Implementation of any new strategy in any firm is always met with various challenges, and Mudra is not an exception as Sebastian face challenges in implementing new software in terms of training and change management. One such challenge that Sebastian has to deal with is resistance to change. This is the case because changing staff behaviour takes time. To get the employees to buy in is, thus, not easy. It is important to note that there are different forms of resistance to change that employees exhibit. Employees at Mudra, like any other firm, have a problem understanding and adapting to the new systems that are associated with the acquisition of new software. As such Sebastian has to find trainers who are well conversant with both the old and the new systems in order to provide the appropriate guidance. To succeed with the new system, the firm will also need to address the issues that relate to their clients as well as profitability while remaining the leader in a competitive market. Planning the implementation is a challenge because the staff has organizational politics, use power inappropriately, lack understanding, are incorrectly informed, and suspect honourable management intentions. This kind of resistance is not standard.
Good points Feng. Resistance to change is one of the major challenge for companies to cope when they implement any new applications. I could closely relate this situation with my experience in my previous job. My company was using an old employee performance assessment tool for annual assesment so the company had replaced a new application globally. But, Employees had a hard time to accept this change. However, this was one of the success factor after couple of months due to its functionality and ease of use.
Management had followed a couple of ways to help employees to cope this change – adequately training the employees, focusing on the poitive side, listening openly to converns and many more.
During the parallel run, employees held to the old system and resistance to change. Joseph also faces the choice of whether to implement the new system simultaneously nationwide or restrict it to lead locations. Because of the difficulty of collection user requirements, the challenges also include the system not meeting the user’s requirements. Joesph needs trainers to understand both new and old systems to train employees, but the headcount of the IT team is limited for 1,100 employees.
Correct. This situation is very difficult. Joseph needs to change the minds of employees so that employees can receive new systems and learn to use the new system.
In the training management, Joseph was in demand for trainers with fixed competence, which required them to have knowledge on both old and new systems, while they also should be in-house with a strong background in IT. Since there had already been seven full-time employees working at a summit level of 77 hours per week, HR planning became an essential challenge.
In the change management, the main challenge is that employees prefer keeping usage of the old system rather than shifting to the new, for which reason the company have to extend the cut-off dates and delay the conversion. Another challenge is that it is ambiguous whether it is better for locations nationwide to shift to the new system at the same time or not. The company was suffering from all risks of a parallel run and there was plenty of difficulties to guarantee a perfect transition for 1,100 employees.
Great point Zhu. training requires trainers to know both new and old systems, and they need a strong IT background. However, seven employees with strong IT background already working 77 hours per week, which make the company need to either find a new group to do it, or change their working schedule.
Joseph will encounter a number of challenges related to training and change management, and faces the daunting task of successfully implementing the system across Mudra. Ultimately, the system needs to be accepted by all users to be considered of success, which is more difficult than it sounds. Employees may be resistant to change, and changing organizational behavior in all locations would require an effective training and implementation strategy throughout Mudra.
There is a strong threat of new entrant then current players will be willing to earn fewer profits to reduce the threats and it becomes difficult for existing players. Threat of substitute services if the threat of substitute is high then company has either continuously investment or risks losing out to disruptors in the industry.
Sebastian Joseph will face several challenges in relation to training and change management. First, employees will hold on to the old systems instead of using the new. Also, training needs trainers have an understanding of both the old system and the new system. In addition, it is difficult to anticipate system changes to meet user’s requests because requirement analysis had been difficult and stuff had not always been very capable of explaining what they need.
Hi Penghui, I think you are right. I also believe that having a trainer who clearly understands both the old and new system would be a challenge. Furthermore, Joseph needs to make sure that all 1100 employees will understand how to use the new system before the old system is completely off service. Also, another challenge would be the transfer of historical data.
Hi, Penghui:
Great posting, and thank you for bringing up the point that the new system may not meet the user requirements. I do think that would be the biggest challenge overall which also impacts the employees to accept the new system. The training would be really difficult to process if the new system is just not meeting user expectations and requirements.
User acceptance testing is key during the IT project development process, especially during the implantation stage.
The whole project is really difficult to be implemented and Sebastian Joseph is in a dilemma in many areas. For the implementation challenges in training and change management, Joseph has to deal with the downtime during the period of the rollout. The resistance to change is a huge problem to Joseph as well. On the one hand, employees at Mudra would hold on to the old system instead of switching over to the new, forcing extensions of cut-off dates and prolonging the transition. On the other hand, he also considered how to adapt the system to the actual needs of Mudra employees as he implemented the system. In addition, Joseph needed trainers who understand both the new and the old systems to teach employees, but all seven IT employees’ work time has arrived at peak and were not able to train.
Hello,
After reading through your response regarding the challenges Joseph will face during implementation, I have developed an interest in your choice to provide a more holistic view through the inclusion of details of Joseph’s approach to implementation. These details being that Joseph had actually tried to tailor the implementation to Mudra employee needs. I also liked your inclusion of the downtime that would be associated with the rollout of the new enterprise system.
Hi Yuqing, very detailed and well-explained about the challenge Sebastian Joseph might face. It is true it is very challenging for employees to adopt a new system just like how we were not so used to canvas since we used blackboard for a very long period of time.
Thank you! I agree with you that Joseph needed trainers who understand both the new and the old systems to teach employees, but all seven IT employees’ work time has arrived at peak and were not able to train.
Some possible challenges during implementation include lack of in-house IT employees, resistance to change, and the possible cessation of productivity.
Company employees have previously been defiant during times of change in the IT environment, clinging to original methods such has manual data entry. This issue carries over to the problem of how to integrate existing data into the new system without a stoppage in production. The in-house IT department has their work cut out for them, as they are a team of seven people and there are currently over 1000 total employees. Since the previous, parallel method of new software transition did not work, Joseph needs to find a new method in which to guide employees towards the new system.
I like that you started off with the fact that developing in-house could result in a lack of resources. From a project management perspective; budget, man-hours, quality of those man-hours, office space, etc… are the foundation on which any project is built. That, to me, is the most important factor because not every firm is fully equipped to take on that challenge on their own.
The are several challenges that Mudra needs to face during implementation of ES. Joseph needs to consider about the training for switching system. The implementation should not affect the routine business processes; therefore, it is trying to set up a parallel run of the old and new systems. However, employees still want to hold on to the old system. The parallel run provides no incentive to switch. Also, Joseph needs to have some trainers who understand both the new and old system. The location would be another challenge. Joseph needs to decide whether to launch the system nationwide or to restrict it to lead locations.
Hi Ryu, I totally agree with your ideas of the implementation challenges. It is not easy for employees to switch from using an old system to a new system without work delay and without any training. So the training is a very essential step for this change. And also, like the author mentions in the article, the existing employees from IT team do not have time to train the employees who have no technology background, so this is a really big challenge for Mudra.
The implementation challenges might Sebastian Joseph face in relation to training and change management are that training in the first place needs the trainer to understand how the new and old function works so he or she can give better training for the current employees. Also, changing management could be risky as we have learned that the biggest vulnerability of security breach comes from former employees so the process of changing the directory of employees is very important and could be challenging.
Agree, the company has to face the re-train current employees and management to let them accept the new software. Some of them may prefer previous software because it does not cost them time to learn and they have already know its working process and method, which means it is built based on the original function. However, new technology is coming up instantly. It could create new business instruction and function. No matter employees or management, they have to face the new challenge to understand new software and new technology.
It is a possibility that Joseph might consider hiring new employees if that lessens the stress involved with training current employees that are reluctant to change. Someone joining the company with a fresh set of eyes may be able to learn the new system quicker than an employee that is stuck in their ways. Obviously, this would be a cause for concern for long-term employees who might feel betrayed by the company, so they might seek revenge by selling one of their data filled floppy disks to some scammers in order to damage the company.
Mudra’s new implementation of mBoss application had a major change in Mudra’s complete IT environment. As enterprise system was still evolving in India, coping with the new change and adapting to the use of enterprise system was one of the major challenge. Ensuring the integration of old and new system was particularly challenging as employees were holding on the legacy system for their ease of use.
HR planning for the implementation of ES was also a major challenge because rolling out ES required hand-holding of employees and properly training them on both old and new systems. However, in-house IT staffs which comprised of seven FT employees were already stretched and working at peak levels. So HR planning was a daunting task for Joseph.
Where there is a need for progressive change or development, and in this scenario Enterprise Systems development, there is always friction to resist these changes in one form or another. In Midra Communication’s case, the resistance towards the Enterprise Systems change is primarily demonstrated when Joseph comes to face the training and change management module of their project. Regarding training, Midra has been having difficulties finding people within the organization who are familiar with both the old and new systems to lead the training, and have been forced to prolong the enterprise systems transition as a whole due to users refusing to use the new system due to current unfamiliarity. With change management, Midra is in need for a solution to prevent the implementation of the enterprise systems significantly effecting productivity.
Aside from the obvious technical difficulties that arise from any implementation, Joseph will face a lot of resistance from employees and executives. As stated, these employees have been manually transmitting data through floppy disks and other manual processes. Aside from being reluctant to change, there might also be a large learning curve. The system being used wasn’t broken, it was just extremely tedious and time-consuming. As the old saying goes, “time is money,” and that is especially true in business. It is naturally very difficult to convince someone to change, but even more difficult when you are asking someone to change from something that isn’t broken. And once you finally get everyone on board, then you have to train them as well.
According to the case, the company MUDRA has to face the pressure from original employees and management because lots of employees have used original software for more than ten years, which means they need to be trained for learning new software include understand new production process, new management construction and understanding new system working method. Otherwise, management has to learn new system to know how to communicate with sub-working level such as receiving request and spreading out task.
I also think the poor internal communication is challenge Sebastian joseph face in relation in training and management, according to the case, “Joseph was anticipating system changes to meet user’s request, but users’ had not always been very capable of explaining hat they needed from an information system”
Joseph needs trainers who are competent enough to fully understand the old and new systems, especially the ones built in-house. However, due to the limited amount of personnel/billing hours, this serves as an obstacle to train and develop the systems. Without proper training, the employees tend to rely on the old systems(used for 10+ years) and aren’t as open to shifting gears to grow accustomed to the newer systems. The conversion time is additional billing hours and causes delays in projects, it’s difficult to fully train the 1,100 employees with limited resources and resistance from the team. People are always reluctant to accept change.
Mei, good explanation. The greater the required change, the greater the resistance. Like you mentioned, if the employees have been using the same system for 10+ years, the resistance is going to be pretty excessive. However, to tackle this challenge, I believe it is important to properly communicate why the change is necessary and do it with proper planning and training.
There are several implementation challenges that Sebastian Joseph is likely to face in relation to training and change management. One is the senior employees might not capable of understanding new systems in a short time. They have been used the old for more than ten years. Understanding the difference between the old and the new, mastering the developed systems seems quite difficult for those senior employees.
The challenge faced is that Employees would not take risks during period of the parallel run, majority of employees hold their career for life. when it comes to change management, the dilemma was if they should take the choice of launching mboss at the high-billings offices or testing it in a few low-billings offices. the high-billings location provides a robust sense of how to performed live while low- billings offices provide a better platform on which to address systemic issues.
furthermore, Joseph was concerned about how to adapt the system to the actual needs of mudra employees, Joseph was anticipating system changes to meet user’s request, but users’ had not always been very capable of explaining hat they needed from an information system
One of the major challenges Sebastian Joseph may face in relation to training and change management is resistance to change from the employees. Employees of all organizations learn the ins and outs of a system overtime and become comfortable with it. No employee wants to relearn all of that. Furthermore, proper training for employees is another key challenge. Finding the right training option is necessary to ensure success. Alignment of team members in all departments is important as well. Poor communication between departments can prove to be the downfall of a new implementation.
Feng Gao says
Implementation of any new strategy in any firm is always met with various challenges, and Mudra is not an exception as Sebastian face challenges in implementing new software in terms of training and change management. One such challenge that Sebastian has to deal with is resistance to change. This is the case because changing staff behaviour takes time. To get the employees to buy in is, thus, not easy. It is important to note that there are different forms of resistance to change that employees exhibit. Employees at Mudra, like any other firm, have a problem understanding and adapting to the new systems that are associated with the acquisition of new software. As such Sebastian has to find trainers who are well conversant with both the old and the new systems in order to provide the appropriate guidance. To succeed with the new system, the firm will also need to address the issues that relate to their clients as well as profitability while remaining the leader in a competitive market. Planning the implementation is a challenge because the staff has organizational politics, use power inappropriately, lack understanding, are incorrectly informed, and suspect honourable management intentions. This kind of resistance is not standard.
Deepa Kuppuswamy says
Good points Feng. Resistance to change is one of the major challenge for companies to cope when they implement any new applications. I could closely relate this situation with my experience in my previous job. My company was using an old employee performance assessment tool for annual assesment so the company had replaced a new application globally. But, Employees had a hard time to accept this change. However, this was one of the success factor after couple of months due to its functionality and ease of use.
Management had followed a couple of ways to help employees to cope this change – adequately training the employees, focusing on the poitive side, listening openly to converns and many more.
Shuyue Ding says
During the parallel run, employees held to the old system and resistance to change. Joseph also faces the choice of whether to implement the new system simultaneously nationwide or restrict it to lead locations. Because of the difficulty of collection user requirements, the challenges also include the system not meeting the user’s requirements. Joesph needs trainers to understand both new and old systems to train employees, but the headcount of the IT team is limited for 1,100 employees.
Feng Gao says
Correct. This situation is very difficult. Joseph needs to change the minds of employees so that employees can receive new systems and learn to use the new system.
Zhu Li says
In the training management, Joseph was in demand for trainers with fixed competence, which required them to have knowledge on both old and new systems, while they also should be in-house with a strong background in IT. Since there had already been seven full-time employees working at a summit level of 77 hours per week, HR planning became an essential challenge.
In the change management, the main challenge is that employees prefer keeping usage of the old system rather than shifting to the new, for which reason the company have to extend the cut-off dates and delay the conversion. Another challenge is that it is ambiguous whether it is better for locations nationwide to shift to the new system at the same time or not. The company was suffering from all risks of a parallel run and there was plenty of difficulties to guarantee a perfect transition for 1,100 employees.
Penghui Ai says
Great point Zhu. training requires trainers to know both new and old systems, and they need a strong IT background. However, seven employees with strong IT background already working 77 hours per week, which make the company need to either find a new group to do it, or change their working schedule.
Adam J Wolf says
Joseph will encounter a number of challenges related to training and change management, and faces the daunting task of successfully implementing the system across Mudra. Ultimately, the system needs to be accepted by all users to be considered of success, which is more difficult than it sounds. Employees may be resistant to change, and changing organizational behavior in all locations would require an effective training and implementation strategy throughout Mudra.
Zhu Li says
There is a strong threat of new entrant then current players will be willing to earn fewer profits to reduce the threats and it becomes difficult for existing players. Threat of substitute services if the threat of substitute is high then company has either continuously investment or risks losing out to disruptors in the industry.
Penghui Ai says
Sebastian Joseph will face several challenges in relation to training and change management. First, employees will hold on to the old systems instead of using the new. Also, training needs trainers have an understanding of both the old system and the new system. In addition, it is difficult to anticipate system changes to meet user’s requests because requirement analysis had been difficult and stuff had not always been very capable of explaining what they need.
Ryu Takatsuki says
Hi Penghui, I think you are right. I also believe that having a trainer who clearly understands both the old and new system would be a challenge. Furthermore, Joseph needs to make sure that all 1100 employees will understand how to use the new system before the old system is completely off service. Also, another challenge would be the transfer of historical data.
Shuyue Ding says
Hi, Penghui:
Great posting, and thank you for bringing up the point that the new system may not meet the user requirements. I do think that would be the biggest challenge overall which also impacts the employees to accept the new system. The training would be really difficult to process if the new system is just not meeting user expectations and requirements.
User acceptance testing is key during the IT project development process, especially during the implantation stage.
Haixin Sun says
Good
Yuqing Tang says
The whole project is really difficult to be implemented and Sebastian Joseph is in a dilemma in many areas. For the implementation challenges in training and change management, Joseph has to deal with the downtime during the period of the rollout. The resistance to change is a huge problem to Joseph as well. On the one hand, employees at Mudra would hold on to the old system instead of switching over to the new, forcing extensions of cut-off dates and prolonging the transition. On the other hand, he also considered how to adapt the system to the actual needs of Mudra employees as he implemented the system. In addition, Joseph needed trainers who understand both the new and the old systems to teach employees, but all seven IT employees’ work time has arrived at peak and were not able to train.
Imran Jordan Kharabsheh says
Hello,
After reading through your response regarding the challenges Joseph will face during implementation, I have developed an interest in your choice to provide a more holistic view through the inclusion of details of Joseph’s approach to implementation. These details being that Joseph had actually tried to tailor the implementation to Mudra employee needs. I also liked your inclusion of the downtime that would be associated with the rollout of the new enterprise system.
Yuchong Wang says
Hi Yuqing, very detailed and well-explained about the challenge Sebastian Joseph might face. It is true it is very challenging for employees to adopt a new system just like how we were not so used to canvas since we used blackboard for a very long period of time.
Haixin Sun says
Thank you! I agree with you that Joseph needed trainers who understand both the new and the old systems to teach employees, but all seven IT employees’ work time has arrived at peak and were not able to train.
Sarah Puffen says
Some possible challenges during implementation include lack of in-house IT employees, resistance to change, and the possible cessation of productivity.
Company employees have previously been defiant during times of change in the IT environment, clinging to original methods such has manual data entry. This issue carries over to the problem of how to integrate existing data into the new system without a stoppage in production. The in-house IT department has their work cut out for them, as they are a team of seven people and there are currently over 1000 total employees. Since the previous, parallel method of new software transition did not work, Joseph needs to find a new method in which to guide employees towards the new system.
Panayiotis Laskaridis says
Hello Sarah,
I like that you started off with the fact that developing in-house could result in a lack of resources. From a project management perspective; budget, man-hours, quality of those man-hours, office space, etc… are the foundation on which any project is built. That, to me, is the most important factor because not every firm is fully equipped to take on that challenge on their own.
Ryu Takatsuki says
The are several challenges that Mudra needs to face during implementation of ES. Joseph needs to consider about the training for switching system. The implementation should not affect the routine business processes; therefore, it is trying to set up a parallel run of the old and new systems. However, employees still want to hold on to the old system. The parallel run provides no incentive to switch. Also, Joseph needs to have some trainers who understand both the new and old system. The location would be another challenge. Joseph needs to decide whether to launch the system nationwide or to restrict it to lead locations.
Yuqing Tang says
Hi Ryu, I totally agree with your ideas of the implementation challenges. It is not easy for employees to switch from using an old system to a new system without work delay and without any training. So the training is a very essential step for this change. And also, like the author mentions in the article, the existing employees from IT team do not have time to train the employees who have no technology background, so this is a really big challenge for Mudra.
Yuchong Wang says
The implementation challenges might Sebastian Joseph face in relation to training and change management are that training in the first place needs the trainer to understand how the new and old function works so he or she can give better training for the current employees. Also, changing management could be risky as we have learned that the biggest vulnerability of security breach comes from former employees so the process of changing the directory of employees is very important and could be challenging.
Yuan Liu says
Agree, the company has to face the re-train current employees and management to let them accept the new software. Some of them may prefer previous software because it does not cost them time to learn and they have already know its working process and method, which means it is built based on the original function. However, new technology is coming up instantly. It could create new business instruction and function. No matter employees or management, they have to face the new challenge to understand new software and new technology.
Sarah Puffen says
It is a possibility that Joseph might consider hiring new employees if that lessens the stress involved with training current employees that are reluctant to change. Someone joining the company with a fresh set of eyes may be able to learn the new system quicker than an employee that is stuck in their ways. Obviously, this would be a cause for concern for long-term employees who might feel betrayed by the company, so they might seek revenge by selling one of their data filled floppy disks to some scammers in order to damage the company.
Deepa Kuppuswamy says
Mudra’s new implementation of mBoss application had a major change in Mudra’s complete IT environment. As enterprise system was still evolving in India, coping with the new change and adapting to the use of enterprise system was one of the major challenge. Ensuring the integration of old and new system was particularly challenging as employees were holding on the legacy system for their ease of use.
HR planning for the implementation of ES was also a major challenge because rolling out ES required hand-holding of employees and properly training them on both old and new systems. However, in-house IT staffs which comprised of seven FT employees were already stretched and working at peak levels. So HR planning was a daunting task for Joseph.
Imran Jordan Kharabsheh says
Where there is a need for progressive change or development, and in this scenario Enterprise Systems development, there is always friction to resist these changes in one form or another. In Midra Communication’s case, the resistance towards the Enterprise Systems change is primarily demonstrated when Joseph comes to face the training and change management module of their project. Regarding training, Midra has been having difficulties finding people within the organization who are familiar with both the old and new systems to lead the training, and have been forced to prolong the enterprise systems transition as a whole due to users refusing to use the new system due to current unfamiliarity. With change management, Midra is in need for a solution to prevent the implementation of the enterprise systems significantly effecting productivity.
Panayiotis Laskaridis says
Aside from the obvious technical difficulties that arise from any implementation, Joseph will face a lot of resistance from employees and executives. As stated, these employees have been manually transmitting data through floppy disks and other manual processes. Aside from being reluctant to change, there might also be a large learning curve. The system being used wasn’t broken, it was just extremely tedious and time-consuming. As the old saying goes, “time is money,” and that is especially true in business. It is naturally very difficult to convince someone to change, but even more difficult when you are asking someone to change from something that isn’t broken. And once you finally get everyone on board, then you have to train them as well.
Mei X Wang says
I agree, people are reluctant to change unless forced to and are more comfortable staying within their own constraints.
Yuan Liu says
According to the case, the company MUDRA has to face the pressure from original employees and management because lots of employees have used original software for more than ten years, which means they need to be trained for learning new software include understand new production process, new management construction and understanding new system working method. Otherwise, management has to learn new system to know how to communicate with sub-working level such as receiving request and spreading out task.
Haixin Sun says
Thank you, I agree with the new system to communicate with sub-working level.
Xinye Yang says
I also think the poor internal communication is challenge Sebastian joseph face in relation in training and management, according to the case, “Joseph was anticipating system changes to meet user’s request, but users’ had not always been very capable of explaining hat they needed from an information system”
Mei X Wang says
Joseph needs trainers who are competent enough to fully understand the old and new systems, especially the ones built in-house. However, due to the limited amount of personnel/billing hours, this serves as an obstacle to train and develop the systems. Without proper training, the employees tend to rely on the old systems(used for 10+ years) and aren’t as open to shifting gears to grow accustomed to the newer systems. The conversion time is additional billing hours and causes delays in projects, it’s difficult to fully train the 1,100 employees with limited resources and resistance from the team. People are always reluctant to accept change.
Raisa Ahmed says
Mei, good explanation. The greater the required change, the greater the resistance. Like you mentioned, if the employees have been using the same system for 10+ years, the resistance is going to be pretty excessive. However, to tackle this challenge, I believe it is important to properly communicate why the change is necessary and do it with proper planning and training.
Haixin Sun says
There are several implementation challenges that Sebastian Joseph is likely to face in relation to training and change management. One is the senior employees might not capable of understanding new systems in a short time. They have been used the old for more than ten years. Understanding the difference between the old and the new, mastering the developed systems seems quite difficult for those senior employees.
Xinye Yang says
The challenge faced is that Employees would not take risks during period of the parallel run, majority of employees hold their career for life. when it comes to change management, the dilemma was if they should take the choice of launching mboss at the high-billings offices or testing it in a few low-billings offices. the high-billings location provides a robust sense of how to performed live while low- billings offices provide a better platform on which to address systemic issues.
furthermore, Joseph was concerned about how to adapt the system to the actual needs of mudra employees, Joseph was anticipating system changes to meet user’s request, but users’ had not always been very capable of explaining hat they needed from an information system
Raisa Ahmed says
One of the major challenges Sebastian Joseph may face in relation to training and change management is resistance to change from the employees. Employees of all organizations learn the ins and outs of a system overtime and become comfortable with it. No employee wants to relearn all of that. Furthermore, proper training for employees is another key challenge. Finding the right training option is necessary to ensure success. Alignment of team members in all departments is important as well. Poor communication between departments can prove to be the downfall of a new implementation.