Ninety Days of One-Price Selling at the Pilot Store: What the Results Show, a Communication Plan for Four More Stores and What Will Keep the Change From Sliding Back
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
MGT/526: Managing in a Changing Environment
Week 4 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The dealership group, employees and figures are a composite written for a model paper.
Week 3 prepared the composite dealership group's Hyundai store for a six-month pilot of one-price selling. Ninety days in, leadership must decide how to extend the change to the other four stores. The pilot did not go exactly as planned, and that is the most useful thing about it. This paper reviews the results, sets out an implementation sequence and a communication plan and identifies what will sustain the change.
Pilot Results at 90 Days
Compared with the same period last year, the pilot store's unit sales rose about 6%. Average customer time in the dealership fell from about 3.4 hours to 1.9 hours, and the store's customer satisfaction score rose from 88 to 93 out of 100. Front-end gross profit per new vehicle fell by about $310, as expected when negotiation ends and posted prices are set competitively, but finance and insurance income per vehicle held steady, and higher volume offset most of the gross profit decline.
Three problems appeared. First, trade-in appraisals caused friction: some customers expected to negotiate the trade-in value and left when the appraisal was presented as final. Second, one of the four top earners resigned in the second month, joining a competitor that still pays commission. Third, the online deal tool did not connect smoothly to the store's finance system, so customers who had started a deal online often repeated steps in the store.
The repeated ADKAR assessment showed desire rising from an average of 2.4 to 3.6, with the largest gains among average salespeople, who valued the steadier pay.
Adjusting Before Rollout
The pilot led to three adjustments. Trade-in appraisals will now be explained in detail with market data shown to the customer, and appraisers may adjust within a set range if a customer provides a competing written offer. The online tool integration will be fixed before any other store launches. And the senior product specialist role will be offered to top performers earlier, before launch rather than during it, since the resignation came from a salesperson who had been undecided about the role.
Implementation Sequence
Kotter (1995) found that transformations often fail because leaders declare victory too soon or fail to anchor changes in the culture, and that producing short-term wins helps maintain momentum. The group will extend the change one store at a time, about every two months: the Toyota store next, whose customer base is similar to Hyundai's; then the used-vehicle center; then Chevrolet; and finally Ford, the group's largest and most traditional store. Each launch will follow the pilot's sequence: assessment of salespeople, pay protections, involvement in design, two weeks of training and a month of floor coaching.
Two salespeople from the pilot store will serve as peer coaches at each new store for its first month. Their experience is the most credible evidence the other stores can hear, because it comes from people who had the same doubts and whose pay depended on the same results.
Communication Plan
Cawsey et al. (2020) recommend planning change communication by stakeholder, because each group needs different information and responds to different messengers, and because communication needs change as a change moves from awareness to implementation. The plan below follows that approach.
Salespeople at the remaining stores
They need to know why the change is happening, how their pay will work and what the pilot showed. The message is that the change is real, that it has been tested and that their pay is protected during transition. The channel is small-group meetings at each store, followed by individual meetings on pay, because pay is personal and emotional. Messengers are the store's general manager, the pilot store's peer coaches and the human resources manager. Timing is six weeks before each store's launch.
Sales and finance managers
They need their new roles defined in detail. The group president and the pilot store's managers will meet with them in person two months before launch.
Service, parts and office staff
They need to understand how the change affects customers and handoffs. Brief store meetings and a written summary will be used a month before launch.
Customers
Customers need to know that posted prices mean no negotiation on the vehicle and how trade-ins are handled. The group will use its website, signage and salespeople's explanations at the start of each visit.
Manufacturer representatives
Manufacturers set sales targets and facility standards. The group's president will brief each brand's regional manager before each store's launch.
Risks During Rollout
The rollout carries risks that the pilot could not fully test. The Ford store's customers are older and more attached to negotiating, so its results may be weaker than Hyundai's; leadership should expect this and judge the store against its own baseline rather than the pilot's. Competitors may react by advertising negotiable prices below the group's posted prices, testing whether customers value transparency enough to pay slightly more; the group should monitor lost-deal reasons weekly and adjust posted prices where it is consistently above market. And losing more top performers remains possible. The group will track voluntary departures by store and ask every departing salesperson why they left, so that the pay design can be revised if a pattern appears. None of these risks argues for stopping, but each needs an owner and a trigger for action.
Sustaining the Change
Buchanan et al. (2005), reviewing research on sustaining organizational change, found that sustainability depends on many interacting factors, including the substance of the change, individual commitment, managerial and leadership support, financial resources, organizational systems and culture, and the timing and context of the change, and that changes often decay when these supports are withdrawn. For the dealership group, five supports matter most.
First, pay and measures must reinforce the change. The new salary and bonus plan must remain; reintroducing commission for a strong month would signal that negotiation is returning. Second, managers must be measured on customer satisfaction and time in the store, not only gross profit per vehicle. Third, systems must support the new process, beginning with the fixed online tool. Fourth, hiring must change: new salespeople will be recruited for customer service and product knowledge rather than negotiation, bringing people who have never known the old way. Fifth, the group president must keep reviewing results monthly after all stores have launched, rather than moving on once the rollout is finished, and should say publicly that the group will not return to negotiated pricing even after a weak quarter.
Conclusion
The pilot showed that one-price selling increased volume and customer satisfaction while reducing gross profit per vehicle, and it revealed problems with trade-ins, integration and top-performer retention that can be fixed before rollout. A store-by-store sequence, a communication plan matched to each audience and supports in pay, measures, systems, hiring and leadership attention give the change its best chance of lasting.
References
Buchanan, D., Fitzgerald, L., Ketley, D., Gollop, R., Jones, J. L., Lamont, S. S., Neath, A., & Whitby, E. (2005). No going back: A review of the literature on sustaining organizational change. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3), 189-205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2005.00111.x
Cawsey, T. F., Deszca, G., & Ingols, C. (2020). Organizational change: An action-oriented toolkit (4th ed.). SAGE.
Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67.
How this MGT 526 Week 4 example is structured
The MGT/526 shelf page describes Week 4 as covering implementation, communication and how leaders sustain a change. The paper starts from evidence, because a rollout plan should be built on what the pilot actually showed. It then treats communication as a plan with specific audiences rather than an announcement, and it closes with the conditions research links to changes that last. Students search this week as MGT 526 Week 4, MGT526 Wk 4 or MGT/526 Wk 4; all three are the same assignment.
MGT/526 Week 4 questions, answered
What does MGT/526 Week 4 usually ask for?
The MGT/526 shelf describes Week 4 as covering implementation, communication and how leaders sustain change. Many sections ask students to plan how their chosen organization will implement a change, communicate it to different groups and make it last.
What should a change communication plan include?
For each audience, the plan should state what they need to know, the key message, the channel, who delivers it and when. Emotional or complex messages need rich channels such as face-to-face meetings, and messengers should be people the audience trusts.
Why do changes slide back?
Because the systems, incentives and habits that supported the old way often remain, attention moves elsewhere and early champions leave. Research on sustaining change points to embedding the change in routines, measures and rewards and keeping leadership attention after launch.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official University of Phoenix document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.