The Intelligent Enterprise and Change

By Sean Elliffe October 24, 2018 by Sean Elliffe

Value from Transformational Change

Being business and people-focused ensures sustainable change that drives organizational transformation

As we enter the age of intelligent enterprises the requirement for effective change that drives organizational transformation becomes a strategic imperative. So, in this sense, what then is change management? It is a process of creating an enabling environment within which individuals and organizations are empowered to implement successful and sustainable change that drives organizational transformation in relation to business processes, capacity/skills, competency, organizational structure, technology.

Intelligent Enterprises, therefore, are those able to learn from experience, resolve issues, solve business problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new or changing situations/solutions. Combining the above I would hypothesize that the central objective of change is to mobilize and engage the organization to drive lasting improvements that deliver value-adding results. The focal points of value from this goal are seen surrounding the central objective/hypothesis in the diagram below.

Moving into the Future

Getting ready for this journey towards becoming an intelligent enterprise, therefore, requires that we have a change readiness program in place that relates to individuals and the organization alike making sure all are:

1. Aware of the goals and objectives of the intervention/future shift
2. Clear on the planning, scheduling and expected deliverables
3. Committed to the change process because they know it adds value
4. Ready to engage the change process to be part of the new order
5. Clear in understanding the constraints to change
6. Armed with appropriate strategies for managing the process effectively
7. Satisfied that the platform for change has been created
8. Satisfied that appropriate support processes are in place

Delivery Requires the Executive Involvement

The approach to delivery is then driven from live real-time data that enables timeous decision making from the transactional level through the operational level to the strategic level even to the point of fixing or changing the operating model of the organization. It is therefore critical that executive management is engaged and involved because:

1. Successful change management requires a large commitment from executives and senior managers, be it a department or the complete organization
2. Crossing functions and geographies invoke political battles on how a business will operate because of changes to:
   • Operating models
   • Business processes
   • Organizational design and job changes and
   • Sensitive topics that frankly require their involvement
3. Executive buy-in essential to ensure the right people are available:
   • There is always heavy involvement from internal resources and
   • Executives ultimately make the decisions of the resources
   • They are essential to make and support resourcing decision
4. Leadership from the senior team is the most significant factor in helping employees to buy into and support needed changes which suggest executive management of expectations upfront as essential because of:
   • Key project stakeholders listen to and follow the executive lead
   • The company will always look for involvement and buy-in from the leadership
5. Lastly, there are 6 critical issues that need to be planned for:
   • Leadership and management preparation
   • Mapping the project population regularly
   • Communication intensity
   • Understanding and creating readiness
   • Creating and measuring the platform for change
   • Constraints to delivery – strategies to provide the support needed

Measuring Change Through an Effective Model

It is important to deploy a change management model to help drive the change process. We have developed and use a change management approach called The Business Maturity® 5C™ Model. It supports our oVo® Methodology in that integrates our being “Business-Focused” and “People Focused”. An overview of the approach and key definitions of the measures is shown in the diagram below.

Definitions of the respective measures are as follows.

The intended outcome is a delivery program supported by transformational change management that is focused on real people need that is action-oriented to ensure successful execution in building a value-based outcome for the business.

Join us at the upcoming SCM Optimization Conference in Orlando from November 28-30, 2018 to learn more about this and many more topics. Visit here for more details.