Change management: The fundamental role of the network

Fundamental changes in businesses have been taking place. Businesses are trying to respond quicker to external market changes and think more critically about the future. They need improved customer relationships with more openness and security, moving closer to customers. They want to boost employee productivity.

Wolfgang Held, network consultant at 3Com SA, looks at the role of network technology in facilitating market leadership for companies that do not want their competitors shaping their corporate destiny.

Successful businesses constantly re-evaluate their business strategies in the light of changing marketplace influences.

For example, they rethink how to make connections with customers, partners and employees, managing the constant changes in expectations and relationships.

Customer expectations are not all the same; therefore, companies need to invest in new ways to meet customers expectations, whether for faster responses, more choices, call centre support, automated features or customisation.

Relationships change often because of geographical moves, cost considerations and changes in strategies.

Tolerance for mistakes, especially in a fiercely competitive market, is becoming less and less.

If the right networking technology is not in place, then a business rides a higher wave of risk than senior management may know. With every business problem, networking technology has a key role to play.

The following are some examples of this phenomenon:

Business problem: changing methods to reach more customers faster and more cost-effectively. Solution: using a more flexible, faster network that increases connections, offering lower total cost of ownership.

Business problem: changing internal processes to adapt to market changes. Solution: using wired and wireless communication to support rapid change to manufacturing and marketing.

Business problem: changing cost structure to remain viable. Solution: using a network that can grow and change as the business requires it, as opposed to paying too much for complex networking features that won`t deliver a positive ROI for the business.

Networking technology puts a company`s destiny back into its own hands - where it should be. Networking technology offers the best path for businesses to adapt to today`s requirements for competitiveness.

It is already accepted at a local, national or international level that a powerful network is a requirement to do business. The issue is how the network is going to positively impact the business and make the right connections at the right time with the right people.

Making connections to manage change involves several factors that business managers should evaluate.

Collaboration: Increased collaboration among employees has the potential to unlock new potential for business success. A system must be in place to support the collaboration. Networks play an important role in the support system framework, enabling connections among employees, regardless of location or time.

Accountability: A company that is managing change needs to emphasize both individual and team accountability. By connecting employees to each other, not only through performance goals, but literally through network connections, a company can keep track of progress in a changing environment.

Consolidation: Through processes of change, consolidation of resources, departments and strategies often occur. Therefore, old connections are broken and new connections need to be made; otherwise, the business would not be able to run properly. The pressure is on the network to be dynamic and flexible enough to accommodate the breakdown and then reestablishment of connections in a new framework of consolidated business.

Decision-making: Access to information that is required to make the right decisions of change is necessary. The importance of a network in supporting the decision-making process should never be underestimated.

A company`s decision-making process can be significantly slowed down if the network slows down because it is overloaded and does not have enough capacity. A network needs to be ready for higher demand at peak time. The connections are not static. They vary in intensity and length, yet each connection has the potential to have an impact on the future of the company.

Access: To improve business performance, giving customers more access to the company should be part of the change management. This is where relationships that result in sales are managed.

Customers want to know the company understands and meets their needs with high quality products. Increasing a company`s presence on the Internet is an example of openness to the marketplace. As more information that can help customers is loaded on the site, more performance demands are made on the Web site with the possibility of a bottleneck.

A company must plan for enough capacity to handle increased customer demand. If access is cut off, many customers might not return to the company.

Automation: Offering more automated features to customers helps to save a company money while speeding up and customizing customer service. But no matter how slick new automated functions are, the connections from automated applications to people who know what to do with the information - for sales, marketing or manufacturing reasons - must be guaranteed over the network.

A lapse won`t be acceptable because a company failed to upgrade its network infrastructure.

Unity: A part of the change of the business environment is unified messaging. Users have desk phone numbers, cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses, pager numbers and passwords.

That is only the beginning. Imagine the complexity of a call centre and all the calls and e-mails coming into it. When a company is going through change, the way the company communicates with the outside world needs to be re-evaluated. By unifying messaging over converged networks, a company can turn a call centre into a high-powered, unified function that produces more results through more intelligent connections.

Image: A connection leads to an impression. If the connection between company and customer is active, reliable and quick, the impression is positive. But slow connections leave bad impressions. And it costs the company more.

Change can certainly take many different forms within an organisation. But the above internal and external factors are becoming increasingly common.

Change inevitably results in some form of disconnected groups, processes, systems and applications. However, networking technology is part of the solution to reconnect all the important aspects of the company. Managing change is managing people, processes, systems and applications.

Changes in behaviour are required for business success in any industry. Today, changes in the way companies use networks is also required.

Companies should not settle for anything less than a positive ROI that involves network intelligence, control, capacity, flexibility and cost savings. Business considerations about the network should be made, not at the end of the strategic business changes, but rather early in the process when both the business changes and the network changes can be made simultaneously for optimal success.