After Digital Transformation: What’s next for Change Management?

Digital transformation is the biggest organizational change that many organizations are going through right now, but what is next for change management? What is next for organizations who have already go through a digital transformation? The reality is, the need for change never stops. This section looks at the future of change management and some upcoming trends.

Change as part of an organization’s DNA

After Digital Transformation, businesses will realise that they simply cannot stand still, and that change cannot be reserved for Change Management type projects. This will mean that organizations will have to make sure that change is part of their DNA. This means everything from hiring the right people to changing the organization to make sure that it can actually cope with fast and continuous change.

Continuous improvement initiatives

Change Management has traditionally been a relatively isolated project within a company which is only instigated when change is needed. However, many bleeding edge organizations are using continue change methodologies such and lean and agile in order to always be improving and changing. For many companies, this will mean that they will start to use formal change management models to implement all kinds of changes, not just large organizational changes.

Automation

Companies will have to adapt to change due to automation. Change Management will be used to help organizations to adapt to automation.

Big data

Organizations are becoming more data-driven and it is becoming a reality for Change Management too. Big Data will become more and more important when it comes to making decisions about what organizational changes to make and how to make them. Change Managers will have to be able to adapt to the data-driven workplace and be able to collect and interpret data in a deeper way. Whilst Change Managers themselves will have to adapt to change to accommodate this shift towards data, data will be a useful tool to make organizational change more accurate and predictable. It may also give rise to new models for Change Management.

There are of course limitations with Big Data. Like the traditional Change Management Models, data cannot always predict the human reaction to change, so Change Managers will still have to have a good handle on their personal skills.

In short, what we can see for the future of Change Management is that it will become more integrated within organizations, and will be driven by data, which will transform Change Management into a more accurate practice - which will increase the importance of it within organizations.

This Article is part of a series about Digital Change Management.

Read the next chapter: Tools and resources for change managers in the digital age

See the whole guide: Change Management in the Digital Age