“Assignment no.

2”

Course: Strategic Human Resource Management

Topic: Case (Pilkington case study)
Date of submission: 31st March, 2020

Submitted by: Umair Ali (1835266)

Submitted to: Ma’am Hina Mubeen

 External environment Analysis

Culture at Pilkington was monopolistic, which means they are the only player in the market.
They also have good alliance with the government so that no other competitor can come in the
market. On the other end, as they are the only players in the market Pilkington attitude towards
the customer was not good at all. They always tend to reroute customers to the particular
department because nobody was having information about the other departments. This lack of
information with the employees resulting in bad customer experience
On the other hand, international forces had a huge impact on Pilkington external environment
due to the reduction of tariffs and import quota levels as part of the general agreement on
trade and tariff (GATT), it created problems for Pilkington and allowed Germany, China and
India to compete effectively in the global market place. This situation made them produce the
product at low cost causing difficulties to meet international price levels.
While being in monopolistic culture, Pilkington never focused on technological advancements
but when the circumstances changed and competitors started to enter the market, Pilkington
focused towards technological advancement and invested in it for the betterment of the
company.

Internal environment Analysis

The causes behind Pilkington making such changes were the primary concerns it had with its
employees. These employees had created a culture of taking work easy and delaying the
process. This culture was, in turn, hurting the company’s overall performance. This was more so
because the company was already facing stiff competition in the market. The suitable changes
made to the organizational structure; that included reversing the hierarchical structure had
significant effects. The work process became fast, and the company was able to get rid of the
overtime culture.
The company, being a manufacturing unit, had a strong labor union. And, among the
employees, there was a culture of doing work slowly and working late, to cash the overtime
allowance; which allowed the employees to take home a hefty amount. The company had to
pay non-productive employees lots of money in salaries and not get much in return.
To tackle this situation, the company made changes in its organizational structure. It reversed
the hierarchical structure and allowed the employees on the lower level to provide information
to the higher management. Subsequently, the lower level employees were grouped into teams
and told to monitor their performances. The company also decided to give only deserving
employees the training they required. Further, policies were enforced to check the behavior of
every employee, and everyone was informed that inappropriate behavior would result in
termination. The change process was met with resistance from employees. Many employees
resorted to strikes and boycott of the company’s policies. However, the threat of being
terminated resulted in the employees bowing down in front of the higher management.