Client background

Midwestern chemical manufacturer, one of the largest independent providers of chemicals and related services in the United States, has a network of manufacturing facilities, warehouses and laboratories. The company owns and operates a private transportation fleet which includes tractors, van trailers, tankers and railcars. Their offerings include expertise in chemical distribution and manufacturing, food and dairy sanitation, organic processing, liquid sulfites, foam control, water treatment and compliance management services.​

The business challenge

The company chose to implement a new ERP system to replace their 30-year-old application. Their complex enterprise system landscape consisted of numerous disparate systems, many of which were homegrown and heavily customized through internal development. This complicated their ability to take advantage of modern technologies like business intelligence, CRM and production scheduling. It also limited their successful growth opportunities and required ongoing customization in outdated technologies to manage the current state.

The organization had limited experience successfully executing large transformational projects and managing employee resistance to change. Based on the complexities of their current state environment, leadership recognized the need for an experienced partner and structured organizational change management approach to lead employees to adopt the new processes and system changes, while setting up the organization to reap the full benefits from its modernized environment.

Strategy and solution

The company turned to Baker Tilly to lead their change management program. Baker Tilly employed our comprehensive change management methodology– bringing a structured approach to evaluating and meeting their employees’ needs. This approach included a Planning Phase and an Execution Phase.

​The Baker Tilly and client teams worked collaboratively to identify opportunities and proactively address risks to successful change. In addition to a detailed stakeholder analysis and risk mitigation plan, Baker Tilly also delivered three Change Readiness Assessments to the organization at designated intervals. Quantitative and qualitative data from each assessment was analyzed to identify underperforming areas of the company (segmented by salary v. hourly, geographical branches and functional groups). The outcomes of the stakeholder analysis, risk mitigation plan and readiness assessment were leveraged to develop the communication plan, change agent network and training plan.

Baker Tilly:

• ​Created a comprehensive communication strategy that kept all employees informed of key operational challenges and company-wide benefits to be delivered by the ERP implementation.
• ​Worked collaboratively with the client to establish the Change Agent Network, comprised of trusted individuals throughout the company acting as change agents for their network of colleagues.
• ​Led the Change Agent Network with bi-monthly meetings throughout the project to teach change management principles, provide program updates for change agents to cascade to their colleagues and receive project feedback.
• ​Developed individual training strategies, schedules and logistics plans for multiple Go-lives across multiple locations.
• ​Coached instructors through the development of all training material and prepared them through intensive train-the-trainer sessions.
• ​Managed training attendance and participant proficiency to ensure organization-wide readiness.

​Baker Tilly’s comprehensive change management approach prepared the client’s employees with the targeted communications and training strategies they needed to perform in their roles successfully at Go-live.​