So far, we have talked about the top five key steps for source to pay change management and the top five key considerations for transformation adoption. Hopefully, these will have provided some important insights when planning your transformation programme.
So, for our last blog in this series, we want to look at two areas for evolution in successful source to pay change and adoption for the future.
Organisational Change Evolution
We now understand more than ever about the psychology and practice of organisational change. The latest neuroscience understanding has helped us debunk the myths of left/right brain (science of learning, johns Hopkins university) and ‘learning styles’ (Association for Psychological science) to understand that people, and why they buy into change is far more complex than these simple ideas.
We are already seeing organisations evolve their understanding of what helps people change their behaviour – and understand that fundamentally this is what makes our digital transformations successful. If you want to google it you can, or read this interesting article referencing why 42% improvement in adoption can be achieved by increased engagement with employees, or why 69% of the most effective change programmes offered training pre and post go live.
Furthermore, we also understand that broad buy in and commitment to a successful transformation isn’t just nice to have but the foundation stones that a successful programme is built upon. The above article also stated that there was 45% improvement in change outcomes when it was sponsored by executive leadership.
The above evolution of our understanding and thinking is leading to a shift in the focus and effort that organisations are putting into both their change management approach, but most importantly what happens in the critical 12 months of a project after going live – the make-or-break time.
User Experience Evolution
It seems that the digital tools that we are using in business are improving rapidly, so why are we still running traditional training programmes, in traditional ways? Even worse, providing PDF’s and PowerPoints to guide users through how to use a digital tool?
The user experience of learning and adoption of digital tools needs to evolve at a rapid pace.
Take that a step further, where most of the tools we are using are cloud based, and subject to ever evolving change and complexity – how do you really creak giving users the information they need right at the moment they need it rather than expecting them to read an email and an attachment to understand what they need to do differently today from yesterday?
One of the best answers is the digital adoption platform, the most sophisticated of which not only allow you to push out training, but also have artificial intelligence capability that learns and provides shortcuts for the users and enables peer to peer exchange of tips and tricks to be exchanged in the moment. All the time also providing performance data on what users are doing.
One such platform is SAP Enable Now, which is a collaborative content authoring, management and sharing platform that has just been released in web version for SAP Ariba. It can also work as an overlay on any type of SAP and non-SAP software.
A recent study shows that , when it comes to realising value from your transformation investment a huge 72% of that comes from effective user adoption, with 16% depending on software functionalist and 6% from process alignment.
I get it! So, how do I ensure this is all built into my transformation programme?
So, if you’ve read all three of the blogs and you have got some great insight and information on why change management and adoption planning is going to make-or-break your programme.
The challenge now is convincing everyone else involved in approving your business case of these facts too.
Our three top tips for you are:
- Involve a change expert
- There is really no substitute for this. Involve someone who understands both change and source to pay, that can talk to the pain points that your organisation is currently experiencing and can align the solutions you are bringing into both solving them and to the people change aspects of the programme.
- Find some hard numbers
- Make sure that you have some hard numbers to put into your business case on the impact that change management has on adoption and ways to prove the return on investment.
- Be prepared to resource it
- Be prepared to invest in your change management and adoption approach, including the support that people will need in the critical 12-month period beyond going live to grow in confidence and optimise processes and behaviours.
Achieving true transformation, now and in the future
If you’ve read all three of these blogs, you could summarise the secret to successful transformation being ‘some things stay the same and some will change.
A successful transformation always has and always will need a focus on people, process, and technology in the long term to achieve your required business outcomes.
However, some things are changing:
- We are all moving towards a more remote and distanced working environment, meaning digital solutions and collaboration platforms will be key tools in successful transformation.
- We know we forget after a week and that we need in-the-moment support, along with the fact that cloud technology keeps changing, meaning our old structure for learning will become less and less relevant.
- We know that project culture is shifting to understand that change and adoption support and planning is as important as technology build and deployment, meaning that finding the right people to support you with that change journey is more important than ever.
Change management and adoption is changing and technical, operational and change need to work together ever more closely to deliver the business outcomes our organisations are looking for.
Ready to discuss change and adoption further? Get in touch or request a health check here.
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