Close work with teams helps media company takes stock ahead of merger
Brief
Our client is one of Australia’s most progressive media companies, with more than 2.8m subscribing households and a 22.8% metro share of all TV viewing. Our client was merging with a major content production company to achieve their vision of becoming the nation’s foremost provider of sport, drama, lifestyle, news and entertainment content. The impacts of the merger were split into two parts: the Day 1 impacts of the merger, particularly the enterprise-wide changes; and changes for Day 90, including the merging of some teams, moving to single systems across both entities and aligning processes.
Solution
Blue Seed Consulting was engaged to provide:
- Change impact assessment
- Input to communications plan and supporting materials
- Heat map of change impacts and timeframes, for high-impacted areas
- Consolidated view of change approach and progress for the Executive team
- Systems roadmap
- Change plan for each impacted team and system
The impact on people was at the core of this assessment and change management planning work to ensure the teams and systems were brought together smoothly with one view across the business.
Results
Working closely with the client, our consultants provided expertise particularly in the areas of change impact assessment and change plan development; there was a need to engage heavily with stakeholders and spend time with affected teams and members of staff to gain a better sense of the future state during a period of flux. A clear assessment and plan were developed across each business unit and integrated into the broader project plan maintained by the internal Management Office, and details shared with the communications team for enterprise-wide messaging. By working closely with individual teams facing the greatest impact, fit-for-purpose change plans were created and well received. The client was happy with the quality of outputs and the clarity around the change and its effects that was gained through the process.
“This project has delivered a robust process that we should continue to follow and be supported by everyone involved in IT work.
I have been involved in this deployment for many months from an IT BAU support perspective. As an initiative, I would like to see the methodologies and processes put in place by the Business Transition team continue to be followed by IT and the business long after the project is completed.
Far too often we see projects delivered to the business without consultation with the IT support teams. This leads to a lack of understanding of the applications deployed to the business, inability to properly support the application, lack of resourcing, lack of correct skills and a lack of ownership from IT. This is not a great place to start forming a positive relationship with the business.”
Key Business Stakeholder
