E-commerce change management

The goal of this report is to analyze a change management process of an existing e-commerce company. "Change management should be seen as a process for managing all changes to the project, including assets and its outcomes". (Solving the problem..

. ") The IT company which we have researched is company "A" of the management report of Borland 'the open ALM company'. Two students of the International Business and Management study made this report within the E-Commerce class. The information that is used in this report is from the internet and from the book of John Hayes called "The Theory and Practice of Change Management".By analysing Company A the seven step model of Hayes and Hyde from 1998 of the book is used.

This model presents a theoretical framework for thinking about the management of change and to define the whole change management process. ("Process models of change") The overall process took longer than expected because of problems with finding an existing change management report of an E-Commerce company. After all the whole process took around two weeks. The report starts with problems within company A and it follows the whole process of change management.Attention is focused on the need for change, the changing process, the diagnosis, the plan to solve the issue(s), implementation and finally the review of the process of changes. The conclusion of the report is that company A had problems to manage imperfections and to keep up with the need for development of their software delivery process.

Focusing on these problems and on the report recommended is that this company first should increase efficiency in their company. This is followed by making use of a new software program which makes connections between assets.Finally need for changes are collected, organised and linked with each other to get an overall view of all the projects instead of project by project. However, this company A has to keep in mind that changes will never stop and while implementing the changes discussed in the report, the need for other changes already arise. Core business Borland "Improving the Software Delivery Process Through Open ALM" ("Improving the Software..

. ") This company helps (global) IT organisations to change their software delivery into a controlled, well-organised, and predictable business process.They can manage this by a mix of technology and services. They offer complete ALM solutions, 'ALM' stands for Application Lifecycle Management. Their main aim is to guarantee their customers through these ALM solutions the best practices and continuously improvements of their software delivery processes. Borland provides these services to global companies for more than 20 years now.

Change management plays an important role when facing changes in the needs of the business.A quick respond to these changes increases the organisation's business alertness which will have important advantages in the fast changing business world of today. Borland's software teams can control and organize these changes by an application lifecycle as shown below. These teams are specialised in decreasing inefficient and costly communication and overall ineffectiveness.

Focusing on critical processes these specialised teams can improve certainty, efficiency and visibility and therefore an increased control over the complete software delivery process. (Improving the software... )1) The external change, problems and opportunities Company A was facing a complex problem with managing the "constant stream of defects" and development desires on their software delivery projects.

This company trained their employees to use standard changing processes for their project portfolio which was automatically installed with the use of an industry-leading change tracking and service management product. It is clear that this company invested a huge amount of human en financial resources to solve their change management problems which would lead to major and considerable results.("Partial Solutions..

. ) 2) Recognition of the need for change Even though Company A put so much effort on this changing process they still faced huge costs and a lack of time. Project managers kept complaining that they could not understand the effect of changes when measuring actual performance against plan and modified plans. Next to that, other project employees stated that they were not able to work effectively when taking into account the accepted changes.

To understand the reason of these failures, important is to look at the overall approach that company A applied to manage software delivery.In this case, the three important processes involved in change management - project and portfolio management, asset management, and change management - were functioning separately rather than as part of an overall process. Company A was doing a good job with change management on a project by project basis, but next to that it did not make a clear link with the asset(s) being changed. They also did not make connections to the project and portfolio management processes for managing change and task implementation.

Known by now is that they had dual problems to cope with.First, the amount of work which was done on projects, which affects most of the time project assets, had no connection to the processes determined on preserving project control and visibility. "Project management is about planning, managing, and overseeing the work required to complete the project. Change management is about managing the impact of change to project assets and thus outcomes.

" ("Managing Change... ") This means that these two processes are have to be linked so that for example the activities performed as a result of a change request is easily visible and controlled as part of the project plan.Second, there need to be a connection between changes to assets, the activities and the need for changes. Otherwise, if not, the management faces a loss of control and visibility in general.

3) Start of change process There are not so many solutions for solving the problems which company A was facing. It was clear for them that changes must be made in such a way that all the work of the project is managed in an integrated manner. To arrive to that point, they should integrate assets, changes, and project- and portfolio management.To illustrate this, they should include all the activities which are part of the original plan and all the activities which are the result of re-planning when changes were made.

This is called the 'integrated approach' and it characterizes a major difference from the usual view of the project, change, and asset management. Company A knew what had to be done to successfully change their strategy to create a more integrated change management. Firstly, all the activities performed on project assets should be linked to the planned activities and the project structure.Secondly, the need for changes, regardless of the source or reason, should be managed in a adequate way.

Therefore project plans should be updated accordingly and there should be regular evaluations about the development of the existing plan. "Change management should be seen as a process for managing all changes to the project, including assets and its outcomes. " ("Solving the Problem... ") 4) Diagnosis Review the present state As discussed before Company A was doing a good job with change management on a project by project basis.

Their weak point was that it did not make a clear link to the asset(s) being changed. Furthermore they did not make connections to the project and portfolio management processes for managing change and task implementation. In this case the three important processes involved are; project and portfolio management, asset management, and change management, which were functioning separately. So there need to be a connection between changes to assets and the activities relative to the need for changes, otherwise the management faces a loss of control and visibility in general.