Change Management Trends: a conversation with Caroline Mørck Jensen

PROSCI’s Global Partners recently met to reflect on Change Management (CM) trends, uncovering challenges and opportunities worldwide. We are excited to bring you a timely and telling conversation with Denmark-based expert & Partner at NEXUM, Caroline Mørck Jensen. Because she plays a very active role in the Benelux, French and Swiss markets, Caroline has a thorough and unique understanding of Western European dynamics. Watch the video interview and read on to expand on key aspects of the discussion!

An ever-increasing demand for Change Management.

Partners have made very clear that there is a growing awareness and demand for CM globally (also see “Trends in CM” and “CM across Regions and Cultures” articles). Along with change saturation challenges, the need to reinvent the organization while maintaining “business as usual” for all customers is certainly a major issue driving demand for Change Management in Europe (De Jaeger 2019). A breakdown by industry reveals specific developments that call for more efficiency (engineering fields), hence more Change Management, and closer attention to adoption and usage metrics (cloud computing).

Uneven levels of Change Management maturity.

There are considerable differences in maturity levels between countries, and also within most advanced markets such as Denmark. Some organizations are still striving to turn change awareness into action, while others have taken Change Management to the ultimate level by creating a Change Management Office (CMO). In more mature cases, Enterprise Change Management (ECM) is moving CM away from one-shot projects and towards an “embedded” approach to dealing with change.

A wide array of transformational changes.

Most prominent changes include deep-seated reforms such as digitalization and the move to Agile. As mentioned earlier, the pressure induced by the need to simultaneously (re)build the organisation and manage daily operations is a recurring challenge.

In the engineering world, where building great products has long been considered the key success factor, efforts are being made to place more emphasis on “sales”. Faced with fierce outside competition, companies are compelled to introduce greater standardization and to focus on the “right” customers - those at the bottom line instead of those with the most exciting engineering challenges. In the consumer industry, we are witnessing a shift towards creating more environmentally friendly products. And last but not least, with technological innovations flooding the market at a faster pace, Change Management now involves working with clients as end-users. Take, for example, the turn to cloud computing. Because their business model relies so heavily on proficiency levels with the product, “on-demand” software (or Software as a Service SaaS) are calling for Change Management solutions. Companies only get paid when the client uses the product (as opposed to collecting renewal fees after, say, 3 years), hence the critical role Change Management has to play in the realization of benefits. The fact is that Microsoft has invested a great deal in Change Management to build a customer success competence and help clients get maximum value from their investment.

What clients are saying.

What clients find the most difficult to secure when it comes to managing change is also the number one contributor to project success: effective sponsorship. All too often, the best initiative is undermined by the lack of active and visible sponsorship. Helping clients get buy-in from leaders is thus central to the work of NEXUM’s consultants.

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