Java Mountain Coffee Case Study and Assignment

Company Information:

Java Mountain is a thirty year old, privately held company with revenues of approximately $100 million. The company, headquartered in Vancouver, processes and sells commercial coffee

and related products. It serves a wide variety of markets and has a few subsidiaries in cities out of province.

The CEO has been in place for more than twenty years, but most of his direct reports have been with Java less than ten years. The processing, warehousing, and shipping departments are unionized. There is a direct sales force, and also a direct sales subsidiary that sells a

custom-branded line to smaller accounts.

Java Mountain has a good track record with many long-term customers. The company is innovative, and has a strong state of the art Information Technology department that successfully implemented SAP, an enterprise resource planning system within the past ten years. SAP is used for all human resources functions, as well as for the companys production, sales and marketing activities. In fact, Java Mountain has seen increases in productivity (efficiency of production) and sales since SAP was introduced.

The Change:

Java is undergoing growth and has begun hiring office and support staff. More office space is needed, but the physical facility is being used to capacity. And due to the companys location in the city, adjacent land isnt available for a new building. To address this challenge, the CEO has decided to begin a pilot project. Ten of the professional staff from headquarters will begin telecommuting (working from home) for a one-month trial period. If the project is deemed successful, it will be expanded.

Senior management has been informed that the idea is under consideration. The union steward has already expressed concerns about the plan if expanded since union members cannot participate.

Java Mountains Key Players:

Carol Director of Human Resources

Bill Director of Information Technology

Roger Vice President of Finance

Ann Vice President of Sales

Steve Vice President of Operations

Liz Union Steward

Harlan CEO

Additional Information:

A change management team was established. After some initial planning and information gathering, the team provided the following information about the telecommuting pilot to Harlan, the CEO:

• Ten exempt (non-union) employees have been identified and have agreed to participate in the pilot project.

• The pilot will begin on October 1 and end on October 31, after which the project stakeholders will gather feedback from the participants and assess the potential expansion of the program.

• Each one has certified that he or she has a quiet, dedicated place at home from which to work, and agrees to adhere to normal business working hours.

• Pilot participants will be provided with a company-standard laptop, personal printer, company-paid high speed internet access (if needed), and a smartphone. (Reimbursement will be made to employees who have and are willing to use existing high speed internet access.)

• The project team will assess results of the project through interviews with the participants direct supervisors to ensure that the employees work performance levels are consistent with expected performance levels if they were working in their normal offices. The team will also ask the participants to complete a self-assessment of their impressions of the pilot. An additional goal is to document any emerging or additional unidentified benefits of the pilot.

• The budget for the pilot project is $30,000 (hardware and software, internet, phone, project team expenses, etc).

• An IT project manager has been identified to implement equipment and communications for each participant and provide training so that participants can use the VPN network (virtual private network) to reach the company servers.

• Prior to the start date of the pilot, the Human Resources department will provide an overview of the expectations for an employee in a telecommuting role, and the Controllers office will explain a new weekly reporting requirement for the participants.

• The team indicates that the risk of not undertaking the pilot is to (a) inhibit business growth or

(b) incur high costs leasing office space not adjacent to Java Mountain.

Assignment:

Answer the following two questions in a separate document (with your name in the file name, for example, managing-change-jane-smith.doc), and submit the document in the Assignment Dropbox. Completion of this assignment is required to receive credit for the course. Your answers should demonstrate that you have read and understood the course material. While this is not a marked assignment, you will receive feedback from your instructor.

1. 1. Undertake a SWOT Analysis of Java Mountain Coffee, identifying what you believe are the companys strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Identify at least 5 strengths, 5 weaknesses, 5 opportunities and 5 threats. Remember that when youre planning a change project, the strengths and opportunities quadrants can be particularly helpful in determining the WIFM (whats in it for me) factors. The weaknesses and threats results can help the team avoid potential pitfalls when working to instill desire for change.

1. 2. Using the ADKAR model, analyze the change project to help you plan for the people dimension of change:

A: List the reasons you believe the change is necessary.

D: List the factors (good and bad) that can create a desire to change.

K: List some of the skills and knowledge needed for the change, both during and after the transition. How will those skills or knowledge be obtained?

A: Considering the skills and knowledge you identified above, will people have the ability to perform or act in a new way? Might there any barriers inhibiting a persons ability?

R: List the reinforcement that might help to retain the change, if any. Will there be incentives in place to make the change stick?