he media industry is changing faster than ever.” How many times have you
Good change management isn’t about working hard to keep pace with progress. It’s about having the right processes – and people – in position so when change inevitably comes, it can be digested in a way that the organisation gets the most benefit. You want change to become propulsion, rather than a brake. Technology is a principal catalyst for change across many industries. As technology develops the business environment, organisations need to rethink their own technology in order to operate more effectively. The major sticking point for companies adopting new tech is not understanding that when you upgrade or alter technology, you also need to amend how your organisation works. We all reflexively believe that a fresh software update means we’ll be able to do what we’ve been doing both faster and better. But any change in processes demands a change in the business itself. Plenty of media companies, particularly in the content creation world, are still using analogue-based methodologies and concepts – in some cases, practices that haven’t changed significantly in 50 years. Or in the digital world, companies simply try to continue mimicking their on-premises workflows and processes in the cloud.
COPING WITH CHANGE “Organisation change and technology change go along with each other,” explains Peter Nöthen, CEO of Qvest, Germany-headquartered systems integrator and specialist in helping companies in their digital transformation. “We discovered that our clients differentiate themselves by technology and their technology stack. But we found out very fast what was missing – you have to take the people with you.” Nöthen noted that in helping clients, especially big clients, there was resistance to altering the organisation and workflows, even when physical changes to the business were massive. “We have clients moving from one building to another, who might say: ‘we’ll have everything new now, we’ll start from scratch.’ But in practical terms they actually don’t want to change. They want exactly what they had in the old building. And that issue was a driver for us to start helping with change management.” Qvest focuses on two elements of the digital change process – helping organisations to change themselves and the bigger picture of evolving how work is done today and tomorrow. The principle behind Qvest’s change management service is not to help a company make a
heard this panicky cliché? You’ve probably even read it in the pages of FEED . Yes, the industry is changing, and yes, new technologies allow massive scaling and rapid shifts in business models, as well as great volatility in markets and audiences. But change involves interactions of complex processes. It is almost never linear, and does not steadily accelerate like a train. Sometimes, when change comes, we don’t recognise it as such. Often we focus on a specific challenge or worry, which blinds us to the real shifts happening behind our backs. Most organisations are reactive. They alter strategies when pressure from outside finally forces them. It’s human nature to stick with what you have, rather than throw the dice on an unknown. But the most successful businesses will be those who are watching the industry like surfers watching waves, ready to jump on the one that’s going to take them on the best ride. To do that, you need a clear analysis of what’s happening – not just, to paraphrase The Far Side cartoon, “change change Ginger change change change Ginger...”
IN PRACTICAL TERMS, THEY ACTUALLY DON’T WANT TO CHANGE. THEY WANT EXACTLY WHAT THEY HAD IN THE OLD BUILDING
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