Technology-driven organizational change management at USAA

Managing Change and USAA

The United Services Automobile Association (USAA)'s potential for accentuating and strengthening its ability to create, deliver and sustain support and services programs for its members is becoming increasingly dependent on its ability to automate key processes using both business process re-engineering (BPR) and the selective use of key technologies. Underscoring both the process- and system-centric change is the need to fundamentally change how the organizations' employees do their jobs, interact with and rely on systems and processes, and make these two critical areas of change successful. As many organizations realize after fine-tuning processes through BPR and Business Process Management (BPM) efforts combined with information systems development, the greatest inhibitor to becoming more productive is gaining support for organizational change. The intent of this paper is to discuss the implications of organizational change on how technology can cause organizations to move from a present to future state to increase effectiveness, an overview of the responsibility managers have to implement change, and the areas that managers must be knowledgeable in to make change more effective over time. There are also the factors of defining preparedness of the USAA to deal with resistance to technological change, and the ability of companies to communicate changes in both process and systems areas of their business to customers, illustrating how these factors will make them more responsive.

Technology as the Catalyst of Change

The many attempts by companies to better understand their customers through the use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications that spanned all customer-facing processes have been fraught with a lack of success from a change management perspective. By far the greatest impediment to CRM software implementations being unsuccessful has been the continual rejecting of new processes and software by sales representatives, managers, and directors, many of which see them as independent as and more accountable to customers than to reporting processes that CRM systems represent. CRM systems however could provide significantly greater insight into the customers they serve and also make them more efficient, yet often CRM software is presented as a solution to a sales problem, not as a means to attain higher levels of performance. As a result of this positioning of CRM within organizations, there is significant resistance to change.

Technology however can be a major catalyst of change when used as the foundation for making customer-facing processes at USAA more concentrated on delivering exceptional service to customers while streamlining the tasks employees must do. The lesson learned from many CRM implementations is that developing a change management strategy that concentrates on getting those most affected by the change to "own" the change is critical. The success of salesforce.com in the CRM marketplace underscores how technology specifically designed to address users' unmet needs to become more productive yet not constrained by technology is a case in point. Technology that enables higher productivity and meets needs yet does not restrict users' flexibility in managing their work how they want succeeds.

Managerial Expertise require to make Change Management Strategies Work

Countering resistance to change that starts with fear of the future takes nothing less than a leader who is passionate about making change part of the company's culture. Leadership behaviors to initiate and sustain the momentum of transforming it initiatives into high value and lasting business strategies is never a one-and-done proposition for any leader. It must be a constant passion to bring change into a company if any leader is going to be successful. Aguirre, Calderone, Jones (2004) argue that the CEO and senior management team must band together and have a consistent and strong show of support for any strategy to be successful.

Combined with a strong sense of purpose that drive a passion for change, managers need to transform themselves into leaders and also have exceptional grasp of BPR and BPM approaches to ensure both the processes re-defined and