Case Study: Auto Fix Specialists (Pty) Ltd Your role in the case study:

Imagine that the CEO of Auto Fix Specialists (Pty) Ltd (AFS) asked you to assess the organisation’s situation from an OD perspective and to advise the relevant stakeholders accordingly.

About the business:

AFS, a vehicle service and repair company, operates from two prime retail locations in the Johannesburg Northern Suburbs. The one location is in Bryanston, chosen for its location within the “ring road” around Johannesburg North and the second location is outside the “ring road” in the greater Fourways area.

In addition to customers taking vehicles in for service and repair at each site, AFS launched a mobile vehicle workshop offering. Over time, AFS established excellent brand recognition and their recent innovation, the mobile workshops, are gaining traction in the market because of the convenience of doing basic services and repairs at customers’ locations in residential areas and at company premises for AFS’ corporate clients.

AFS is known for its quality workmanship, sound warranty terms, and fair and transparent pricing. AFS only use the most up to date and modern technology to diagnose vehicle problems and AFS provides technicians with the best equipment and tools to do their jobs. Staff are well- trained and paid in the upper quartile of similar positions in other companies. Administrative staff and technicians employed by AFS are loyal to the company not only because of the premium remuneration but also the organisational culture that values people, promotes open communication, and generally has a “part of the family” ambience.

The company was established by a Greek immigrant, Costa Angelos, in 2003 and has been family-run since then.

Recently, Costa Angelos, the founder, and head of the family, decided to take a lower profile and appointed an outsider, and not a family member, as CEO. Costa realised that the business should change to stay in step with broader environmental changes such as the need for broader representation of disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, the success of the business’ customer value proposition as per the performance of the two branches and the mobile workshops, provide the business with an opportunity to grow and spread its wings to more parts of the country. Costa felt that he had led the business through its founding years and has taken it to its current success and the business now needs “new blood” to take the business to a new level.

Theo Botoulos, the new CEO, have been in place at AFS for 18 months. He has extensive experience in the motor industry, specifically in the after-sales domain. The term “after-sales” indicates the work done to vehicles “after the vehicles were sold” to a customer either as a new vehicle or a used vehicle. Vehicle servicing and repair fits into the after-sales domain.

Vehicle manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Toyota, and others, distribute their newly manufactured vehicles to retail dealership outlets branded as for example Volkswagen dealerships, Toyota dealerships, and so on. These dealerships then market the vehicles and sell to retail customers. New vehicles sold come standard with a new vehicle warranty that is valid if the vehicle is serviced in terms of a scheduled maintenance profile. Traditionally, customers needed to take their vehicles to a branded retail dealership (for example, taking a Volkswagen vehicle still under warranty to a Volkswagen dealership) for servicing and repair while the vehicle was still under warranty. This has been a bone of contention for a long time as some customers felt that retail dealerships’ servicing, repairs, and replacement parts, were overpriced.

Recent developments in the industry, underpinned by legislation, mean that customers can take their vehicles to third party vehicle servicing and repair outlets without losing their warranty as long as the third-party service and repair quality is up to acceptable standards.

AFS is such a third-party service and repair provider and has established strong relationships with the likes of Toyota, Volkswagen, and other brands’ manufacturing and wholesale distribution operations and have developed credibility as a third-party service provider that gives customers another reputable choice for servicing and repairing their vehicles. AFS believed that their relationship with the OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturers, for example Volkswagen) and the OEM’s retail dealer networks needed to be collaborative rather than adversarial and as such it has built mutually beneficial relationships with OEM’s and their dealer network outlets within the areas of AFS’s operation in Johannesburg North. The extent of AFS’s relationship strength with OEM’s and their dealers is that AFS have an agreement with OEM’s where AFS’s staff can attend training OEM’s offer their dealers.

AFS has also an impeccable reputation and credibility with retail industry organisations such as the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI). One of several objectives of the RMI is, “To promote, protect and encourage the interests of members and the motoring public by setting and maintaining proper standards of service and ethical trading conditions in the industry”. AFS has also been in step with all relevant features of after sales service and repair for example to sale of extended warranties and other such products to provide their customers with vehicles outside of a new vehicle warranty the option to acquire such products, for example an extended warranty, for peace of mind.

AFS, through its membership with the RMI, also has a sound relationship with the Motor Industry Bargaining Council, the organization that represents staff within the motor industry at industry- level bargaining for wage and conditions agreements. Up to now, disruptions due to strikes and the like were relatively easy to manage in the two branches, serving two parts of Johannesburg North yet close enough to manage logistics and disruptions through strike and related labour actions. Furthermore, as mentioned, the company pays its staff at the upper end of scales in the industry and worker-manager relationships generally are collaborative and cooperative rather than adversarial as in many other companies in the industry.

AFS measures their customer satisfaction levels meticulously and have ratings at the top end of the industry.

AFS currently has 18 head office employees based at the Bryanston branch in administrative offices adjacent to the workshop area. The CEO forms part of the employee cohort. The head office employees are strongly focused on branch operations via an operations manager, marketing and sales promotions, business development aimed at relationships with OEM’s and retail dealerships, finance, accounting, and an HRM employee count of two HR Specialists. AFS contracts with specialists’ organisations such as accounting and finance and HRM consultants to support those parts of the business.

The two branches each have the following employee profile (total employees per branch 46).

• Branch Manager x 1
• Workshop Manager x 1
  • 2 Switchboard Operators
  • 3 Customer Check-in Specialists
  • 2 Cleaners
  • 6 Senior Technicians
  • 12 Assistant Technicians
  • 4 Car Wash Specialists
  • 3 Drivers to run errands and to drop-off and pick up customers.
  • Mobile workshop staff (2 customised panel vans):
    • 2 Senior technicians
    • 4 Assistant technicians
• Parts Manager x 1

• 2 Workshop Liaison Specialists
  • 2 Parts Pickers
  • Parts Order Clerk
  • Parts Admin Clerk

Theo Botoulos, the CEO, contacted you as you are an OD specialist to help him to set the stage for the business to grow further.

Theo had a long preliminary discussion with you in which he shared the before mentioned and the following.

Since Theo’s appointment, he familiarised himself with the business and leveraged off AFS’s relationship with various stakeholders to establish his own credibility. He has successfully done so.

He also formalised certain systems and procedures he knew intimately that he believed the business needed. As a family business, trust played a key role and some issues in the business were dealt with informally when Costa Angelos was the CEO. Costa realised the business needed to strengthen certain systems and procedures as these would be critical to support the expansion of the business. Costa’s mandate to Theo included for Theo to strengthen these systems and procedures.

Six months ago, Theo concluded a BBBEE deal that resulted in AFS moving closer to full BBBEE compliance. He also mandated the HR specialists to enhance their employment equity profile.

He also recently conducted a series of workshops with senior managers to flesh out a growth strategy as per Costa Angelos’ mandate to Theo to grow the business.

From Theo’s experience in leading other businesses on similar growth paths, he is concerned that AFS employees may resist some of the changes. Theo referred again to the description of the business’ credibility, family culture, good relationships, etcetera referred to earlier in this case study and expressed his wish that as much as possible the organisation’s culture must retain those qualities however the organisation’s culture must also adapt to cater for a new future for the business.

However, through the grapevine Theo heard that employees were afraid that the new path of the business as per Theo’s various initiatives (per Costa Angelos’ instructions/mandate) will lead to the business no longer being such a friendly family-oriented business. Theo also heard that the new policies and procedures were described by staff as unnecessary red tape.

Theo’s concerns include the necessity of implementing a new company-wide computer system to accommodate the new policies and procedures and that are needed to support the growth of the business as envisaged by the previous owner, and still substantive shareholder, Costa Angelos.

With the above as background, Theo wants you to go away and develop a plan to take people along on the journey and to minimise the pain points and the possible resistance to change.

Write a combined evaluation and proposal report covering the following:

1. Write a short and effective introduction describing the overall objective of your report and briefly refer to the intended contents of your evaluation and proposal report. [200 words]
2. Use your knowledge of complex adaptive open systems to identify the parts of the systems within which AFS is the focal point. Briefly describe the relationship of each part with AFS. [300 words]
3. Who are the stakeholders you need to consider in your design of an OD plan? [300 words]
4. Use the Burke-Litwin Adapted model (Martins & Geldenhuys, 2021, chapter 6, p. 141) to map the various strengths and the challenges that are present within AFS that your discussion with Theo revealed. [500 words]
5. There might be several types of interventions that can be applied in this situation. For this assessment, please motivate how Appreciative Inquiry can be applied. To make it easy for Theo to understand the Appreciative Inquiry method, use the case study information and simulate a possible intervention with the Bryanston workshop staff. You are aware that the workshop staff work Monday to Friday from 07H00 – 17H30, and Saturdays from 08H00 until 12H00. For your simulation, imagine yourself as representing the workshop staff including the workshop manager.
   1. Write a short introduction to section 5 of your report to say what Appreciative Inquiry is and that you will demonstrate the intervention in the rest of this section. [100 words]
   1. Discovery: identify the strengths of the workshop department and the strengths of the company as the workshop staff might see that. [400 words]
   1. Dream: imagine what a future workshop department “might look like” given the business’ ambition for growth. What would the workshop department offer to its stakeholders? Write down a vision as if you are the workshop department cohort. [400 words]
   1. Design: think about and explain what is needed to reach the vision you described (in point 5.3 under Dream) by considering what would need to change and what would need to be put into place to work towards realising the workshop cohort’s vision. Include in your design what might be required from the leadership of AFS and what changes in stakeholder behaviours might be needed, to accommodate that vision. [400 words]
   1. Destiny: share what the plan for the workshop department would be to implement the Design and what you as the OD practitioner will do to support that implementation. [400 words]
   1. As a separate reflection from the Appreciative Inquiry process simulation (5.1 to 5.5 above) write a short piece on how the Appreciative Inquiry exercise as simulated for the workshop department can help leaders to minimise resistance to change by workshop staff. [400 words]

1. Write a short and effective conclusion in which you very briefly affirm what you have done in the report. You must also refer to Theo’s request for this report and invite him to review the report and invite him to a follow-up meeting to discuss his review of the report, his inputs, and the way forward from there. [100 words]

Assessment 2:

Case Study 2: The turnaround strategy of Sasol Mining

Van Tonder, C. L., & Roodt, G. (Eds.). (2008). Organisation development: Theory and practice,

pp. 396-398. Van Schaik Publishers

1. What elements of the action research process (studied in Session 4 of this module) can be observed in the way the unfolding change process in the organisation was dealt with? In answering this question, ensure that you provide supporting evidence from the case study information. (500 words)

• At what stage in the change process might an Appreciative Inquiry approach have been useful? Motivate your answer (500 words)
• The case study information does not provide any specific evidence of diagnosis undertaken. Bearing in mind the change targets listed in the case study and if you had been the HR/OD Professional supporting the business at the time:
  • At what stage would you say diagnosis could have proved useful? Motivate your answer (100 words)
  • What would the objectives of the diagnosis be? (150 words)
  • In line with the above objectives, what diagnostic framework would you have selected and how would you have applied it? (150 words)
• How does the change and transformation process described in the case study compare with the planned change approaches studied in Session 6 of this module? In answering this question, discuss the strengths and the limitations of the change process applied in the case study as you see them. (500 words)
• The case study provides information on support that was provided from a psychosocial and culture perspective. Identify and describe some specific human resource management interventions that could have been applied and explain why these would have been useful in providing ongoing support to the employees. (500 words)
• If you had been the HR/OD Professional called upon to provide support to the case study organisational change, reflect on and describe the process you would have put into place to enter and manage the relationship with the client system (500 words)

Expert Answers on Questions Above on Human Resource Development

Introduction
The main objective of this report is to perform an evaluation of Auto Fix Specialists from an organisational development point of view to analyse its growth and change journey. The important areas that will be analysed includes the open system adopted by the organisation, its key take holders and application of Burke-Litwin Adapted model. The management of change strategy would be carried out using the Appreciative Injury Intervention model and finally, an assessment of the ways in which sustainable change can be managed inline with the company’s values and strategic goals.
Complex adaptive open systems
Auto Fix Specialists work on an open system that is highly affected by the internal environment, external environment, technological environment, socio-political factors and economic environment. The open communication support is available because of such an open systems approach which allows internal staff within the organisation to communicate effectively. 

Disclaimer: This answer is a model for study and reference purposes only. Please do not submit it as your own work.

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