Applying Change Management IT Principles to Your Technology Upgrade
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The technological landscape has advanced dramatically over the last few decades and continues to move faster than anyone could have imagined. Failure to keep up with the latest technology trends and current business practices can put your company at risk, but just investing in next-generation technologies does not guarantee successful implementation.
When implementing new technology, you may want to get started as soon as possible to reap the benefits immediately. However, implementing new technology and solutions too quickly without following change management best practices can lead to workflow glitches and stoppages, resulting in employee frustration and lost productivity.
Related Read: Best Practices in Change Management for SMEs
Change management for resilience considers people, processes and technology to ensure long-term success. After all, the people and procedures in place will define how your technology is used. An efficient team operating with clarity can make the most of a new piece of tech and explore it to its full potential. In this article, we’ll explore some benefits you can get by developing your business’ capacity for change management.
Six benefits you’ll experience from change management principles:
1. Accountability
When it comes to transformations, it’s advisable to hold someone accountable for effectively executing changes because it’s difficult to reap the expected outcomes of a change without considering the people, processes, workflows, and so on that are in the crosshairs. Proper guidance, systematic delegation and an increased sense of accountability are unavoidable when contemplating transitions.
Remember that the underlying goal of change is usually to create more value. In many cases, the people impacted by the change will benefit from a portion of that value. Those individuals will need to adjust to the new environment and capitalise on new chances to contribute value to themselves and the organisation.
Read: Building Organisational Agility and Resilience for SMEs
That’s why a good change management strategy is crucial. It mainly focuses on the people side of change, assisting project delivery with timely and focused interventions to help people adopt change. All other affected components are also kept under watch.
2. Stakeholder buy-in
When change occurs in an organisation, it impacts many individuals directly and indirectly. We call them the stakeholders: employees, teams, partners, sponsors, and everyone relevant to the business. Stakeholder buy-in is the force that binds a project’s pieces together during any change initiative.
A solid change management strategy ensures that all stakeholders, including senior management, are on the same page for the transformation to be successful.
3. Greater cost-efficiency
Cost-efficiency is one of the most popular tactics for increasing a company’s profit-maximising capabilities. Businesses assess cost-efficiency by tracking the ratio of output obtained to costs incurred. Another way to do that is to compare revenue generated to expenses incurred.
A business becomes more profitable if the decisions made by it are cost-efficient. Therefore, adopting an effective change management strategy is one of the considerations that any savvy company will undertake since it will slash expenses and unnecessary costs.
4. Clean handoffs
If a transformation occurs without applying change management principles, it will not be well documented, clearly communicated or properly approved, making handoffs to new employees difficult. You will almost certainly have to invest more time and effort in comprehending the work done so far or training someone who has been left out of the loop.
To avoid such scenarios, always prioritise change management.
5. Sustainable improvements
Change management enables organisations to improve in a sustainable manner, looking beyond immediate short-term financial results to create long-term value. It assists businesses in adapting to changing environments, aligning their investments and crucial business activities, products and services in ways that are consistent with their overall vision.
6. Less likely to cause “change burnout”
The psychological impact of implementing too many changes at once is too severe to ignore. Employees may feel exhausted and demotivated, sometimes even leaving an organisation due to persistent uncertainty. Change-affected employees report moderate-to-high stress levels in 73% of cases, and those suffering from change-related stress perform 5% worse than the average employee.*
Partner for success
Adapting to change is a difficult task. If you don’t implement change management principles, you risk damaging key processes and losing critical team members to burnout. However, you’ll have to put in a lot of extra time and effort if you do it alone. Hiring a specialist consultant to assist will likely save you tons of time and effort, so consider doing that.
Contact us today to schedule a no-commitment Discovery Call to discuss how we can help you implement change management best practices and get your company ready for the future.
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