How business change management drives enterprise-level digitisation in defence

Digitising their contracts is transformational, added to the complexity that this was also a cross-sector enterprise level programme added to the challenge.  

Digital Contracts impacts over 1,500 employees across the UK’s Procurement and Commercial functions changing technology, processes and people.  

To ensure that the programme outputs are successfully delivered, business change management was a key success factor.  

As the programme had effectively been in flight for over two years subject business case approval, when we engaged with the customer it was to support what was essentially a programme relaunch. Communication and engagement were crucial to mobilise effectively with the right level of awareness and understanding. 

As a Business Change Manager had not been appointed and was needed to support the programme relaunch, we were asked to provide a consultant with the right level of expertise to act as the Interim Business Change Manager. 

The approach taken was to engage with the team to understand the programme, the timeline and the goals and outputs that had been agreed in the business case. Then using the predefined customer change framework documented the overall Business Change approach which articulates how we will engage and deliver the required change to support the successful implementation. 

The activity covered the following key areas: 

• Engagement and communication;  
• Business Impacts and readiness assessments; 
• Training design and delivery; 
• Organisational role and responsibility changes;  
• Business change plan integrated into the overall programme plan. 

The key challenges that faced the programme in the business change area was the fact that this programme covered the Air, Digital Intelligence, Maritime and Land sectors for the Commercial and Procurement functions. This was a wide and diverse impacted employee base that had multiple and diverse processes that needed a level of alignment impacting ways of working.  

The engagement aspect of the programme was a priority for the overall success of the programme. 

We were also instrumental in the recruitment of the permanent Business Change Manager who joined the team in February 2023. 

The programme benefitted from having us on board in the role of Interim Business Change Manager (BCM) because we were able to plug the gap during the mobilising phase of the programme. 

It was important to not let the Business Change activity fall behind the rest of the programme while waiting for the permanent BCM to join as the workstream was instrumental in the successful launch of the programme with the senior stakeholders.  

Additionally, outside of the planned assignment, due to the Head of Project needing to take medical leave, we were able to get our interim BCM to flex into the role of Programme Manager. This ensured that they were on track for a crucial programme gate review as part of the BAE Systems Lifecycle Management methodology.  

Utilising our expertise, ability to flex to meet customer requirements meant that the Digital Contracts programme delivery was de-risked and set up for success. 

The Project One value add:

• We were able to flex skills and capabilities to plug unseen gaps for our customers; 
• Our teams have wide and varied substantial delivery experience and capabilities; 
• We were able to rapidly fill the gap in their resource;  
• We have a proven track record of successful delivery at BAE Systems – very effective from the first day.