Business process implementation is a function where business owners and managers make specific changes to a company. Change is a naturally occurring force in the business environment. Companies must develop a system whereby they can implement changes relatively easily without causing major disruptions to current operations. John P. Kotter, an American professor at Harvard Business School, developed a specific system for change management in business. His steps include an realizing increase in urgency, building a team, setting the vision, communication, empowering employees to act, setting short-term goals, striving to reach goals, and maintaining change during business process implementation.
To create a sense of urgency during business process implementation, owners and managers should encourage employees to work quickly when completing various tasks and activities without skipping over details or other important steps. This helps everyone stay focused during a potentially crazy time during business operations.
Setting a vision often comes from the owner of a business. This individual is responsible for getting everyone on the same page and helping provide the voice of reason throughout business process implementation.
Communication is extremely important during a change in business operations. Lower-level managers and employees must fully understand their roles in the process so they have a clear picture of the end result. Business owners and executive-level managers must prepare for feedback when checking in on business process implementation.
Empowering employees can mean giving them some level of autonomy when making decisions or completing job tasks. This can help avoid micromanagement, which tends to slow the business change process. Giving employees a clear outline for their job tasks can also help create a smooth-flowing implementation process so they do not have any downtime where they do not have any business tasks to complete.
Business process implementation often works better when small, short-term goals are set for throughout the entire process. Business owners and managers can focus on accomplishing these goals or objectives with employees and moving on to the next. This helps avoid discouragement, which can result in the inability to complete tasks that facilitate the overall process. This meshes with the next step, striving to meet goals. Large, overarching goals involving multiple divisions or departments can slow down the implementation process by discouraging employees and possibly resulting in more unexpected operational downtime.
Maintaining change is important because owners, managers, and employees may slip back into their old ways of completing tasks or activities. This can essentially make the implementation process worthless, since companies may have spent copious amounts of money on needless change.