Business Transformation through digital technology and process optimization helps address challenges in today’s competitive market.
Whether you choose to Stay on Microsoft Dynamics GP, or move to the cloud with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, each of these two ERPs can serve as a great foundation for innovation and changes to your business processes. To tackle strategic problems, our team recommends looking at the following opportunities for improvement:
- Identify areas for improvement in workflows
- Automate processes where possible
- Develop new productivity metrics
- Encourage employee adoption of innovations
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Meet our Business Central Consulting Team and Intro VIDEO https://www.endeavoursolutions.ca/businesscentral/cloud-erp/
Why Change Management is Important
Change management is crucial for successful implementation, as resistance to new practices can render these innovations ineffective. Factors such as inadequate training, inflexible controls, and difficult interfaces can hinder user adoption. Without user adoption, many of your Business Transformation efforts risk missing their objectives and anticipated ROI.
Finance’s Role in Change Management
Finance plays a key role in change management by allocating resources to high-value initiatives. Finance leaders must identify promising projects, set milestones, and justify their implementation. By quantifying productivity enhancements and improved insights, you can build a business case to justify your efforts, i.e. the revenue growth or anticipated cost saving derived from the proposed innovation.
As Change Agents, Finance Leaders are commonly in a position of authority and influence, and can help to communicate and quantify the value of the proposed changes to the organization. Beyond communicating the business value, Change Management also looks at the ‘human side” of the equation and specifically with a focus on user knowledge, perceptions, skills needed.
Finances Role in Change Management – using the implementation of an Expense Management application for Dynamics GP or Business Central as an example
Assuming you’re implementing Expense Management for your ERP, let’s consider some guiding principles.
- Keep your processes as simple, convenient, and familiar as possible
- Communicate the change and business value to the organization
- Communicate the WIIFM – “What’s. in. it. for. me”, from an end-user perspective
- Provide training in two forms. First before the change, and Secondly, something that can be used during or after the change.
- Be sure that the training includes a focus on the business processes and context, not just the technical system navigation
Example: Using the Change Management concept of Head, Heart, and Hands.
Head – Logically, what is the change, and what are the new steps. How are the new Expense submissions entered by phone or online? What are the new approval processes by managers? What happens if a claim is denied?
Heart – What should I want to change, WIIFM? What’s the value to others? What’s the risk of not changing? Ideally, the new approvals process is improving financial controls, while also reducing the time managers spend on approvals.
Hands – Let me practice the change. In this case, user adoption will most likely involve the user’s initial training and the opportunity to use the new Expense management system. If training efforts are light, or concepts are simple, a post-implementation support guide or record training session may be sufficient for hand-on learning to reinforce what they learned previously.
Whether big or small, Business improvements are always needed within an organization to impact growth, productivity, and an ability to adapt to changing market conditions. Business Transformation typically looks at larger more strategic changes, rather than smaller incremental adjustments. We are confident that you can stay on Dynamics GP (proof), using GP as a foundation for many of your business transformation efforts. We are equally as confident that moving to the Cloud with Business Central can provide a wealth of new possibilities. About Business Central https://www.endeavoursolutions.ca/businesscentral/ . Change Management practices for increased user adoption will help to drive results that much faster yielding a greater return on your investment. Learn more with our PDF white paper on 6-tips for Business Transformation While Staying on Dynamics GP. https://www.gpsupportnorth.com/6tips/
