By Andrea Waisgluss, SAP Design
Organizations of all sizes are increasingly becoming aware that big IT projects are never just about updating technologies. With big moves comes the opportunity and need to harmonize, standardize and automate business processes and foster an integrative way of working. For employees, it’s not just about learning new processes or acquiring new skillsets. Real change requires involvement, complicity, and adopting the right mindset.
These factors collectively fall under what is known as organizational change management (OCM), and research tells us that organizations that don’t invest into OCM when implementing change will likely struggle.
Managing change without losing transformation value
Research from McKinsey shows that around 20% of a transformation’s value is lost after technical implementation and that change programs often fail due to employee resistance. There is a disconnect between leadership expectations and end user attitudes when it comes to implementing change. And when leaders approach digital transformation as a one-and-done change model rather than approach it as the immense culture and mindset shift that it is, things can go wrong.
So what exactly is going on? We look to digital transformation to bring more streamlined processes and efficiencies, recognizing that continuous change is part of the game. But people are not machines, and change can be difficult for people to process. Some users struggle with the shift towards agility and innovation, and fear feeling left out, being made redundant, or may even feel overburdened with the new expectations brought about by the transition.
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Though research is clear on the importance of employee buy-in, we often see IT leaders lacking either the resources, time, or foresight to invest in training and education. Ensuring employees can use the new system and methods successfully is one part of sustaining value after implementation. Ensuring they don’t fall back into their old ways when things get stressful or difficult is the real challenge of organizational change management.
Digitalizing change strategies with a user-centered approach
American inventor Thomas Edison once famously challenged his staff with the call to action: “There’s a way to do it better. Find it.” The fact is that most change management that’s taking place is in many ways still stuck in the pre-digital era. Even where traditional training courses have their place, they are not easy to scale and are slow to implement. Change managers and consultants remain a critical piece of the puzzle in acquiring employee buy-in, but even they struggle to organize the change journey without the proper digital tools.
Digital tools can streamline, scale and accelerate the execution of people-related change management activities. Particularly for smaller companies lacking the resources to invest in OCM, digital tools have the potential to guide organizations through the most common people-related challenges of transformation projects and boost user adoption.
Heeding Edison’s call, SAP recently teamed up with strategic partner Schaeffler, a leading global supplier to the automotive and industrial sectors, to explore how using digital applications can support consultants in planning, managing and measuring people-related change strategies.
The explorations took place over a five-day boot camp designed to bring user experience and Design to the forefront of technological innovation. Together, they built the first of three user-tested functional prototypes on SAP Business Technology Platform that will lay the foundation for future innovation.
“When we talk about digitalization, everyone’s talking about the technology behind it. But what really matters are the people who will use the technology,” said Franziska Gerner, Head of Digital Competencies and Strategic Digitalization at Schaeffler. “It’s all about their needs and every design should start with the user in mind.”
Putting a user-centered tool in the hands of change consultants is an important step in making the change process more transparent, controllable, and flexible.
Change isn’t a one-shot approach
Transformation projects are often massive undertakings, especially for more established organizations. Instead of working towards a one-shot approach towards change at go-live, transformation projects should be seen as the starting point of a continuous evolutionary change, with the people who use the technology squarely at the center.
To learn more about how design is helping to solve the problems that matter, visit www.sap.com/design.
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