IT and Organisational Change

For the majority of today’s businesses, constant change is a must. Improving business processes and adopting new technologies is simply what the market demands. The effects of these changes can be make or break, and properly managing them─especially those involving IT─is important for business success. David Stevens looks at how your business can best prepare itself for organisational change.

New IT strategies often involve a change in computing applications or platforms, and these changes can have wide-reaching effects on the way in which day to day business is done.

When adopting new technologies, an important aspect of making new IT systems and processes successful, is properly managing the organisational change that results.

In fact, whether the project is a new mail system, a CRM, ERP, or a fundamental business wide change to the whole of an IT system, managing the change process seems to be a critical element to a project’s success.

IT changes are not dissimilar to other major business transformations that cause organisational change.

The biggest and most commonly recognised barrier to organisational change is the human one. It’s well documented that in most organisations the majority of employees are innately opposed to change. They are likely comfortable and established in their current tasks and processes because they understand what’s expected of them and how to achieve it. Change is threatening because it introduces uncertainty. Employees can begin to fear for their status, workload, and competency in new responsibilities.