Recently, one of my colleagues, a Change Management (CM)
professional with experience in driving several ERP transformation programs,
has taken up an assignment to help client undertake digital
transformation, primarily aimed at internal operations. He is
deliberating on a question, which I think several of change management
professional will encounter soon:
How is the CM approach going to be different
for digital transformation program, compared to that in an ERP
implementation project?
Here are a few initial reflections to set the stage
and invite views, comments and experience sharing from this group:
The key characteristics of Digital transformation
program vary from the ERP implementation program in certain ways, including the
following: (not exhaustive)
1.
Digital transformation program is often conceived in the form of vision
that is quite wide, aspirational and all encompassing (customer interface,
internal operational processes and operating model) supported by broad road
map. The desired states are more often described in terms of value adding
scenarios and differentiating services that are made possible by providing additional
capabilities (collaborative, analytical, mobile etc) and their creative
adoption by the employees. Business cases associated with ERP programs are
a lot more definitive and with clear steady state targets.
2.
Digital transformation programs often add to and complement the existing
technical capabilities and functionalities available to users to perform their
regular work. For example, advent of Enterprise Social Network does not mean
discontinuation of email system. Whereas ERP program often aims to automate
manual / excel sheet work and to that extent replaces the old ways of working. To that extent, an employee can live without
participating in enterprise social network, but cannot bypass ERP based
approvals to conduct daily business.
3.
The nature of risk linked to digital transformation program is largely
linked to confidential information sharing which is perceived more severe than
in typical ERP implementation program.
4.
Leaders have no choice but to actively participate and lead by example,
in case of digital transformation program. Hence their behavioural
change/alignment is a pre-requisite. In case of ERP implementation program,
public endorsement of its importance while delegating its actual usage to
assistants is possible, but not in case of digital transformation program.
After-all leader cannot delegate writing blogs, podcasts, video-casts to others
without being exposed!
5. ERP
delivers value from ensuring that process level integration points, which flow
across functional boundaries are well managed and aligned with the help of an
IT-system. ERP users need to be sensitive of the process interdependencies to
do justice to their role. On the other
hand, Digital transformation programs are essentially focused on driving value
thorough employees voluntarily and creatively collaborating across boundaries,
in an open transparent and relatively tolerant environment, supported by
additional data analytical skills.
Understandably, cultural permission plays much greater influence in
driving outcome of the digital transformation program.
6. Employee
generational split may also become a relevant segmentation strategy during
digital transformation exercise, given different level of natural adoption to
digital technologies among different generations.
7. While
significant effort is required in training the users in using ERP systems, the
training effort associated with use of digital technologies may not be much and
may be in the form of familiarisation modules; as the social technologies are
quite intuitive, and users are significantly mature in the use of these tools
in their personal life. The barrier to adoption of digital initiative, in that
respect is seldom lack of skills on the part of employees. There would off-course be need for
specialised skill pool, say that of data scientists, digital strategists,
digital technologists, which in any case would be part of overall capability
building program.
What does these differences mean for CM approach and
intervention design:
1.
Communicating
the case for digital transformation has to be lot more leadership-
driven, continuous, and conversational, leveraging all possible channels.
Stories, describing creative usage of new capabilities to drive value-adds,
emanating from different sources, play a pivotal role in driving adoption.
2.
Leadership
Buy-in: Leaders need to convince believe within themselves that its
worth it, and what is expected of them is do-able and non-conflicting to their
self- image. Leaders have to hear first-hand stories and alternative
experiences to appreciate the potential of digital transformation and their own
role in supporting this change. Peer level conversation and experience sharing
at leadership level is a must and has to be facilitated as part of CM
intervention. Leadership enablement is
easier by associating some digital enthusiast to work along for some protracted
period.
3.
Policies and practices: Digital
enterprises thrive on a certain level of responsible information sharing, open
communication, and collaborative learning that need support from enabling
policies and practices. As a change facilitator, it is important to
identify and bring forth the policy or practices conflict with digital
transformation objectives and help address them. Often it is more to do
with interpretation of the policies than policy itself that is in conflict.
4.
Training and capability building:
Digital transformation linked capability development effort will involve more
of familiarising users with the features of digital technologies and varied
ways it has been used to create value. To that extent the learning will
be more byte sized, social learning and experience sharing based continual
learning, than structured class-room trainings and practice sessions
predominantly used during ERP implementation program. Games as learning tool
seem to be quite relevant. Instead of user-manuals
or reference sheets, guidelines, best practices and provocative use cases and
stories may be more relevant.
5.
Adoption tracking and support:
There is clear method and science behind measuring the adoption levels of ERP
system usage, and segments /pockets that reflects low adoption levels can be
analysed and system, training or management intervention can be made to address
the cause. Concerted efforts made thus, shall help achieved fairly stable usage
of the system across the enterprise, which signals reduced need for CM
intervention. In case of digital
transformation, the adoption is linked to employee voluntary engagement with
the new capabilities and their extracting value out of it. The usage pattern may vary (tank after peak!)
and could be due to variety of reasons.
CM needs to do much more diligence to find real reasons behind these
variations and also experiment ways to spur adoption again. Digital
transformation in that respect is a journey and CM has to be co-traveller on
this route for a much longer distance.
Success of digital transformation program hinges on
employee engagement, supporting culture and leadership participation, and not
on management dictates (with structured
capability building interventions), and that is what makes CM work challenging
and interesting!
Share your
experience and view-points!
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