Change Management: Utilizing Change Champions to Effectively Deploy a New Expense Management Portal

The Change Management Challenge:

• Our client wanted to introduce a new Expense Management portal in their head office
• The system was meant to deliver better control and replaced the current expense process which relied, largely, on manual submissions and approvals of expenses

The Question:

• How do we ensure that all expense submitters and approvers are aware of the process changes and don’t revert back to the manual method of submitting expenses?

Our solution:

• As the change affected most Managers in the organization, we carefully selected a group of Executive Assistants –strategically positioned to influence our target users—to become our “Expense Portal Champions”
• Using a mix of awareness presentations and training, we empowered the Champions to socialize the change with their respective departments
• To complement, online training sessions were offered to the target users, together with a visible point of support for questions
• The CFO sponsored the change and highlighted the importance of this initiative across the organization

The Results:

• The Expense Management Champions took charge of the communication and one on one training activities, increasing the likelihood of adoption
• We trained +250 users and realized that the online portal was a more efficient way to process their expenses
• More than seven hundred expense management reports were submitted and approved without major issues