What is a Change Management Strategy?
TechTarget defined change management strategy as specific ways in which an organization will address such things as changes in the supply chain, inventory requirements, scheduling or project scope.
To effectively institute a change management strategy, stakeholders must create a plan for how to recognize when a change is need, how to approve changes, how to implement changes and how to monitor changes to ensure they have brought about the desired effect.
Enabling Your Organizational Change Management Strategy
An often overlooked or under-planned aspect of ERP implementations is much too frequently the organizational changes that are required to achieve the desired business objectives of such a critically important investment. Organizational change management is a discipline that has received more attention in recent years and there is more widespread recognition of how neglected this key aspect of digital transformations has been. However, even though the first step to solving an issue is the awareness of how important it is to solve it, finding clear ways to act on this and much less executing them is another challenge.
One aspect that is clear is the need to enhance the organization’s capabilities to leverage the new technology that a modern ERP system like NetSuite brings, and that entails overcoming a learning curve that can be significant, even overwhelming, depending on the project timeline and where your company is in terms of capabilities to absorb new processes and technologies into its business operations. Add to this the fact that if your company had a hairball of different systems, you will have to additionally overcome the unlearning of old practices in some areas and bring different areas to the same place of knowledge to work more seamlessly with an integrated system like NetSuite. For small and midsize businesses, resources are not always available to carry out this mission and it can be a challenge to go to an increasingly tight job market with increasing demand for Oracle NetSuite professionals to hire them on your own.
You are probably aware already of how a cloud ERP like Oracle NetSuite makes things easier in terms of the demand on your IT organization, given that many parts of the technology stack are part of the service, such as IT infrastructure, database and software administration. However, the bigger impact on your organization will be the rest of the company involved in learning new functionality, processes and controls to run your business. That is where ScaleNorth can be a key partner for your organizational change strategy.
With ScaleNorth’s Accounting Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), ScaleNorth can get your company running your Financial and Accounting operations with its staff already highly trained and skilled using NetSuite. Your company can tailor the scope of the BPO to your needs to get you running on NetSuite and only when your company is ready with the required capabilities your company can change the scope of the BPO to fit it to your needs.
On the technical side, ScaleNorth’s Technical Services can supply your IT organization with technical integration and development skills it may not have at the onset of a NetSuite implementation, given that the programming languages your IT team handles may have been focused on previous platforms the company owned. If you’ve extended NetSuite’s functionality with scripting or performed custom integrations with other systems, ScaleNorth can help you with its certified NetSuite developers staff.
Perhaps you are a growing company that had no staff with formal IT Administration roles, much less a NetSuite administration function. ScaleNorth can supplement your need for such with its Innovation Division staff which can go as far as co-Administer your NetSuite environment until you are able to do so for yourself and advise you on innovative ways to leverage your NetSuite investment you had not considered in the original implementation.
Of course, one way to avoid running into Organizational Change issues with your implementation is to get it right from the beginning during Implementation with the proper guidance and planning. ScaleNorth’s Implementation services can help you plan and execute a roadmap towards your desired organizational future state with NetSuite as your ERP system.
All of these services can help your organization overcome the learning curve you will need to in order to get the return on your ERP investment you envisioned, while at the same time getting your business strategy going. Making Organizational Change a key part of your strategy is always a winning one, no matter how great your processes and technologies are.
Wrapping Up
If you are in the middle of an ERP implementation, need to redo your NetSuite implementation, or are in need of NetSuite customizations, ScaleNorth can help.
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About the Author
Victor Varela has over 20 years of progressive IT leadership, management, and consulting experience. He’s well-versed in a variety of verticals including distribution, fintech, energy, and travel. He has a deep understanding of IT project management, IT strategy, and all things cloud. Victor holds an MBA from Nova Southeastern University.
Victor holds a Netsuite SuiteFoundation and SuiteAnalytics: Financial Reports certifications.