Change Management - White Paper including eBECS Customer Allgood

Executive Summary -

Change management has historically been the focus of the most innovative businesses and those in the most competitive industries. The former change to generate competitive advantage, drive market share and reach new customers; the latter change to ensure business continuity, save costs and make operations more agile and responsive.

In the current business climate, however, innovation, business transformation and change management are growing realities for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. In short, if companies don’t adapt to meet changing market and customer needs then they are unlikely to survive in the long term. To investigate the impact of recent changes on business, Microsoft Dynamics® commissioned a comprehensive survey of 500 directors of UK companies with between 50 and 1,000 employees. The survey assessed respondents’ attitudes to change, the effect that change has had, and will have, on their organisations in the current climate. Top line results from the Microsoft Dynamics research are:

• Change is a growing reality for UK business. More than half of UK medium-sized companies (57%) are experiencing more change in their business than a year ago – Companies that are not ready for change and don’t have the infrastructure to cope with change are less likely to be agile and respond successfully to internal and external pressures.

• Change is typically realised in four core areas: changes to technology infrastructure (in 54% of cases), new product and service developments (51%), marketing/brand (48%) and business systems/processes (46%) – Given recent focus on redundancies and the human impact of the recession, businesses appear to be more focused on making
changes to their organisations that will facilitate growth and innovation.

• Changes driven internally within a business are more likely to be successful than those triggered externally – Proactive change made to internal systems and processes is a better bet for success than cutting costs and headcount after the market has already moved.

• UK medium-sized businesses fall into four camps – Change Pioneers (the 37% of respondents that are ahead of the change curve), Change Reactors (28% of businesses that react to external forces rapidly), Change Followers (29% of businesses that wait for a trend to be established before they change) and Change Resisters (3% who resist change at all costs) – The larger the business, the more likely respondents are to be Change Pioneers.

• The more change-aware the business, the more likely they are to consider technology to be an enabler of change. Change Pioneers embrace technology as a driver of change and agility; they are also more likely to have a board or senior management champion of change within their company.

This white paper will draw on these results, business commentary and case studies, including eBECS customer Allgood, to explore the importance of change in the current climate, the different ways that UK businesses approach change and best practice on how to facilitate successful change in your organisation.

To download the white paper please visit http://www.ebecs.com/DynamicsAx.aspx

Lean around the corner - August 1st Go live

Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX and additional Lean functionality provided by eBECS will be generally available on August 1st 2009.

Microsoft has engaged eBECS to establish the Microsoft Dynamics Lean Centre of Excellence. The mission of the Center is to serve as an educational outreach/training facility for organisations that require training on the Lean capabilities in order to further their Lean initiatives. Microsoft recognises that a successful Lean implementation is not simply about providing the right software tools; as important are the skills of the team that architect and deliver the solution.

The Centre is currently ready to serve the Microsoft partner community for sales and implementation training and is scheduling training for late 2009 for current Microsoft Dynamics customers, as well as companies that are considering Microsoft Dynamics solutions. To register your interest please email customer@ebecs.com

The first partner trainings will be offered in Atlanta, Georgia during in the week of August 17th - 21st, with two back-to-back courses available. An invitation will be sent to Microsoft Partners with registration instructions within the next 10 days. In addition to training, the Centre will also serve as a magnet for collecting new ideas and requirements from existing and future users of Microsoft Dynamics.