Strategic Commercial Real Estate Company Transitions to Oracle ERP Cloud and Finds That Change Management and Training Makes All the Difference

Our customer is a global organization, with close to 5,000 employees, providing information and marketing services to the commercial property industry. They have multiple product solutions and are growing quickly.

After a launch in their Canada branch, our Customer is continuing the transition to a modern, enterprise-wide digital Billing and Advanced Collections solution, by implementing Oracle ERP Cloud solution to the US side of their business.  This will allow them to improve their Invoicing to Cash processes and position our Customer for future global revenue scalability.

The goals of this engagement include:

• Increased standardization of billing and advanced collections processes, allowing for scalability and growth. ​
• Efficiencies in processes with ability to do partial batch loads and more automated customer communication. ​
• More visibility through better system accessibility to detailed customer transactional information, such as balances, credits, and receipts. ​
• Added functionality with the collections process and for metrics and reporting.
• A seamless, well communicated project execution after pain points with the Canadian launch.

Apps Associates’ Change Management was brought in to assist with the US rollout after challenges during the Canadian launch. There were no formal RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) resources causing confusion and misalignment regarding responsibilities between our Customer and Apps Associates. The project scope and business expectations were not formally documented and therefore aligned on. Testing was also challenging. There was confusion regarding who should be attending testing sessions and a lack of training on both test rail and the Oracle platforms. Participant roster misalignment resulted in scheduling conflicts. Additionally, there were challenges within the testing environment and there was not sufficient time set aside to properly test. Causing further challenges, our customer was experiencing a large amount of internal turnover and low employee morale. Wanting to ensure a smooth rollout in the US the customer requested that Apps Associates’ Change Management services with a dedicated Change Management and Training team be formally assigned to the US transition.

Change Management discovery workshops were conducted to understand unique pain points and challenges encountered in Phase 1 (the Canada rollout) to the impacted user groups. Structure, alignment, formal project plans, deliverables were provided to the customer including:

• Project vision and branding for the overall implementation.
• Project personas with unique strategies and plans for each user group to ensure everyone’s needs were being met.
• A formal Change Management project plan, including a communication and engagement strategy tied to the impacted user groups, to ensure employees were communicated with and engaged along the change journey.
• Weekly team meetings were scheduled with the Customer’s core team and Apps Change Management/Training team to ensure everyone was informed and the teams were aligned during sprint cycles.
• Training and Testing Support: Full Change Management of testing and training, from communication, content creation and execution. Apps Associates provided:
  • Identification of testing groups and their unique needs.
  • Communication and alignment of expectations to stakeholders, business subject matter experts and the overall project team.
  • Coordination of the testing environment.
  • Navigation training.
  • Overview of “test rail” software/training and assistance to our Customer to ensure seamless reporting.
  • UAT and training sessions for each unique function group both virtually and in person. Supporting content and collateral.

With structure, a weekly team cadence, project personas in place, and formal training support our Customer experienced a more seamless roll out with clear expectations and a more informed and engaged workforce. The stakeholders were better informed and therefore felt more confident in the ERP rollout and how it can help support them in their business transformation. Change Management and Training helped our Customer stakeholders to feel supported and more like a team through constant communication. Bottom line – their choice to include Change Management as a part of this engagement has saved them time, resources and money by helping them to stay on schedule and ensure maximum user adoption.

Over 150 people participated in training, communication and engagement driving morale, efficiencies and adoption rate.