Mark and Tracy Loafington, owners of Happy Dog Pet Food, have made an important decision: they are going to sell their business to Goldie Pawn of the Golden Bone.  Mark and Tracy are nearing retirement age and want to pursue their lifelong dream of moving out of the city onto an acreage where they can raise prize winning Springer Spaniels.  Further, the pet food business is competitive, with larger manufacturers having the scalability to offer better prices, and it hasn't been easy to keep their little company going.  But more than this, they think Goldie is the perfect fit for their company and the hopes they had for it.

Goldie has shared with them her vision for expanding their business to introduce a new line of meatloaves for cats.  She has the resources to make it happen by investing in better production (automation) and add another shift to the production line.  She plans to leverage her own strong brand and in fact, plans to rebrand the pet food under her private label as Goldie's Choice Pet Meatloaves.  The Loafingtons feel there is no higher compliment, and that this will allow them to achieve their vision of "being acknowledged as the clear choice for pet owners who want to provide high quality, nutritious and tasty food to their beloved pets." 

Goldie is a smart business woman and knows that employee buy-in will be key to the transition.  She plans to offer jobs to all of Happy Dog's production, sales and marketing staff, and asks Mark and Tracy how they think the staff will react to the news that the company is being sold.  They acknowledge that there may be some resistance, especially from the sales and marketing staff who have worked hard to build the Happy Dog brand and may struggle with the change.  They also recognize that there may be some training costs, cost of turnover if people do not choose to stay (particularly if they have to work the new night shift) and possibly a temporary drop in productivity as they transition to cat food production and new technology. 

1. Conduct a force-field analysis of this change. Refer back to the section on force-field analysis and the example of moving offices for an example.
   
   
   1. First, identify current state, future state, and the main driving and restraining forces.  (You can use a bulleted list).
      
       
   2. Second, describe some actions that you recommend to strengthen the driving forces and reduce the potency of the restraining forces (at least one action for each force).

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Current State Happy Dog Pet Food is a competitive business but faces challenges in terms of scalability and pricing Mark and Tracy Loafington are near... View the full answer