Managing Strategic Change Model A Case of Excel Impact Services
Managing Strategic Change Model – A Case of Excel Impact Services
Executive Summary
Organizational changes occur frequently, and their management is critical in the future success of the organization, especially if the change affects fundamental operations of the organization. Different theories and principles exist in literature that offers guidance to conducting organizational change. A fundamental element of change is to manage how the employees react to the proposed change. The ideal situation is to manage the employees’ behavior and attitude to change, and obtain their approval and cooperation. In this report, the change process initiated by Excel Impact Services (EIS) was explored. The organization undertook a significant change after it was dissociated from Mega Holdings; the parent company after the 2007/2008 financial crisis. The company had to undertake significant changes to rebrand itself and pursue a fundamentally different business change. The report explores the various change features including the change strategy used by the organization, and the specific model used. The report found that EIS used collaborative change strategy, and the change processes were largely conforming to the Kotter’s change model. The findings reported that the theoretical change strategies, models, and processes are actually practical in nature, and could lead to significant changes in the organization. Further, from the analysis, the report indicates that there is always room for improving the change processes adopted by the organization, but can only be established through analyzing the conformity between the practice, and theory.
Table of Contents
Change Scenario, and Justification for Change. 4
Emotional Reaction to Change. 5
Kotter’s Eight Change Processes in the Context of EIS. 7
Establishing the Sense of Urgency. 8
Develop a Clear Shared Vision. 9
Empowering People to Act on the Vision. 10
Institutionalize the Change. 11
4. EIS case study - part 1. 15
Managing Organisational Change Excel Impact Services (EIS) a case study. 15
6. EIS case study - part 3. 16
Change programme structure. 17
5. EIS case study - part 2. 21
7. EIS case study - part 4. 22
Introduction
Change within organizations are inevitable. From time to time, organizations engage in change processes and activities for various reasons including efficient and effective production, cost-reduction, implementation of a new production system such as equipment and machinery among others (Ján, & Veronika, 2017). When such changes occur, it is always important that they are carefully managed. Studies indicate that poorly managed organizational changes often lead to adverse consequences including employee resignation, reduced staff morale, and low performance. In this report, the change process of Excel Impact Services is explored with relation to the theories and practices of organizational change management. The subsequent parts of the report include the overview of the change scenario, the details of the change process, and discussions related to the theory, recommendations, and conclusion.
Change Scenario, and Justification for Change
Prior to the change, Excel Impact Services (EIS) was a subsidiary company of Mega Holdings Limited, which specialized in the delivery of services from healthcare facilities. Mega Holdings was performing well, and had up to 8000 employees. EIS was at the time recognized and received numerous awards. It grew at a 5% rate every year. However, following the 2007/2008 financial crisis, there occurred significant austerity in public spending, and as a result, the sales revenue of Mega Holding declined by up to 20% (Appendix 1). Consequently, a decision was made that EIS should be established as a separate commercial entity from Mega Holdings since it was perceived as a major source of risk to the larger company. It was decided that EIS would have independent establishment including management and identity, that would enable it pursue its main goals, and also pursue additional streams of revenue.
It was therefore, prudent for the organization to initiate a change process considering that the organization was to pursue entirely different strategies than those of Mega Holdings. The underlying reason for conducting the change was that the employees were already accustomed to the Mega ways of operations, but the new management wanted to bring in the EIS way. When such radical changes occur, employees react to changes in different ways, and it is very crucial that organizations identify, and respond to the employees’ reaction for cooperation and collaboration (Wang, & Kabede, 2020). The following section explores the change process and the supporting theories that justifies the same.
The Change Process by EIS
Emotional Reaction to Change
Before exploring the change process that was adopted by EIS, it is important to first understand how employees respond to organizational change. This would form the foundation for explaining the subsequent steps and measures that were taken by EIS throughout the change process. According to Talat (2016), employees’ emotional reaction to organizational change usually occurs in stages. The first stage is loss of focus, or shock as a result of the change information. Essentially, the stage is characterized by concerns of the employees about the future of their jobs (Xiao, & Yun, 2018). This reaction is particularly common in emergent type of change. An emergent change is one that occurs suddenly, often due to uncertain events that are often difficult to foresee (Gunnarsdóttir, 2016). The 2007/08 financial crisis was not anticipated hence the emergent nature of the change.
The second phase of emotional reaction is characterized by euphoria and denial. It is then followed by anger, at which point, organizational management of the employees’ reaction is most critical. If the anger is not contained, or responded to, adverse consequences, often resignation by the employees occur (Helpap, & Bekmeier-Feuerhahn, 2016). The anger stage is the lowest the change process can occur. If the organization contains the anger stage, the employees develop acceptance to change, and fully commit to the process.
The response of organization to the change process is certainly different from one organizational to the other, and it depends with the knowledge, and experience of the change agent in leading organizational change. As such, exploring organizational change for a given firm requires an underlying change process framework on which different activities and actions of an organization can be explained. There are several organizational change strategies, process, and models, each of which is dependent on the change practices of an organization. In this report, a change process that had already occurred is the focus. As such, the models are only used to explore the effectiveness, or potential shortcomings of the change process. In the subsequent section, the change strategy adopted by EIS is explored.
Change Strategy
A change strategy is the overreaching approach taken by an organization regarding the stakeholders involved in the change process, the level of engagement of the same, communication strategies, and the coordination activities and plans. As Palmer et al. (2017) reports, the common change strategies taken by organizations include – collaborative, consultative, directive, and coercive. Collaborative strategy is characterized with significant consultations with the employees, and other stakeholders of the organization in the key important decision making over the change period. Consultative is characterized by limited involvement of the employees in the key decision making. However, the management may sometimes ask for their opinion, but it reserves the decision-making powers. Directive strategy involves the senior management as being the key decision makers, and directives, or communications are forwarded to the employees for implementation. Coercive change on the other hand, is characterized by imposition of change on the employees without necessarily seeking to persuade them towards the change mission (Schweiger et al., 2018).
Based on the description of the above-mentioned strategies, it is evident that EIS used a collaborative change management strategy, considering the number of change management personnel that were involved. EIS change process had a total of 240 team managers, who were grouped into 24 change teams. Each of these teams had the liberty of identifying and diagnosing a problem at EIS and initiating the necessary interventions for addressing the change (Appendix 4). The liberty of the 24 management teams to identify and problem and set to resolve it indicates a significant dissociation of the change process from the senior management including the board members. Collaborative change strategy is widely reported in the literature to have positive impact on organizational change management. A study conducted by Thompson (2019) found that collaborative change strategy has the capacity of easily persuading the employees to see the bigger picture of the change process and buy into the change vision; which consequently leads to frictionless change, and sustained organizational performance. Another study by Alagoz et al. (2018) found that collaborative change not only helps in creating a smooth transition, but also helps in creating a sustained collaborative, and cooperative culture in the organization. The success of change at EIS can therefore, be attributed to the use of collaborative change strategy.
As already mentioned, different organizations have different strategies of going about change. It is therefore, logical to use a specific change model, to explore, and justify the organizational change practices. In this report, the Kotter’s eight change process is used to analyze the change activities of EIS in the following section.
Kotter’s Eight Change Processes in the Context of EIS
Kotter’s eight change model proposes that organizational change can effectively be achieved through the following processes (Appelbaum et al., 2012) – establishing the sense of urgency, creating a guiding coalition, development of a clear vision, communicating the vision, empowering people towards the vision, creating short-term gains, consolidating and building on the gains, and lastly, institutionalizing the changes. Each of theses steps are explored in detail and their relevance to EIS in the subsequent sub-sections.
Establishing the Sense of Urgency
This is the first step in Kotter’s eight step change process, and it forms the foundation of the subsequent change activities. The step involves the setting the tone for the urgency of the proposed change, it is often dependent on the underlying reason for change (Smollan, 2011). Specifically, emergent, or planned change determines how the sense of change urgency is established. In the case of EIS, it was apparent that the change was need and urgent considering the financial crisis, and implications it would have had if EIS continued to be a part of Mega Holdings. Most likely, the operation costs to EIS subsidiary would have been limited, and this would have had far reaching consequences to the organization including the employees.
Also, the fact that the company was being isolated to run independently, and in the middle of a global financial crisis, it was only obvious that the new strategies for generating revenue and sustaining its operations would require immediate takeoff, or at least minimal delays that could occur as a result of employees resistant to change. In other words, the lifeline of the organization and the employees was now dependent on how first they adopted and continue with operations. As mentioned in (Appendix 1), the executive leader of EIS recognized that the wider management team, and the service team required specialist support to ensure that the workers fit into the new culture in order for the organization to prosper and achieve its strategic goals.
Creating Guiding Coalition
After creating the sense of urgency to undertake a change in the organization, the next step is to create a guiding coalition. This is the most important process, since it directly reflects on the overall change strategy being pursued by the organization. It is at this point that the organization determines whether the change would include the employees, or it would be led by senior management through directive, coercion, or consultation (Calegari et al.,2015).
According to (Appendix 2), the coalition created for implementing change in the case of EIS was indeed based on the collaborative strategy as it involved as many employees as possible in the change process. It is not always possible to have all employees engage in the change process, especially for organizations that have a large number of workers. However, it is possible to have as many representatives of the employees (Smollan, 2011). As outlined in episode 1 in (Appendix 2), the setting scene for the change process involved the selection of the team of the change leaders, which was mainly done from among the various groups or departmental employees. The essence was to make the change experience as friendly, and engaging as possible. The organization therefore, decided that it would be best if the change team leaders are a true representation of the employees’ social interaction in the organization.
Develop a Clear Shared Vision
The third step in the Kotter’s change process is to develop a shared vision of the change process. This includes engagement of the selected team members and explaining more details of the proposed change (Libby, 2017). Again, EIS achieved this step in the second episode labelled “the inaugural team meeting’ (Appendix 2). The agenda for the inaugural meeting was to generally discuss the change process, agree on the name of the team, develop outlines and rules for communication, creation and assignment of the team member roles, agreeing on the team committee leadership among other modalities.
Communicate the Vision
Once the team has developed the vision in step three, it needs to communicate the same to all other relevant stakeholders. The team leaders for instance, needs to effectively communicate the vision with the members of his or her team. In the context of EIS, this step was achieved in several episodes – episode three to episode ten (Appendix). The step included the development of feasibility plan and communicating the same to the key stakeholders; which are the employees, and perhaps shareholders, suppliers, among other key players. It also involved winning over the stakeholders, including the board of managers for approval, and support of the change process.
Empowering People to Act on the Vision
This step involves the allocation of resources to the various team members to enable them to act on the organization’s vision. In EIS, this was achieved in episode 9 when the change team, selected the future change team leaders to continue with the implementation stage in episode 10 (Libby, 2017).
Create Short-term Wins
The short-term gains are the results achieved after the initial implementation of the change process. In the case of EIS, the short-term win included having the re-engineering business processes working parallel to the change process (Appendix 4). In other words, the organization was able to have the re-engineering process working in tandem with the change process of getting the employees changing and adapting to the new culture and independence of the organization.
Consolidate the Gains
The second last step in the Kotter’s change model is to consolidate and build on the gains made so far. For EIS, this process involved the creation of a network of change leaders to continue implementing the re-engineered business process, and the installation of the Visio software as the organization’s mapping tool. Over 50 mapping workshops were facilitated by the BPR change leaders.
Institutionalize the Change
This is the last step in Kotter’s change process, and its purpose is to sustain the change created in the organization. This step is particularly important for organizations that uses collaborative change strategy. It allows the company to keep building and thriving on the positive gains of the change process. For EIS the step is even crucial considering that the organization is implementing an entirely new system and culture, different from that of Mega Holdings. Institutionalization of such change would help in setting an organization culture that would sustain the unique organizational identity. EIS achieved this by incorporating a local change board, that oversaw, facilitated, and coordinated all the change activities and processes (Appendix 4).
Recommendation
From the outset, it is important to admit that the change process implemented by EIS as effective as it could be. As indicated in (Appendix 4), the organization was cable of achieving 24 different discrete projects, which were effective in re-engineering the business process. The success of the business is further manifested by the success of the business in winning open tenders in soft facility service. It is logical to argue that the change process was successful in steering the employees to adapting the new organization outlook. The analysis of the EIS change process using the various theories and practices also seem consistent including the change strategies and the Kotter’s eight process model. As such, there are only few recommendations suggested herein.
- Since the 24-project team operated independently in identifying and creating solution to various organizational process, it would have been important to have a broader team oversight committee, or secretariate whose major role would have been to document the various changes for the purposes of learning and future references
- The communication systems adopted by the organization was also not clear. There was ambiguity in the roles of different project team members. It would therefore, been appropriate if a clear structure was established to avoid duplication and delays in the communication process.
Conclusion
The purpose of the report was to analyze a specific change process in an organization with reference to specific change management theories and practices. EIS change process was explored and the analysis indicates a significant conformity between the organizational change practice and the existing change theories and principles. For instance, EIS used the collaborative change strategy, and all the change activities employed by the organization at least conformed to one or more steps of Kotter’s business process. Nevertheless, there is always room for refining the change process. In the case of EIS, communication systems and structures were not clear.
References
Alagoz, E., Chih, M.Y., Hitchcock, M., Brown, R. and Quanbeck, A., 2018. The use of external change agents to promote quality improvement and organizational change in healthcare organizations: a systematic review. BMC health services research, 18(1), p.42.
Appelbaum, S.H., Habashy, S., Malo, J.L. and Shafiq, H., 2012. Back to the future: revisiting Kotter's 1996 change model. Journal of Management Development.
Calegari, M.F., Sibley, R.E. and Turner, M.E., 2015. A roadmap for using Kotter's organizational change model to build faculty engagement in accreditation. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 19(3), p.31.
Gunnarsdóttir, H.M., 2016. Autonomy and Emotion Management. Middle managers in welfare professions during radical organizational change. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 6, pp.87-108.
Helpap, S. and Bekmeier-Feuerhahn, S., 2016. Employees’ emotions in change: advancing the sensemaking approach. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Ján, D. and Veronika, T., 2017. Examination of factors affecting the implementation of organizational changes. Journal of Competitiveness, 9(4), p.5.
Libby, B.H., 2017. Examining Faculty Perceptions of Community College Institutional Effectiveness Using Kotter's Eight Step Model of Change. ProQuest LLC.
Palmer, I., Dunford, R. and Buchanan, D.A., 2017. Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Schweiger, S., Stouten, H. and Bleijenbergh, I.L., 2018. A system dynamics model of resistance to organizational change: the role of participatory strategies. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 35(6), pp.658-674.
Smollan, R., 2011. Engaging with resistance to change. University of Auckland Business Review, 13(1), p.12.
Talat, U., 2016. Emotion in organizational change: an interdisciplinary exploration. Springer.
Thompson, C.S., 2019. Exploring Teachers' Perspectives on Effective Organizational Change Strategies. Educational Planning, 26(2), pp.13-28.
Wang, A. and Kebede, S., 2020. Assessing Employees’ Reactions to Organizational Change. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 8(3), pp.274-293.
Xiao, W. and Yun, L., 2018. The Conception, Causes and Consequences of Employee's Emotional Response to Organizational Change. Human Resources Development of China, (10), p.7.
APPENDICES
Appendix 1
Managing Organisational Change Excel Impact Services (EIS) a case study
Introduction
Excel Impact Services (EIS) was part of Mega Holdings Ltd and specialised in delivering Health Service Facility led services. EIS employed 8,000 staff and 100% of its business was provided by the central sales department within Mega Holdings Ltd. For five years EIS grew at an average rate of 5 % and enjoyed industry-wide awards and recognition. It became known as a very customer-focused service organisation.
However, in 2007/8 The banking crises brought severe austerity measures in public sector spending. Overnight the organisation saw funding from clients being reduced by up to 20% with an additional year on year budget savings demanded. EIS was now perceived as a considerable risk to Mega Holdings Ltd.
A decision was subsequently taken to separate EIS from Mega Holdings Ltd and set it up as a commercial business with its own legal identity and governance structures including a Board of Directors. The EIS staff were no longer employees of Mega Holding Ltd. The new “business” was charged with working not only for Mega Holdings Ltd as a client but also with developing new independent income streams and significantly reducing its cost base and identifying a source of competitive advantage.
The Executive Leader
The management team at EIS was led by a Managing a Director who was well known for placing a high value on commercial thinking and relationship management skills. Within the wider UK Facility Services Sector, he was perceived as an innovative and visionary leader. He realised that the wider management team and their service teams would require specialist support to ensure that they could fit into the new ‘culture’ that was required if the organisation was to the proposer and achieve its strategic goals. With his team, he developed a five-year transitional plan that involved the following strategic elements:
- Contain and reform established business
- Re-engineer all business processes to increase productivity
- Rebrand the new business
- Aggressively pursue new business
- Advance a culture that reflected a sales led orientation
- Introduce a new performance reward system.
External Change Consultancy Company
The MD appointed a Change Partner from an external consultancy service to;
- Diagnose the culture in use
- Advise on a Business Process Re-engineering approach
- Advise on rebranding and associated marketing plans
- Relate the established culture to the new strategic direction unfolding
- Identify cultural ‘blockers’ and ‘enablers, from the cultural audit, that either blocked or enabled strategic success
- Build a corporate report entitled “The Case for Change” that recommended interventions
- Build-in consultation with management a change programme that would span 3 years.
- Collaborate on the implementation of the content of the change program
- Evaluate its ongoing success
- Run a series of educational and developmental change management workshops.
Appendix 2
The EIS Way was to be structured around a series of change episodes to give the change project form and allow a linear approach to planning and implementation although in practice this did involve iterations.
Episode 1: Setting the scene for change
The first stage of the EIS change project was to set the scene for the change process. Episode 1 was mainly concerned with selling the change programme to both the change leaders and their teams. This selling process was important as it provided the sense of vitality and group motivation required to mobilize efforts and sustain them for the duration of the journey. The objective was to select teams of change leaders and create the conditions for change leaders and their teams to enjoy the change process and to make every effort to ensure that it was a useful and productive experience.
Episode 2: The inaugural team meeting
The next episode was the meeting of change leaders and their team members. This was the start of the team-building process. At this meeting, the case for change was strengthened. The following agenda items were covered:
- A general discussion of the change process.
- Agreement of a team name to aid the development of group identity.
- Development of an outline set of team rules for meetings.
- Establishment of a contact list and a communication plan.
- Agreement on roles for all team members.
- A process for taking a record of the meeting and agreed action points.
- To agree on who should chair future meetings.
- The linking of discussions to both the change objectives and the core values of the organisation.
Episode 3: Identify a change problem
It was agreed that the team may drill down to a level that precisely identified the change problem for example: ‘improving the way in which area managers communicated with unit managers regarding corporate initiatives’. They would have to describe exactly what was wrong with the current situation and then the preferred future status.
Once the change team had reached agreement on a choice of change problem they would, through their change leader, seek the support in principle of the change leader’s mentor for their proposal. This was a critical change filter. Assuming the change leader obtained the support of the mentor, the group moved to the next stage in the change process. The mentor then had the responsibility to support the change team and to advise key stakeholders that the team were working on changes in their area of operations, what these changes were and to obtain in principle their support for the change initiative.
Episode 4: Develop a feasibility plan
This next episode involved developing a feasibility plan to inform the change initiative put forward by each change team. This would involve the team participating in a change management workshop facilitated by the change manager. The purpose of the workshop was for the change teams to:
- Further develop the change problem.
- Discuss the change management process.
- Consider the content and purpose of a feasibility/change plan.
- Work through a mock change problem, e.g., ‘improving the effectiveness of headquarters receptionists in coordinating calls to managers from various stakeholders’.
This process of discussing a mock change problem ensured multiple teams engaged in the workshop. This part of the process was called ‘playing in the sandpit’ and ensured that teams made mistakes in a non-threatening situation. The mock feasibility/change plan involved the change teams considering themes such as:
- Researching consumer attitudes to establish that their assumptions of a change problem can be evidenced.
- Identifying potential change barriers especially cultural themes in use.
- Identification of key stakeholders and resource requirements.
- Developing models of communications in relation to the change problem.
The learning outcome of this workshop was that change teams could prepare a business case underpinned by a feasibility study in support of their change project. This ‘playing in the sandpit’ helped to build confidence as change professionals.
Episode 5: Getting serious
This part of the process included designing a simple research instrument to test the assumption that the team had arrived at. Once the research data had been collected, the teams would start assessing the feasibility of the change initiative to inform the preparation of the business case. The feasibility plan would explore the ‘what’ questions, e.g., ‘What do we have to do to deliver on this change project?’. Then followed the ‘how’ questions, e.g., ‘How do we mobilise the resources we need?’ ‘How do we overcome cultural barriers to our change ambitions?’ Then there is the ‘why?’ question, e.g., ‘Why are we doing this?’ The episode ended with the change leader arranging to meet with the key stakeholder to secure support for the change project.
Episode 6: Win over key stakeholders
The team would complete the feasibility plan and the business case. They would then draft a presentation which:
- Defined the change problem.
- Argued for the case for change.
- Illustrated the resources required to deliver the changes.
- Determined the benefits of the change investment to the organisation.
The benefits of the change project were to be clearly defined in a wider sense than simply financial savings. The return on investment could be in monetary terms or it could be in cultural terms such as improved teamworking, innovation and communications. The team prepared for the next episode – a key stakeholder presentation.
Episode 7: Present change plan and the feasibility study to key stakeholders
This episode involved the full change team. From the perspective of stakeholders, there was a need to ensure that appraisal was not unduly harsh and was a constructive review of the change proposal, its feasibility plan and business case. The change leader and his or her team would be expected to record all feedback and, following the presentation, the team would refine their presentation and supporting documentation.
Episode 8: Board-level presentations
This part of the process was very important, akin to a military passing-out ceremony. The team would receive the approbation of the most senior people in the organisation. Most of the change team members had never had the opportunity to present to the most senior people in the organisation. If done properly this offered an opportunity for establishing motivational vitality with long-lasting impact on the team members. The opportunity for recognition and positive feedback had long-term motivational effects and led to a stronger and more positive identification with the organisation and the work it does on the part of the employees. The board would agree to adopt the change initiative for implementation.
Episode 9: Change team selects future change leaders
At this stage the change team would start to formally disband. Part of this process would be selecting the team member best suited to lead the next phase of change project teams. The change leaders from the pilot stage would take up a mentoring role to the nominated change leader. This established relationship ties between managers from very different parts of the business and a network of mutual respect that encouraged other positive relations throughout service teams. It also encouraged a culture of teaching, support and openness to personal and group learning.
Episode 10: Review the change process
The review process did not only occur at the latter stage of the change process. There were interval assessments of an unofficial nature called ‘bus stop tests’. There were also two short surveys and a team focus session, which involved the change leaders, the change facilitator and the change teams gauging how they were experiencing the change programme. There would be a mixed-methods approach applied to the review process involving:
- Focus groups hosted by a senior director with the change teams to listen to their views on what they felt worked well and not so well;
- Survey instruments that aimed to select anonymous views from change participants;
- 360-degree assessments of team leaders on the part of change team members.
Episode 11: Implementation of the change project
This aspect of the change programme was to be administrated through a ‘Change project implementation board’. This would be a sub-board of the main company board and would report to the main board members on its activities. This was a very tricky part of the change process as at this stage top leadership needed to demonstrate high energy levels and commitment to the implementation of the change projects. This was a critical second-order stage: change leaders sustain and reinforce the new changes in values and assumptions to establish them as new, vibrant cultural norms.
Appendix 3
The EIS change project was based on hard data obtained from the research process conducted by the external change partner and was subsequently branded ‘The EIS Way’.
The EIS change network
The principal technology employed to change the organisation identified by the diagnostic process was a network of change teams made up of 240 managers. The managers were clustered into 24 change teams, each with a designated change leader. The teams had the freedom to diagnose a ‘problem’ at EIS and then set about developing a change intervention to address it. The idea that underpinned the initiative was that each member of the change network could ‘influence’ the motivation of their broader team members towards the achievement of the goals. What was required was a device that would legitimise The EIS Way as a transformational change project. The device that was introduced was the concept of ‘team selected change projects’ and so there would be 24 specific change initiatives aimed at improving sales, productivity and strategy.
The change team structure
The EIS change project involved management representation from all parts of the organisation. A process was developed to select the change project team members and to communicate the rationale behind the selection process to those selected. Each change team had a change leader. EIS avoided having teams that had a group of managers of similar rank or from the same occupational groups to break down the silo tribalism that permeated the organisation.
Change leaders
The role of the change leader was a critical part of the change programme. However, rather than one leader, what was required was a network of change leaders all working on the change initiative. This was accomplished through ‘The Change Network’, a change leadership model that encapsulated all managers within the organisation.
The change manager
The change manager was responsible for coordinating the design, implementation and review of the cultural change programme. It was important that this person was politically credible in the role in relation to the broad network of stakeholders he or she was required to collaborate with throughout the change management process.
The change mentor
The change mentor was a senior manager who mentored a set of change teams and who provided sponsorship, guidance, motivation, emotional support, and role modelling.
Appendix 4
Meta Episode: Business Process Reengineering at EIS
Running parallel as a meta episode with the above project team network program was an intensive Business Process Reengineering project which was reviewed in session 7 of the course. The EIS BPR project was called ‘1 Business’. This project involved the following core change management activities:
- A Network of BPR Internal change leaders created
- A SAP partner identified and approved
- A BPR 1 Business project board established
- Visio software selected as key mapping tool
- A Schedule of mapping session established across the departments
- Each BPR 1 Business change leader facilitated over 50 Process Mapping workshops of as is and to be processes
- Each department formed a local change board
- The local change boards then approved localised 1 Business change project to actualise the new ‘to be’ processes’
- Each department then implemented the change plan and for a time ran with both ‘as is’ and ‘to be’ processes.
The ten key change management initiatives that organised the BPR change process were:
- Setting up a project team
- Establishing a plan, a vision and a purpose
- Establishing a training programme for all key collaborators
- Defining target business processes
- Mapping business processes
- Identifying improvement opportunities
- Designing future state processes
- Composing a change plan
- Trialling future state changes
- Evaluating new process success
The key performance indicators that were adopted to evaluate progress were as follows:
- Monthly change progress audit reports
- Drop of rate for legacy processes
- Reduction in parallel processes (as is and to be)
- Training delegates successful completing training courses
- Attendance rates for training courses
- Milestone achievement compared with change plan deadlines
- Anticipated productivity gains
- Snagging issues resolved
- Data input errors
The organising structure employed to manage the BPR project at EIS included specific roles such as:
- Change Leader: who leads the change process
- Visio mappers: who map out ‘as is’ change processes
- Process Owner: who navigates the Visio mappers
- Reengineering team: who reviewed the ‘as is’ processes and redesign the ‘to be’ processes
- Steering committee: who monitor progress and authorise changes and investment
- Reengineering czar: who selects enabling technologies and advise/recommends methodological approaches
Summary
The EIS Way operated for a period of 3 years. It generated 24 discrete change projects and fully re-engineered the operating processes throughout the business. It was fully rebranded as a business and enjoyed success in open tendering winning substantial soft facility services.
