Change management? We don’t need that! [1]

Change is inevitable. Every organisation faces it, and the digital transformation of Purchase to Pay (P2P) processes is no different. What should you watch out for when you introduce changes to processes and systems? How do you bring your people with you? In a series of blogs, Lonneke Goei, Senior Consultant & Change Management Expert at Spendlinq, explains how a pragmatic approach to change management can contribute to a successful digital transformation of your P2P processes. In blog 1 of this series, Lonneke explains what change management involves in practice and why it’s a crucial factor when implementing P2P projects.

Change management? Surely we don’t need that?

An important part of digital transformations is change management. In practice, it isn’t equally clear to everyone what this means. Training and communication as components usually sound familiar enough, but beyond that, change management is seen as something woolly or vague, full of theoretical concepts and short on substance. It’s supposedly only something for large ‘corporate’ organisations that have to deal with complex decision-making processes and internal politics. But nothing could be further from the truth. To make changes land successfully – regardless of the organisation and the situation – change management is almost always needed. The extent to which it’s applied depends on various factors, such as the nature, impact and urgency of the change, the objectives and the organisational culture. And the most important question is: how do I get the people in my organisation to go along with the change?

“In practice, I’ve come across situations more than once where the importance of change management was underestimated,” says Lonneke. “Take a P2P implementation where the internal project team was convinced that the need for the changes was perfectly obvious to the local sites. So a brief mention on a presentation slide was considered enough to inform the colleagues involved. It goes without saying that this was not the right way to build support for the rollout.” Lonneke continues: “That said, it doesn’t mean a project is always doomed to fail if there’s no attention to change management. But there’s a good chance that the project will be delivered later than planned, that costs will be higher, that the scope will change and that users will be considerably less satisfied.”

So what is change management?

Lonneke explains: “Traditionally, change in organisations was approached top-down, with senior management deciding whether and when a change was needed and which route to take. But the results of this approach weren’t always successful. Since the last century, many theories and books have been written about change management and the best way to approach change in organisations. In later views, successful change was looked at more from the perspective of the relationships between people and groups of people, and involving the people affected by the change received far more attention.”

So what exactly is change management? You could use the following definition.

Change management supports organisations in dealing with the consequences of the changes that come with the transition from the old to the desired situation:

• In a structured way
• based on change activities aimed at working in the new way
• in which the change is accepted
• and the change is actually embedded in the organisation.

Change activities – such as impact analyses and involving stakeholders in the organisation in good time – are always aimed at reaching the new, desired situation. In that situation, people work in the new, agreed way, and employees and the organisation are better supported by the new processes and technology than they were in the old situation. Which change activities are actually needed depends on several factors, such as the nature of the change, the organisation’s culture, the timing and urgency of the change, and the ‘willingness to change’ of employees and the organisation. You can read more about this in a later blog. Of course, the change activities you need must be defined in line with the project planning and aligned with the project activities and the organisation.

Change management in digital P2P transformations

It goes without saying that change management is high on the agenda in large implementations of, say, complex ERP systems. The whole organisation feels the effects, and setting up and carrying out the necessary change activities is almost a project in itself. With P2P projects, the need for change management is often underestimated. And that’s where the risk lies. Because these projects often involve large numbers of new requesters, who are also spread across several locations, motivating employees to adopt the new way of working can be a challenge, as they often experience it as a restriction of their freedom.

Change management: indispensable in every P2P project!

“Without attention to change management in a change programme, a project can still succeed, but probably at higher cost, with later go-live dates and with less motivated employees. Using change management well increases employees’ willingness to change, and with it the likelihood of a successful change. Good experiences also help an organisation build the right change competencies and reap the benefits in future change programmes,” Lonneke concludes.

Read the whitepaper | Why change management is crucial in the digital transformation of P2P processes.

You may recognise the challenges we’ve outlined and want to know how you can use change management in your own organisation. This whitepaper explains what change management involves in practice and what role it can play in implementing P2P projects. It also shows how a pragmatic approach to change management contributes to a successful digital transformation of your P2P processes.

Download the whitepaper here.