<img src="https://secure.leadforensics.com/133892.png" alt="" style="display:none;">

Changing any part of your professional services firm can cause confusion and disruption among your team. People often don’t like change, but sometimes it’s necessary for your firm to drive growth and efficiency. Here, we explore the importance of change management and break down the different stages involved.

What is change management?

Change management refers to the strategies you use to ensure everyone is on board with any changes you’re making, helping you boost adoption and utilisation rates. Whether this is a simple or complex change, you should look at how your teams, from junior-level consultants to senior management, will be affected.

4 stages of an effective change management strategy

Change management should play a big role in the change you’re making. By taking the time to explain to your stakeholders the reasons for change, you can encourage them to buy into your vision. Let’s take a closer look at how you can develop an effective change management strategy:

  1. Develop the right mindset
  2. Bring in an external innovator
  3. Adopt the right technology
  4. Stakeholder management

1. Develop the right mindset

Any change can seem daunting to your key stakeholders. However, by developing the right mindset towards why it needs to happen, you can align your teams and decrease employee resistance.

 

First, you’ll need to identify the benefits it’ll bring, such as enhancing your consultant’s efficiency in their day-to-day tasks. These should be communicated consistently at all stages during your transformation journey, ensuring your stakeholders remain on the same page.

 

After all, just because you have high stakeholder engagement at the start of the project doesn’t mean that your people will agree with your vision throughout the entire process. For example, they might change their minds or leave the business, which means you’ll have to work on engaging new people.

 

You should also focus on creating a culture where all ideas are welcomes and valued. Gaining your teams opinions and assessing them against your current change goals and expected outcomes helps you to:

 

  • Encourage further collaboration towards the project, making them feel part of the change
  • Be creative with new, unconventional ideas that could've been raised from your internal meetings
professional services industry

2. Bring in an external innovator

By working with a third-party business that has managed change for other firms in the professional services industry, they’ll be able to help you plan, prepare, and execute your transformation project. 

 

You can experience:

  • Better user adoption rates
  • Boosted return on investment from your transformation
  • Increased chances of success 

Bringing in external innovators can also combat the challenge of change fatigue. Coming out of the pandemic, you’ll have likely altered your teams’ roles and responsibilities. However, too many changes can result in employees becoming disengaged with any future transformations you make.

 

Working with a third party helps boost engagement and productivity as they can introduce workshops and training initiatives to reduce any confusion, friction, and fatigue across your firm. 

change management

 

3. Adopt the right technology

 

The role of the right technology in change management allows you to communicate effectively with your employees about why the change is happening. For example, it’s found that 50% of change management efforts fail, with one of the reasons being the lack of awareness of change around the organisation.

 

With the increase of hybrid working in professional services, it might not be possible to communicate change face-to-face. Technology such as Microsoft Teams enables you to guide your teams along the change curve through the touchpoints necessary, regardless of where they’re based.

 

Additionally, adopt the technologies that can do most of the heavy lifting for your resource utilisation, like a professional services automation (PSA) tool. With a PSA tool, you'll be able to:

  • View improvements in your resource utilisation with predictive analytics for the best outcomes of your project
  • Gain more clarity with your business performance through time and expense management tools
  • Analyse whether you have the right expertise available to start other tasks during your transformation

Read more about the benefits of a PSA tool here.

professional services industry

4. Stakeholder management

Effective stakeholder management ensures your people are well informed of the changes you’re making. For example, holding weekly one-to-ones allows you to gain employee input and answer their questions on an ongoing basis.

Through smaller meetings, certain team members may feel more confident to be upfront and honest about the change, so you can increase their overall engagement by answering their queries about the project.

You’ll also have to communicate effectively with your clients. If they’re resistant to change, it’ll directly impact the reputation you have with them. Here are a few ways to improve your client management:

  • Identify their concerns – start by testing the changes with them to see how they react before going live
  • Manage their expectations – help them understand how their journey will change by being transparent about what they can expect before, during, and after the project has finished
  • Be flexible with your change – client demands are forever changing in the professional services industry, so be open and flexible to adapt to new technologies that better serve their needs

change management

Learn more about how to create a successful change management strategy

Now you’re aware of some of the key stages within change management, how can you create a strategy that’s the best fit for your firm? In our roadmap to successful change management, we cover the recommended approach to managing change, including:

  • Establishing and promoting your visions
  • Assessing the impact change will have on your firm
  • Executing change, from building change networks to measuring effect and progress

Get your copy here.

Why embracing change is essential to growth

The professional services industry is becoming more turbulent than ever, meaning you’ll need to stay ahead of the curve to overcome the several obstacles facing your firm today. In our infographic, we cover both the strategic and operational challenges, as well as:

  • Why digital transformation is the key to success
  • The four key steps to achieving digital transformation, including the importance of adopting a value-first mindset and developing an effective change management strategy

Interested? Download it below.

Download now

 

Topics

Discuss this post

Recommended posts

In the modern business world, we use technology daily to elevate efficiency in the workplace, boost the productivity and satisfaction of our employees, and help take our organisation forward as a whole. Automation is a big part of business success nowadays and a key component of business technology, allowing us to automate menial and some complex processes in various departments. While most conversations revolve around IT, marketing, robotics, or chatbot automation, it’s important to give payment automation the attention it deserves. Payment automation means automating your accounts receivables and payables to create a well-rounded, efficient accounting system that’ll help you take your business forward, while minimising risks and possible threats. Today, we’ll put all of that into perspective as we take a look at how payment automation drives business growth, and why you’ll need it in 2023.
Project development, also known as project management, is the process of alighting talent, tools, and various internal and external processes to create a smooth and straightforward project. Regardless of what the project is, the key goals are always the same:
Project management is a comprehensive process where companies invest in managers, talent, tools, and relevant methods and processes to support a project from inception to successful completion. In the competitive modern business world, not having a project management strategy or not investing in project management in the first place leaves a company vulnerable on almost every front. Without project management, a business cannot coordinate internally or nurture efficient cross-department collaboration, and customer-facing teams struggle to deliver stellar CX that customers expect. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Successful project management brings numerous short, mid, and long-term benefits to modern businesses. Let’s take a look at what these are and go over project management best practices you can start implementing today to develop and retain your competitive advantage.
IT consulting firms certainly have their work cut out. With recent events such as the pandemic to customers demanding more from the services they buy, it’s evident that the industry is facing more pressure than ever before. However, by better understanding the challenges your IT consultancy firm faces, you can become more resilient and adaptable. Let’s take a look:
Due to the scope of projects within the professional services industry, from the tasks involved to the resources required for successful completion, it’s crucial every aspect of them runs as smoothly and as efficiently as possible. But, how can you guarantee this every time?
right-arrow share search phone phone-filled menu filter envelope envelope-filled close checkmark caret-down arrow-up arrow-right arrow-left arrow-down