Change management in companies: a method to transform without failing

According to McKinsey & Company, 70% of transformation projects in companies fail. The main reason is not technology or a lack of budget: it is internal resistance to change. A study by the consultancy BTS confirms that 84% of digital transformation initiatives that stall do so because of the workforce, not the tools. The difference between companies that transform successfully and those that do not comes down to one specific discipline: change management.

What is organisational change management?

Change management is the set of methodologies, processes and tools that allow an organisation to move from a current state to a desired state while minimising resistance, accelerating adoption and maximising results. It is not about communicating a project better: it is about designing the human path of the transformation.

Change management addresses three dimensions at once:

• Individual: how each person on the team experiences, accepts and adopts the change
• Organisational: how the company's processes, structures and culture adapt
• Strategic: how the change aligns with medium and long-term business objectives

Research by Prosci, a global reference in change management, showed that 76% of change projects meet significant resistance at some level of the organisation (Prosci, 2023).

Is your company going through a transformation? Talk to our team for a free assessment of your change management.

The two methodologies that work: ADKAR and Kotter

The ADKAR model (Prosci)

Developed by Jeff Hiatt, the ADKAR model focuses on the individual transition of each person facing change. The acronym stands for five sequential stages:

ADKAR is particularly effective for SMEs because it lets you diagnose the stage at which each team gets stuck and act precisely.

Kotter's 8-step model

John Kotter, a professor at Harvard Business School, proposes an 8-step approach geared to the leadership of the transformation:

1. Create a sense of urgency
2. Build a guiding coalition
3. Develop a vision and a strategy
4. Communicate the change vision
5. Empower employees to act
6. Generate short-term wins
7. Consolidate the gains
8. Anchor the change in the culture

Kotter works well for larger-scale transformations where senior leadership is the main engine of change.

Why do transformation projects fail without change management?

Harvard Business Review found that 45% of companies point to the lack of alignment between the change strategy and the organisational structure as the main barrier to effective transformation.

The most frequent causes of failure:

• Insufficient communication: teams do not understand why things are changing or what is expected of them
• Absent leadership: management launches the project but does not stay with it day to day
• Inadequate training: new tools are rolled out without training the people who will use them
• No early wins: if there are no results in the first few weeks, motivation drops
• Not measuring adoption: the technical progress of the project is measured, but not real adoption by the team

These mistakes are avoidable with change management consultancy that works alongside the transformation project, not as a secondary task.

Change management is not an add-on: it is the factor that decides success. Talk to Tecnocim Innova about building it into your project.

Change management applied to digital transformation

Digital transformation is the context where change management is needed most. Rolling out an ERP, migrating to the cloud, adopting AI tools or automating processes are all projects that fail if the team does not adopt them.

A change management plan for a digital transformation project includes:

• Stakeholder map: identify who is affected by each change and to what degree
• Communication plan: differentiated messages for senior management, middle managers and operational teams
• Training plan: technical training plus support in the real use of the new tools
• Network of change agents: people inside each team who act as reference points and facilitators
• Adoption metrics: indicators that measure not only whether the system works, but whether people use it

Spanish programmes such as Activa Industria 4.0 include change management as an integral part of digital transformation consultancy, precisely because without it the technical assessment does not translate into results.

When to hire change management consultancy

Not every change requires the same level of support. Change management consultancy is particularly necessary when:

• A new ERP or management system is rolled out that affects the whole organisation
• A digital transformation project is run with public grants (Kit Digital, PERTE, CDTI: Spanish schemes, open to companies operating in Spain)
• An organisational restructuring takes place: merger, acquisition, generational handover
• New ways of working are introduced: Agile, lean, hybrid working
• Artificial intelligence is adopted in key processes (with training obligations under the AI Act)

Your next step

Change management is the difference between a project that transforms and one that fails. At Tecnocim Innova we offer specialist change management consultancy that builds change management into every transformation project.

Our approach combines the ADKAR and Kotter methodologies with more than 30 years of experience supporting companies through change. We design the change management plan in parallel with the technical project so that adoption is real from day one.

Contact us for a free review. We will analyse your transformation project and design the change strategy your team needs.