IT Brief, Australia: Cognizant’s Asia-Pacific Head Says Organizational Change Management is Key to Ensuring Long-Term Digital Success

“Contrary to popular belief, digital transformation is never as simple as adopting a variety of new technologies and hoping for the best — in reality, it is quite the opposite,” writes Jayajyoti Sengupta. “Change management is, in fact, the fundamental area that ensures the long-term digital success of an organization.” Excerpts:

“Digital transformation always involves more than rolling out a new payroll system or migrating to the cloud — it’s about managing the expectations of and motivating staff during a broader shift of a whole business to a more digital way of working.

If not managed appropriately, the threat of digital losing its effectiveness, or the risk of a culture of fear permeating employees as they experience change, becomes real.

Just as the growing impact of digital can’t be ignored, it must also be understood and defined by organizations to allow them to clearly identify the specific opportunity that digital represents for them.

Investment in digital should not take a “one size fits all” approach, as needs and opportunities vary significantly across organizations and industries.

Effective change management protocols are required to ensure digital is implemented in the most effective means possible, as digital invariably impacts all areas of businesses and requires input from many stakeholders.

As such, organizational change management in this digital era must focus on forming a digital council to define and implement the digital opportunity, developing a clear digital change vision and assessing digital capabilities along with change maturity, using agile methods to speed up the benefits realization, growing digital talent from within an organization as well as leveraging external support, and building a digital culture made up of open, transparent and engaging communication from top leadership levels.

Evidently, change management must be prioritized and a sense of urgency maintained to ensure that the benefits of being digital are optimized.”

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