A more Cost-effective way Forward
for
Managing today's Business Change Challenge

There is constant pressure to reduce costs in business and in government, whilst at the same time essential business change continues to be plagued by too many avoidable frustrations and costs. Commonly accepted change management processes have failed to address this problem, and a more cost-effective way forward for managing today’s business change challenge needs to be found.

In today's change-charged atmosphere in so many areas of business and commerce, it is clearly not practical to contemplate a wholesale switch from established practices, however problematical they may be. It does however make enormous sense to gradually introduce best practices that are able to deal effectively with the most intractable and costly business change challenges, and in a manner that makes long term sense.

The Drowning Director, written by Geoff Codd, addresses this need through the introduction of the UNITY change management framework, which links the very best business change practices in a way that maximises collaboration between all parties in the business change process. This improvement in collaboration has a significant impact on the smoothness and timeliness of the business change process, and hence on its cost and business effectiveness.

The adoption of the UNITY way forward needs to be a gradual process that produces early significant business benefit for minimal investment. The first step might simply be to introduce a procedural and cultural transition from an IT focused change management committee to a business process focused change management board, with immense potential business benefits. There are many other starter options.

There are numerous individual initiatives which are important as contributors to improving the cost effectiveness and focus of the change management process, particularly where IT is a major enabler of change. In The Drowning Director these include Personal Mentoring, Relationship Management, Outsourcing, Service Level Agreements, Matrix Management, Six Sigma, and Culture Change amongst others.

Whilst cultural diversity across a business' activities typically nurtures an organisation's strengths, it is overall cultural unity which maximizes its ultimate success. The UNITY way forward focuses particularly on the culture gap between business people and the information technology professionals, a gap that is commonplace in many organisations at many levels, and on the damaging consequences that inevitably flow from such a gap.

Brief comment on some of the background and business challenges involved in making the transition to the UNITY way forward can be found using the page links above, as can the background to the author.

The Drowning Director is published in hardback by Pen Press Publishers Ltd. 25 Eastern Place,
Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 1GJ, UK.          ISBN 978-1-906206-38-3          UK £25.00
and is available from www.amazon.co.uk, www.waterstones.co.uk and via all good bookshops.