generally under control of the company. The internal driver can affect organization either
positive or negative way. The main internal driving forces are like technological capacity,
strategy and structure organization, oriented process and employee. For example in article that
Corus make change base on employee morale which is poor delivery, competition, high
wastage and low staff morale.

2. External driver, are kinds of things, situations or events that occur from outside of the company
or organisation. Basically these are not under the organization control. There are many types of
external driving force like changing in technology, politic and economy , customer request and
competition. For example external driver in Corus came from new competitors, changing
customer request, new technology and perception of the steelmaking industry within the
community tended to be negative.

Question 2 : What barriers to change existed at Corus?

Barriers to change exist in Corus because of the action taken by individuals and groups when they
perceive that a change that is occurring as a threat to them. There are basically two groups associated
with a resistance to change of an organisation it is individual level of sources and organisational level of
sources.

1. Individual level of sources resistance to change reside in basic human characteristics such as
perceptions, personalities, and needs. In Corus Company they faced many problems in
resistance to change, especially in internal sources like fear to unknown, lack of skills, habit,
ageing work force, and economic factors.

2. Organisational sources changes are activities of transformation or modification of something.

The main purpose of these types of activities is improvement of business result. Many barriers
will need to be passed in this process. One of the biggest barriers is resistance that is sub
component on every organisational change. Efficiency and effectiveness of a change process
are in direct relation with resistance and successfully dealing with that resistance. The main
organisational sources for resistance to change is like threat to job status or security,
unexplained change to the time line and lack of trust.
Question 3: Analyze the approaches Corus used to overcome these barriers.

There are five resistance to change in the Corus company U.K it is communication, participation,
building emotional, implementing change fairly and selecting people.

1. Communication, there have two branches of communication, which are communication

internally, within the organisation between employees and management and externally between
the organisation and suppliers and customers.

2. Participation, where the initiators do not have all the information they need to design the change
and where others have considerable power to resist. Organization getting everyone to take
ownership of the new values by physically signing up to the programme.

3. Building emotional commitment makes a positive energy inside and outside the business
organisation. Organization provide ownership to their employee. It may more involve in decision
making and their contributions.

4. Implementing changes fairly basically look at the management seen that the change as
positively. But the employees take those changes as negatively. So if a company introduce new
changes of their company at the same time they think how to overcome the barriers.

5. Selecting people that to ability to easily accept and adapt is change is related to personality.
Some people simply have more positive attitude towards them self, are willing to take risk and
are flexible in their behaviour also based on a resistance to change scale worked welling
winnowing out those who tended to react emotionally to change or to be rigid.

Question 4 : Evaluate the effectiveness of the change programmer so far.

The effectiveness of the change in the Corus Company was formed in 1999 when the former British
steel plc merged with the Dutch company. Now the Corus Company is subsidiary of Indian owned Tata
Group. In 1999 Corus has three operating divisions and 40,000 employees in world wide. Corus aims to
be a leader in the steel industry by providing better products, higher quality customer service and better
value for money than its rivals.

In 2005 CSP UK introduced a cultural plan for change called ‘The Journey’. The journey change
programme at Corus Strip Products contributes to sustainability for the business. By facing up to its
internal weakness, CSP has improved efficiency, increased output, lowered costs and reduced waste in
an increasingly competitive steel market. This has enabled the business not just to survive but also to
grow – even during the economic recession of 2008 and 2009. Thanks to the Journey programme, CSP
UK expects to reduce costs for the 2009/10 financial year by around £250 million. To make sure that
actions delivered results, Corus established clear targets and standards. After the journey Corus
Company achieve their target. The key performance indicators are given below :

1. Increased their production capacity from 4.5% to 5 million tonnes

2. Reduce 20% of cost of production

3. 5000 employees have signed up to the values and beliefs of the business

4. Another outcome is reduction in absenteeism

5. The measurable improvements in levels of quality and services for customers

6. New outcome changes have increased new safety terms

7. Emissions of carbon dioxide has reduced by 10%, so CSP UK exceeds Govt. Standards