Managing Change

• • An approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a desired future state. 

  • This is a structured approach by an organization for ensuring that changes are smoothly and successfully implemented to achieve lasting benefits. 

Why manage change?

• • Change management is needed because globalization and constant innovation in technology result in constantly evolving business environment which creates change. (Modern organizational change is largely motivated by exterior innovations rather than internal moves.)

  • Organizations that adapt quickest create a competitive advantage for themselves, while the companies that refuse to change get left behind.

  • Results in drastic profit and / or market share losses.

Successful change management is

• • when stakeholders accept and embrace the changes in the workplace

  • when the whole company has maximized the benefits of the changes 

  • and minimized the negative impacts of changes on individual employees

Planning for change

When a company has decided to change systems, these are some features that need to be considered:

• 1. Alignment: Aligning the organizational goals with the new system.

  2. Measurement: How will the success of the change be measured? What data should be collected before the changes?

  3. Communication: How will the be communicated to stakeholders?

  4. Compatibility: How compatible is the new system with existing dependent systems? What data conversion is required to the new system?

  5. Installation: Which installation process would work best for the organization?

Managing change includes

It is important that companies convince their employees that change is necessary in order to ensure that business operations continue smoothly. This process includes:

• • Recognizing changes in the broader business environment and adjusting other impacted systems.

  • Training employees on the appropriate changes.

  • Winning the support of the employees with the benefits of the changes.

  • Documenting the change process, in case problems arise after installation of the new system.