Creating a Business Change Implementation Plan
A good project plan for any enterprise-wide e-procurement initiative should always include a specific plan for enterprise-wide change transition. There are many variations, but whichever approach you decide to take, I have found that the approach should adhere to two guiding principles. First, change management should be integrally intertwined with the project approach itself, not seen as a separate or parallel program run by organizational or behavioral specialists. Second, the plan should be organized at a level that is comparable to that of the technical design and implementation plan, with key activities, milestones, and deliverables. A business change transition plan should be of as much interest—if not more interest—to the executive steering committee as the technical implementation plan. The best business change plans that I have encountered usually address, in one way or another, six broad categories:
Communications. As we have said before, an open and consistent communication plan, delivered at both the executive and operational levels, is crucial to ensuring buy-in for the project from the organization as a whole. This communication plan should begin with the output from the executive e-procurement workshop, and should be structured around key themes such as
What is happening
Why it is happening
How it will affect employees
When it will happen
What employees need to do
How employees will be provided further information and updates
How the company will know when it is successful
The key, of course, is to get the right message in the right format to the right people at the right time. Admittedly, for some, such a standardized and preplanned approach to communication hints of manipulation, but there need not be anything underhanded about the message simply because employees receive consistent information. Because so many of us have lived through many large projects in the past that incorporated a solid approach to communications, it may seem to go without saying, but an effective communications plan is absolutely critical to the success of the project.
Project Risk Management. This area encompasses many of the project-related activities normally associated with change management, including developing a strong, company-wide communications plan, scheduling one-on-one interviews between the program manager, the nontechnical program manager, and various executives or organizational leaders, identifying and resolving personal conflicts between members of the project team, identifying issues—a recalcitrant or unsupportive executive, union resistance, lack of representation in the project from a key group—that might put the success of the project at risk. Strategies to limit these types of risk may include communication-related activities such as employee forums, an e-procurement road show, or even team training or “out-of-the-box thinking” events.
Positions and Structure. There will be many key structural changes that will occur to the procurement process as the company shifts from manual to electronic and from centralized to employee-initiated purchasing. Most importantly, this area includes making certain that the implications analysis is completed in conjunction with the systems design, and identifying changes to the process and job positions of current procurement staff. It also involves
Prototyping new job descriptions
Identifying new skill level requirements
Conducting a skills inventory of current staff
Defining the staffing redeployment plan
Training and Development. As with all employee desktop systems, at least with indirect materials purchasing, it will be necessary to provide training to the employee end users on the software and approach to desktop requisitioning. Such training courses are often provided by the software vendor, but will need to be coordinated and, at times, modified to reflect your company’s purchasing policies. For those employees whose jobs are displaced by the system, it will be necessary to create new training courses that will help them to update their skills and cope with the change.
Performance Management. Identifying and beginning to record meaningful and accurate performance measures is critical to the success of an e-procurement initiative. Not only do these figures become part of the business justification process, but in the future will be used to help build an accurate, real-time view of both supplier and procurement process performance.
Rewards and Recognition. Finally, remembering that the effectiveness of desktop requisitioning comes in large part from adherence to rules concerning standardized buying policies, it is often important to identify specific guidelines for purchasing goods and to create specific incentives for adhering to them.