Technology changes processes, people determine success

An organisation invests months in selecting and implementing a new Source to Pay solution. The business case is rock solid, the project team works hard and the system goes live on schedule. Yet a few weeks later, Excel files, emails and manual workarounds start to reappear.

It’s a familiar picture for many organisations. “It’s not because the technology falls short, but because the human side of change is often underestimated,” says Sandra van Niel, Source to Pay consultant at Spendlinq. “That’s exactly where the difference lies between an implementation that is technically successful and a transformation that genuinely delivers value.”

An implementation is not an IT project

With more than twenty years of experience in ERP and procurement transformations, Sandra has guided a wide range of organisations through complex change programmes. Time and again, she sees the same patterns emerge in these programmes.

“The biggest pitfall is that organisations see an implementation as an IT project,” she says. “The system goes live, the training is finished and then everyone expects employees to simply start using it. But that’s not how it works.”

In practice, people often spend years working with their own processes, Excel overviews or informal arrangements with regular suppliers. A new system doesn’t just change a process, it changes daily routines too. That takes more than technical instructions.

Her colleague Jouke Dijkstra, also a Source to Pay consultant, recognises that picture. Drawing on his experience with change programmes at organisations, he knows that adoption starts well before a system goes live. Not with training, but with involvement.

“What I see in practice is that the employees who get involved in a Source to Pay project are often specialists with a broad workload,” he says. “They’re brought in for their knowledge of the process, but because they aren’t the full process owner, responsibility for the change feels less urgent than their day-to-day work. Priorities quickly slide back to ‘business as usual’.”

Resistance is information

Change almost always provokes resistance. Yet Sandra and Jouke don’t see that as a problem that needs to be solved.

“Resistance is information,” says Sandra. “Someone who pushes back is telling you something. About their concerns, their interests or their experiences with earlier change programmes. If you ignore that message or brush it aside, you lose people. If you invest in it and start the conversation, you often win one of your strongest ambassadors.”

“With managers, resistance is sometimes about loss of control, or about political interests around budgets and approval authority. It helps to get the right people around the table early and make them co-owners of the solution. Something else that helps: make sure there’s always a sponsor at director level who supports the project and actively champions it. Not just at the kick-off, but throughout the entire programme.”

The power of communication

Jouke sees communication as one of the most important tools during a transformation. Not just informing, but above all listening. “Employees want to understand why something is changing. And they want to feel that their opinion matters. Even if you don’t adopt every suggestion, it makes a difference when people feel heard.”

Different stakeholders look at a change from different interests. While end users mainly want to know what the impact is on their daily work, management has other interests at play.

According to Jouke, that calls for a different approach. “For a manager who wants to preserve something, you emphasise how closely the new situation matches how things work now. For a manager who wants to improve things, you focus on what will change for the better. That way you steer the perception without changing the content of the message.”

Sandra adds: “You need to be a good listener, without jumping straight into solution mode, to understand what’s really going on with a customer. What is someone saying, and what do they actually mean?”

“And patience”, she adds. “The willingness to take a step back if it means the step forward will be bigger. Projects rarely run as planned. The scope changes, priorities shift, the sponsor leaves. You have to be able to adapt quickly, but without losing sight of the bigger picture.”

Goat paths

One of the most underestimated challenges in digital transformations is human behaviour. “People naturally take the path of least resistance”, says Sandra. “That isn’t unwillingness. It’s simply human.”

“A new system often enforces more control and structure than people are used to”, she explains. “Approval flows, mandatory fields, fixed categories. At first that feels like extra work. So people start looking for goat paths: an order that still goes through email, an Excel file that ‘just to be safe’ continues to exist alongside the system, or filling in a field with three spaces because that lets you move on.”

The consequence? “After a few months you see usage statistics plummet. Not because the system doesn’t work, but because the detour feels just a little easier than the right route. If you don’t close off those goat paths, by simplifying processes, by providing the right support or sometimes simply by closing the back door, you’ll never win the adoption battle. That isn’t a system error. It’s a human problem, and you have to solve it in a human way.”

Ownership doesn’t happen by itself

Jouke stresses that successful adoption mainly happens when people feel they own the change. That requires involvement from the very start of a project. Not just during a training session shortly before go-live, but already during analysis, design and decision-making.

“We try to involve end users as early as possible”, he says. “Through workshops, interviews and feedback sessions. Not only because their knowledge is valuable, but also because people are more likely to support a change when they’ve personally contributed to it.”

He saw this clearly during a project at Royal FloraHolland. Several departments were involved, but because of other priorities, collaboration lagged behind. Small dependencies caused delays and ownership remained fragmented.

The solution turned out to be surprisingly simple: fixed collaboration days on which everyone was physically present and time was set aside for the project. “From that moment on, questions could be discussed and resolved immediately. What struck me most was how quickly ownership grew. People started to feel responsible for the shared result.”

Technology, processes, data and people

The lack of attention to the human side of change fits a broader pattern: with such a strong focus on technology, many organisations pay too little attention to the other factors that determine success.

“In practice, projects almost always tip over into technology”, says Sandra. “The supplier gives a demo, everyone gets excited, and then 80% of the energy goes into configuration and integrations.”

As a result, data and processes often get neglected too. “Organisations underestimate how much time it takes to get master data in order”, Sandra explains. “From supplier data to procurement category structures, material master data and budget codes. If that isn’t right at go-live, the system immediately loses credibility with users. Then you have an adoption problem when it’s actually a data problem.”

Jouke also stresses that technology should never be the starting point. “In our approach, we always start with the process. First we understand how an organisation and its people work, then we look at which technology fits. Not the other way around. You only achieve lasting change when processes, technology and people reinforce each other. As soon as one of those elements lags behind, the success of the transformation comes under pressure.”

Taking an integrated approach to transformations

For Spendlinq, that is exactly why we take an integrated approach to transformations. “Technology is an important part of the solution, but it’s rarely the only success factor”, Jouke sums up. “The greatest impact comes when processes, data, technology and people are in balance.”

“Because ultimately, the value of a Source to Pay transformation isn’t determined by what’s technically possible, but by what organisations manage to change in day-to-day practice”, Sandra concludes.

Source: Consultancy.nl