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Acknowledgement
In the Name of Allah, The Most Beneficent and The Most Merciful
I am grateful to Allah Almighty for His utmost graciousness and help throughout
the work of our term report. I bow my head in front of our Lord on the successful
completion of my term project.
This work would not have been possible without the support and guidance of my
course faculty member, Sir Abdul Hameed Khan, who worked actively to
provide class members with his valuable time and accomplish this task. Without
his immense determination and constant check, I would not be able to complete
our term report.
I am grateful to Muhammad Hasan Raza Khan and Muhammad Anas Arshad
with whom I have had the pleasure to work in related tasks of this term report,
whose comments, questions, criticism, encouragement have left a mark on this
work.
I am profoundly indebted to Institute of Business Management for providing me
an opportunity to enhance my skills and rationale through such reports.
Nobody has been more important to me in the pursuit of this term report than our
parents. I would like to thank my parents, whose love and affection is with me all
the time. They are the ultimate role models who provide me with endless
inspiration.
Hopefully, this term report will lead to the positive reception and command for my
hard work. My gratitude to them is beyond words.
â
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.................................................................................................3
Introduction..............................................................................................................4
Contour Software Private Limited ...........................................................................5
History of Company..............................................................................................5
Services Provided by Company ............................................................................5
Change as the Modern Constant ..............................................................................8
Change Powered by Communication....................................................................8
Change Powered by Sense....................................................................................9
Drivers of Change...............................................................................................10
Change Management Strategy ............................................................................12
Managing Change Behavior of Employees.........................................................15
Methodology of Change Management...................................................................16
Change Management Approach..........................................................................16
Method Adopted to Identify Stakeholders ..........................................................17
Method Adopted to Communicate with Stakeholders ........................................17
Method Adopted for Employee Engagement and Readiness ..............................19
Organizational Development (OD): Way Forward to Innovative Strategy............20
What is Organizational Development? ...............................................................20
Need for Innovative Strategy..............................................................................20
Conclusion .............................................................................................................22
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Executive Summary
Change management ensures that the right resources and processes are in place so that an
organization effectively transitions to the desired future state and at the planned pace. The
strategy adopted by Contour Software Private Limited provides the approach to change
management overall and for each of the major change processes occurred during the course of
time has been covered in this report.
Contour Software Private Limited is an emerging organization operating information technology
industry providing specialized software services and software maintenance services to various
local and foreign customers. This company has been facing dynamic change processes in order
to stabilize its current position within the industry with purpose of fostering transformation
through Stakeholder identification and engagement, consistent communications, staff training
and employee engagement within newly introduced change processes.
The goal of change strategy is to follow an established change model and approach to bring
transformation amongst stakeholders of Contour Software Private Limited along the change
journey.
Most of the details are based on feedback from employees, managers and senior executives with
respect to their observations while company was undergoing huge change processes during the
initial years of establishment.
The areas of change strategy includes redesigning work processes, implementation of software
solutions, evaluating impact of organization environment and culture, monitoring desired
behaviors to achieve employee commitment and influence of other factors that could impact
adoption of latest processes.
Being subjected to comprehensive business transformation program to modernize and improve
the state of administrative systems and related business processes common across departments,
Contour Software Private Limited focuses on enterprise transformation readiness and adoption
level considering the need for change leadership, culture change and behavior change to ensure
consistency in navigation of organizational development.
Change Management is related to successful planning, managing, executing and adopting of
enterprise systems within all levels of an organization. This company has applied structure and
thought to change management and remains flexible in its approach to guiding stakeholders to
the ultimate objective of change commitment and adoption of new business structure.
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Introduction
Software companies must continually cope up with extremely rapid changes which demand an
innovative technological and managerial response. Such a response must redefine the firmsâ
organizational assets in order to achieve a satisfactory degree of adaptation to the external
environment.
As a consequence, innovation is a necessary condition, not only for increasing the emerging
software firmsâ competitiveness, but primarily to ensure their survival. It is an observable fact
that firm which is not able to maintain satisfying levels of innovation capabilities through time
show weak performance in terms of competitiveness and economic results.
It is well known that one of the most important assumptions of the resource-based competition
approach is that a firmâs competitive advantage is strictly connected to the kind and the amount
of specific resources that firms are able to acquire, develop, and manage in the course of time.
According to the resource-based view, emerging firmsâ competitiveness is linked to their
capability in acquiring and developing strategic resources .It is possible to evaluate innovation
capabilities on the basis of the kind and amount of specific resources managed by emerging
software firms during years of business.
Within the dimensions of theoretical viewpoint, life of an organization can be represented as a
succession of stable phases separated by critical events, after which firms are forced to modify
their own resources in order to adapt and react better to environmental changes.
Once that life of organization has been described in terms of stable phases and critical events, it
is possible to identify, for each phase, the resources on the basis of which one may measure
firmâs innovation capabilities.
The evaluation of current innovation capabilities in emerging software firms can be done by
accessing the degree of market innovation capability (DMIC) as the measure to enhance and
innovate its market in a given instant of time, market innovation trend (LMI) as the variation of
the DMIC through time, degree of technological innovation capability (DTIC) as the measure of
the firmâs capability to increase its level of technological know-how and expertise, in a given
instant of time and the technological innovation trend (LTI) as the variation of the DTIC through
specified period of time on basis of entrepreneurial, economic and human resources linked with
external networks to carry out effective communication and coordination with foreign clients.
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Contour Software Private Limited
History of Company
Contour Software, is registered with the SECP and PSEB since its beginnings in 2010 and is
subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc. which was formed in 1995.
While groundwork for its inception started as early as 2008, with pilot projects performed over
an 18 month period in order to prove the concept, Constellationâs acquisition of Gladstone PLC
(now Gladstone MRM) culminated in the launch of Contour.
Gladstone had a small team in Karachi since 2007; Contourâs birth resulted in a tenfold increase
in headcount, over the first three year period. Today, as many as 80 Constellation departments
have teams located at the Contour offices in Karachi, Lahore & Islamabad.
We continue to seek out bright and experienced talent, to fuel our organic growth initiatives as
well as our inorganic growth maintenance requirements.
Constellation Software Inc. became publicly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2006.
Constellation is a rapidly growing conglomerate of vertical market software (VMS) companies;
each focused upon dominating its respective market niche. Constellationâs growth is based on a
simple strategy: identify promising VMS firms; acquire them; and then integrate them into the
Constellation family while building on their fundamental strengths to help them become world
class organizations.
Services Provided by Company
The following services are being provided by company since its inauguration in information
technology industry:
ďˇ Specialized Services
o Application & UI/UX Modernization
o Initiatives Development
o Software Quality Services â Test Automation
o Software Maintenance
ďˇ Industry Verticals Served
o Construction Management Systems
o Metal Service Centre Management Systems
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o Fitness, Sports & Leisure Management Systems
o Attractions Management Systems
o Club Management Systems
o Dynamic Case Management Systems
o Electronic Medical Record Management Systems
o Property Appraisal & Tax Collection Management Systems
o School Solutions â Nutrition, Information, Specialized, Financial Management
Systems
o Retail Management Systems
o Asset Management â Facilities, Fleet, Appraisal â Management Systems
o Financial Services â Insurance Industry Payment Processing Management
Systems
o People Transportation â Fixed Route & Demand Response â Management
Systems
o Rental Management Systems
o Cultural Collections Management Systems
o Homebuilder Management Systems
o Dealership Management Systems
o Leasing & Financing Management Systems
o Real Estate Agent & Brokerage Management Systems
o Manufacturing Execution â Pulp & Paper, Pharma & Biologics â Management
Systems
ďˇ Departments Served
o Research and Development
o Finance
o Information technology
o Customer Support
o Professional Services
ďˇ Functions Served
o Software Development
o Software Quality Assurance
o Software Documentation
o Software Database Management
o Software UI/UX Design
o IT Systems Administration & Management â Divisional & Corporate
o Finance â Clerical and Analytical Accounting Services
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o Customer Support Augmentation
o Professional Services â Initial & Ongoing
ďˇ Technology Stacks Served
o NET
o JavaScript
o iOS & Android
o SalesForce
o SharePoint
o PowerBuilder
o VB6
o Delphi
o Progress
o Pick â Universe
o Oracle Apex
o Test Complete
o Selenium
o MS CodedUI Test
o Robohelp
o Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL
o Windows, Linux
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Change as the Modern Constant
All business management happens in a certain context: in an environment and its organizations,
two variables that are in constant change. These changes make it important for us to understand
business management more and more as change management. Business management has a
twofold purpose here: First, it deals with business in the present and makes sure that it operates
as it should. Second, it needs to look to the future, that is, keep supplying visions that include
both problems and the promise of their solution, to prepare organizations for that future. This is
not a one-off, temporary incident, but a never-ending process.
Change management has become part of everyday life, while the same time change programs
themselves are creating a need for even more change programs. One reform is the cause for the
next. Change management leads to more change management. Caught in this cycle,
organizations begin to hyperventilate. Stability, not change, becomes the exception, and people
are still expected to ďŹnd their way in those circumstances. This would seem a considerable
challenge for any actor caught up in this. To understand the actual forces that compel
organizations to keep changing, a closer look is required at the more general forces at work
within environment at large.
Change Powered by Communication
Communication is becoming increasingly open, irrespective of the location of the participants in
it. It seems to happen across all established organizational boundaries. It is happening and
reproducing itself as a result of its chosen means of reproduction. This inďŹuence the shape of the
organizations in which employees works every day. It provides the starting point for speculations
about the future. Contour Software Private limited has undergone a process of functional
differentiation to become highly specialized entity. In knowledge-intensive areas, it is
increasingly involved with experts that engage with networks of other experts or other
organizations to keep the evolution of their own areas energized.
No organization can endeavor to store all of this knowledge in the hope of using it as some later
juncture. The most economical solution is a network of distributed knowledge, ready for access
at the point of need. Experts in information technology industry are constantly engaged in
producing new knowledge and are putting that knowledge at the disposal of the community of
experts. This was one of the reasons for the shifting distribution of power in this company. Power
is now not the reserve of the peak of the hierarchical pyramid; it is increasingly the power of
expertise distributed in the internal and external network as adopted by this company where
horizontal structure is being followed. Departments are led by teams on basis of projects to
remove communication barriers and develop cordial surroundings.
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Doing business today has increasingly come to mean keeping in touch with communications and
the diversity of perspectives, which requires certain conditions to be in place. The diversity of
perspectives offers the opportunity to minimize the threat of an always unknowable future.
Digitalization accelerates the pace of human communication, disregarding the old constraints of
geography. Such a pace almost inevitably means that change and change management had to
become the key paradigms of modern society and its organizations.
Within surroundings of Contour Software Private limited, information ďŹows freely across levels,
teams make their own decisions, work on speciďŹc projects evolves in response to need as they
arise, and task is more important than position. With this mass of (potentially relevant)
information, employees need to ďŹnd out what really matters for the situation they are facing or
the next project along the way. This makes reďŹection skills an essential competence for life in
modern organizations. Apart from the organizationâs own reďŹective capabilities, the burden is
also on the individual member to ensure the organizationâs effective development.
Change Powered by Sense
What will be the future of change management in such emerging organizations? What can stay in
organizations? What must not change? Where can things persist? Which management fads will
not be followed? Which trends are gladly ignored?
These are just some of the questions that show what the coming counter-movement to change
management would look like. The future of change management might lie not in change, but in
stability. These questions are particularly relevant for employees working in this company who
are affected by the constant change processes in organizations. It is they who are forced by
change to engage in sense-making processes and recover the stability for coordinated action.
More than ever, it seems clear that stability can be a strategic advantage for organizations and
their people in a world that is in constant ďŹux. One essential aspect of future change management
is termed âstability managementâ.
This change management of the future must be able to master the dense mass of communication,
observations, and, in the end, participation in todayâs world. It is generally accepted that planned
change process can only be conducted with the involvement of the people affected by it. The
change process might not go to plan, but they will change along the way until they become
compatible with the actual state of the social system.
If these communication processes and the expertise of the people concerned are taken seriously,
then the change management of the future ďŹrst needs to engage in a dialogue about which change
projects make sense from the point of view of the affected people.
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Business Imperatives
Leader and Employee Mindset
Leader and Employee Behavior
Cultural Imperatives
Organizational Imperatives
Business Imperatives
Marketplace Requirements for Success
Environment
Change management will therefore begin with a âprenatal phaseâ, which negotiates whether and
what to change to get management closer to the employees and their unique viewpoints. The
future of change management therefore lies in managing the contact between managers and
employees.
Drivers of Change
âDrivers of Change Modelâ clarify what drives the need for change, especially transformational
change. The model describes seven drivers, four that leaders are traditionally familiar with and
three that are relatively new areas of serious focus for many.
The model illustrates that the need for change is catalyzed by dynamic shifts in the environment,
which establish new requirements for success in organizationâs marketplace. These new
customer requirements catalyze a need for new business imperatives (strategies), which then
require changes in our organization to execute them. These may include changes to structure,
systems, business processes, or technology (content).
The Drivers of Change Model portrays a sequence to these change triggers, with one trigger
calling forth change in the next, and the next, and so on.
Figure 1: Drivers of Change
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The terms in Drivers of Change Model has been defined as given below:
(1) Environment: The dynamics that occur in t he larger context within which
organizations and people operate. These forces include the following:
a. Social
b. Business and Economic
c. Political
d. Governmental
e. Technological
f. Demographic
g. Legal
h. Natural Environment
Major shifts in any one or more of these areas can catalyze new marketplace
requirements for success for organizations.
(2) Marketplace Requirements for Success: The aggregate set of customer requirements
that determine what it takes for a business to succeed in its marketplace and meet its
customersâ needs. This includes not only actual product or service needs but also
requirements such as speed of delivery, customization capability, level of quality, need
for innovation, level of customer service, and so on. Changes in marketplace
requirements are the result of changes in environmental forces. For instance, as the
environment becomes infused with new technology that makes speed and innovation
commonplace, customers demand higher quality customized products and services and
expect them faster. To succeed in the marketplace, you must meet these new
requirements for success, and your organization must go through the changes required to
do so.
(3) Business Imperatives: What the company must do strategically to be successful, given
its new marketplace (customer) requirements? New business imperatives can include the
systematic rethinking and change to the companyâs mission, strategy, goals, business
model, products, services, pricing, or branding. Essentially, business imperatives pertain
to the organizationâs strategy for succeeding in its market. As environmental forces
catalyze new marketplace requirements for success, leaders must respond with a new
business strategy.
(4) Organizational Imperatives: What must change in the organizationâs structure,
systems, processes, technology, resources, skill base, or staffing to implement and
achieve its strategic business imperatives?
(5) Cultural Imperatives: The norms, or collective way of being, working, and relating in
the company, that must change to support and drive the organizationâs new design,
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operations, and strategy. For instance, a culture of teamwork may be required to support
reengineering business processes (organizational imperatives) to drive the strategy
(business imperative) of faster cycle time and increased customer responsiveness.
(6) Leader and Employee Behavior: How behavior must change in both leaders and staff
members to express the organizationâs desired culture. Behavior speaks to more than
just overt actions: It describes the style, tone, or character that permeates what people
do. It speaks to how peopleâs way of being must change to establish a new culture.
Therefore, leader and employee behavior denotes the ways in which leaders and
employees must behave differently to re - create the organizationâs culture to implement
and sustain the new organizational design.
(7) Leader and Employee Mindset: How leadersâ and staff membersâ views, assumptions,
beliefs, or mental models must change for people to enact the desired behavior and
culture. Mindset is t he underlying force that causes people to behave and act as they do.
Becoming aware that each of us has a mindsetâ and that it directly impacts our behavior,
decisions, actions, and results â is often the critical first step in building a personâ s and
an organizationâs ability to transform. A change in employee mindset is oft en required
for them to understand the rationale for the changes being asked of them. And almost
always, if t he organization is going through significant transformation of its strategy,
organizational design, and culture, then leaders and employees must transform their
mindsets to operate in it successfully.
Change Management Strategy
Change Management Strategy is based on Accenture change model addressing four key
dimensions of the change journey:
1. Navigating change
2. Leading change
3. Providing tools to enable change
4. Facilitating ownership of the change
In the Navigation dimension, the framework is developed to include change objectives, priorities
and measurement approaches. The Leadership dimension includes the development of a
sponsorship program, the establishment and communication of a shared executive vision, and
setting expectations for the change process. The Enablement dimension defines communication,
training and other related performance management and organizational design requirements.
Lastly, the Ownership dimension is where those impacted by the change exhibit commitment to
new targets through various involvement activities.
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Main Activities Main Activities
Figure 2: Accenture Change Model
The change model can be mapped to the change commitment curve to indicate the activities that
should be performed at each stage to help users progress to the next stage.
Goal: Follow the change approach to bring individual users of the new systems successfully
through the change commitment curve to arrive at a state of change commitment.
â˘Plan communications and
involvement activties
â˘Educate impacted personnel on
the change process
â˘Develop local action teams and
facilitate implementation
â˘Revise workflows
⢠Revise procedure
â˘Redesign physical
environment
â˘Design New/Modified jobs
â˘Training and performance
support
â˘Establish shared executive
vision and communicate it to
stakeholders
â˘Develop a Leadership
Sponsorship Program
â˘Provide leadership with
coaching/facilitation
â˘Program management
framework (direction and
pace of change)
â˘Models/methodologies
â˘Measurement strategies
â˘Technical/Business
archictecture
â˘Set change objectives
â˘Set priorities
Navigation
What management
mechanisms will help
Contour Software
optimize its
investment?
Leadership
How can we help
agency leaders
effectively champion
change?
Ownership
How do we help
stakeholders feel part
of the change versus
victims of change ?
Enablement
How do we give
stakeholders the tools
and support to be
successful?
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Figure 3: Change Commitment Curve
Successfully managing the four dimensions of the change model has ensured commitment for the
change and increased the ability of Contour Software and enterprise partners to sustain and build
upon that change. The focus and importance of each of the change modelâs four dimensions and
the related change activities vary during the change lifecycle. For example:
ďˇ To build Awareness, Contour Software has utilized multiple communication tools such as
meetings, emails and videos to build broad awareness of the change â when itâs
happening, why itâs happening and how itâs happening. Change Navigation is the
structure in place through which communications can happen.
ďˇ To build Understanding, Contour Software has focused on employee engagement and
championship (Leadership functions), as well as two-way communications vehicles such
as a Transformation Agent Network and advisory committees. Communications will be
aimed at building an understanding of how the change impacts peoplesâ work.
ďˇ To build Buy-In, Contour Software has collaborated with enterprise partners to develop
and provide in-depth training and on-the-job support to impacted employees. This is
Enablement.
ďˇ To build Commitment, Contour Software has developed sense of ownership amongst
employees.
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Managing Change Behavior of Employees
In addition to culture, change behaviors are a critical contributing factor to the success of
Contour Software. An individual can change or modify their behavior, provided that the desired
behaviors can be modeled and supported. This means identifying desired behaviors for each of
the change phases during the implementation:
ďˇ Leadership to model the desired behavior
ďˇ Dissemination of information to provide certainty
ďˇ Establish peer networks to create community and mutual support
Recently, Contour Software had undergone various changes which are as follows:
1. Structural Change
The structure of organization was remodeled were different levels of hierarchy were defined, for
instance, three senior executives will be changed into five senior executives causing the pay
scales to be revised. The organization design moved towards horizontal structure based on teams
working on diverse projects. The resistance to change was observed in the environment causing
Contour Software to conduct Town Hall Meeting in order to empower employees undergoing
change circumstances and providing them with platform to clarify any ambiguous views
regarding structural changes where information was dissemination to provide certainty by head
of departments. The employees raising questions determining their level of willingness to accept
the change were noted down to cater their needs with respect to perceived expectations for
seamless change process.
2. Change in Infrastructure
New location was assigned to Contour Software were employees having transportation issues
were asked to visit the new office and provide their feedback for timely response towards
required actions leading towards employee satisfaction and ownership. Various leadership
programs were conducted to ensure the consistency between observations taken at pre-
implementation stage and post-implementation stage. For effective change management, Contour
Software had assigned a team leader so that employees mutually support each other under the
supervision of a leader ensuring any inconveniences to employees and guiding them towards the
goals behind the change of infrastructure from one location to another.
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Methodology of Change Management
Change Management Approach
Contour Software has followed a change management approach for each stage of
implementation, integrating change activities and efforts with the overall implementation phase
efforts, and promoting successful end user commitment and adoption of the stateâs investment.
Figure 3: Change Management Approach
The work streams of the Change Management Approach are:
(1) Plan Change: Establishes and anchors the change effort. During plan change, the
Contour Software Transformation team confirmed the stakeholders and understood how
they will be affected by the implementation phase. Specific change plans developed
during this phase define change management activities and timelines.
(2) Stakeholder Engagement: Identifies Contour Software stakeholders and validates that
they are appropriately engaged in the change effort, and are preparing to adopt the
upcoming changes.
(3) Communications: Contour Software developed a communications and engagement
strategy, where planning was done to move stakeholders to their targeted level of change
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commitment, ensuring that communication is synchronized with the program phase or
implementation schedule.
(4) Training: Training and performance support strategy was developed to enable
implementation of change processes effectively.
(5) Business User Engagement and Readiness: The change ecosystem was also defined to
support end user engagement and readiness for the implementation go-live and beyond.
Method Adopted to Identify Stakeholders
Stakeholders are the key to a strong and successful change program. This includes analysis and
documentation of stakeholder commitment, concerns and other factors for consideration through
Change Championship; which is essential for change championship to be demonstrated at the
executive level down to mid-level leadership of enterprise partners. These leaders behaving as
change role models for Contour Software are critical. In this case, role of leadership is vital to
have actively engaged program sponsors to assist with setting the change programâs strategy and
direction.
Key activities included in stakeholder identification are as follows:
ďˇ Identification and segmentation of stakeholders (including key stakeholders)
ďˇ Understanding stakeholder goals and expectations by conducting interviews where
necessary
ďˇ Assessing level of stakeholder commitment, knowledge and influence
ďˇ Planning actions and engagements to address specific stakeholder needs
ďˇ Monitoring and evaluating agency and stakeholder engagement
Continuous analysis captures stakeholder expectations, roles, partner priorities, end user
priorities, concerns and status on the change commitment curve.
Method Adopted to Communicate with Stakeholders
The goal of the Contour Software communication strategy was to communicate the right
message to the right audience at the right time.
Objectives of the communication strategy were to:
ďˇ Confirm which stakeholders will be impacted by the Program, and to ensure the
appropriate content and timing of messages.
ďˇ Identify stakeholders who contribute to communications.
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ďˇ Establish communication objectives and activities relative to stakeholder groups at a
specific point in time, in order to move them along the change commitment curve
(awareness, understanding, acceptance and commitment).
ďˇ Devise and define the structure to communicate key messages and the timeline, to answer
the questions âwhy, how, who, where and whenâ for each audience group.
ďˇ Identify delivery methods/vehicles, senders and delivery dates for messages.
ďˇ Establish feedback mechanisms to evaluate and assess communication effectiveness
For communications to be effective there must be a balance of frequency, methods and channels
to provide meaningful information to the individuals who need it and when they need it. Also,
there must be mechanisms to enable two-way communication/feedback.
Contour Software communications strategy provides the overall structure for delivering effective
communications. The strategy includes development of a communications plan that:
1. Details how different target audiences will be informed and engaged.
2. Defines the mechanisms for involving the target audiences and gathering their feedback,
issues and concerns.
3. Outlines a process for systematic delivery of timely, consistent, accurate and relevant
messages through multiple channels to increase comprehension and retention.
4. Controls the flow of information and aligns proactive messages with program
implementation plans and objectives.
5. Provides stakeholders with clear information to support the Programâs objectives and
navigate the change commitment curve.
Certain factors are important for the coordination of communication activities. The following
factors will be considered before initiating any communication activity:
Compelling: Contour Software communications appealed stakeholderâs sense of
purpose, and answer why their investment in and commitment to this program is
important and beneficial to them.
Simplicity: The aim of communications was to reduce the volume of information being
sent so that messages are being relayed clearly and concisely. Information was
disseminated in an appropriate timeframe and only with information that is needed at the
time.
Consistency: Contour Software communications remained consistent regarding and
timing. To achieve consistency, Contour Software transformation team used key
messages, standard templates, and timing for similar messages.
Continuous Improvement: The transformation team was able to continuously improve
communications. The team evaluated and assessed communication effectiveness by
asking recipients for feedback. The feedback received was shared with the appropriate
stakeholders so that targeted improvements can be implemented.
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The overall purpose of the communication effort was to build awareness of the change, increase
understanding of the impacts, secure stakeholder commitment to the change, and to help verify
operational readiness of affected employees.
1) Awareness â Awareness by Contour Software involved ability to articulate program-
related basic facts, and recognize key individuals.
2) Understanding â Understanding of the change programâs scope, benefits, impacts,
stakeholder benefits, and pursuit of additional information.
3) Acceptance â Active participation in program activities and requests led towards
developing an ability to independently articulate benefits and impacts of the Contour
Software change program
4) Commitment â Integration of new system and processes into the standard way of
working where advocates for the change program suggested several ways to improve.
Method Adopted for Employee Engagement and Readiness
A fundamental component of Contour Software Transformation program was the focus on
employee engagement and readiness. For this company, it means:
ď§ Defining a change structure with an aim to have well-defined and validated ownership
and commitment from stakeholders
ď§ Establishing and launching the Transformation Steering Committees and Transformation
Network with roles and responsibilities for members
ď§ Tracking stakeholder readiness for each implementation phase
Transformation Network was responsible for facilitating change which included business
employee adoption of the new businesses processes and systems within identified internal and
external stakeholder. This was accomplished through stakeholder engagement, communications,
trainings and employee readiness.
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Organizational Development (OD): Way Forward to
Innovative Strategy
What is Organizational Development?
Organizational development (OD) is defined by practitioners and theorists in different ways, due
in part to its complexity. Essentially, it is a deliberately planned, organization-wide effort to
increase an organizationâs effectiveness and enable an organization to achieve its strategic goals.
The concept formally emerged in the 1950s (though some theories date back to 1920) and is
generally credited to psychologist Kurt Lewin. It encompasses both the theory and practice of
planned, systemic change in the attitudes, beliefs and behavior of employees through long-term
training programmes and is often described as action-oriented. Typically, it starts with careful
organization-wide diagnosis of the status quo and needs.
Before working on OD activities, an essential first step is to map the organizational context in
which the changes you are hoping to catalyze will occur. This means understanding factors that
are going to affect your work, what approach you may be subconsciously bringing to the
activities, and being able to determine an organizationâs âreadinessâ to work with you and
develop for themselves the required innovations. It can help diagnose who and how many people
agree with or decide upon the nature of change to come within an organization, and it can help
you identify who to work within that organization to lead the change process.
Need for Innovative Strategy
Innovation initiatives frequently fail, and successful innovators have a hard time sustaining their
performance such as Polaroid, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, and
countless others have been found. Why is it so hard to build and maintain the capacity to
innovate? The reasons go much deeper than the commonly cited cause: a failure to execute. The
problem with innovation improvement efforts is rooted in the lack of an innovation strategy.
A strategy is nothing more than a commitment to a set of coherent, mutually reinforcing policies
or behaviors aimed at achieving a specific competitive goal. Good strategies promote alignment
among diverse groups within an organization; clarify objectives and priorities, and help focus
efforts around them. Companies regularly define their overall business strategy (their scope and
positioning) and specify how various functionsâsuch as marketing, operations, finance, and
R&Dâwill support it.
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Without an innovation strategy, innovation improvement efforts can easily become a grab bag of
much-touted best practices: dividing R&D into decentralized autonomous teams, spawning
internal entrepreneurial ventures, setting up corporate venture-capital arms, pursuing external
alliances, embracing open innovation and crowd sourcing, collaborating with customers, and
implementing rapid prototyping, to name just a few. There is nothing wrong with any of those
practices. The problem is that an organizationâs capacity for innovation stems from an innovation
system: a coherent set of interdependent processes and structures that dictates how the company
searches for novel problems and solutions, synthesizes ideas into a business concept and product
designs, and selects which projects get funded. Individual best practices involve trade-offs. A
company without an innovation strategy will not be able to make trade-off decisions and choose
all the elements of the innovation system.
There is no one system that fits all companies equally well or works under all circumstances.
There is nothing wrong, of course, with learning from others, but it is a mistake to believe that
what works for, say, Apple (todayâs favorite innovator) is going to work for your organization.
An explicit innovation strategy will help Contour Software to design a system to match its
specific competitive needs.
Finally, without an innovation strategy, different parts of an organization can easily wind up
pursuing conflicting priorities even if there is a clear business strategy. Sales representatives hear
daily about the pressing needs of the biggest customers. Marketing may see opportunities to
leverage the brand through complementary products or to expand market share through new
distribution channels. Business unit heads are focused on their target markets and their particular
P&L pressures. R&D scientists and engineers tend to see opportunities in new technologies.
Diverse perspectives are critical to successful innovation. But without a strategy to integrate and
align those perspectives around common priorities, the power of diversity is blunted or, worse,
becomes self-defeating.
Innovation cuts across just about every function. Only senior leaders can orchestrate such a
complex system. They must take prime responsibility for the processes, structures, talent, and
behaviors that shape how an organization searches for innovation opportunities, synthesizes
ideas into concepts and product designs, and selects what to do. Just as product designs must
evolve to stay competitive, so too must innovation strategies. Like the process of innovation
itself, an innovation strategy in Contour Software involves continual experimentation, learning,
and adaptation in align with unfolding realities of markets, technologies, regulations, and
competitors in software industry.
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Conclusion
In this report, we have presented a methodology to measure the change management capabilities
of Contour Software where success at large-scale transformation demands more than the best
strategic and tactical plans. It requires an intimate understanding of the human side, as well as
companyâs culture, values, people, and behaviors that must be changed to deliver the desired
results. Value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of thousands or tens of
thousands of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living the change. No
single methodology fits every company, but a set of practices, tools, and techniques can be
adapted to a variety of situations. Change leaders must over-perform during the transformation
and be the zealots that create critical mass for change in the workforce. This requires more than
mere buy-in or passive agreement that the direction of change is acceptable. It demands
ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change happen in all of the
areas they influence or control. Successful change programs pick up speed and intensity as they
cascade down, making it critically important to understand and account for culture and behaviors
at each level of the organization. They serve as the common fact baseline for designing key
change elements, such as the new corporate vision, and building the infrastructure and programs
needed to drive change.
