How to implement IT change management successfully (2025)
Did you know that up to 70% of change management projects fail due to poor leadership and lack of communication? (Mooncamp, 2024).
For every project that improves services and drives efficiency, there are others that delay, get scaled back, or disappear quietly after launch. The reasons? A mix of poor planning, lack of support, unclear outcomes and technology rollouts that ignore the people side of change.
For B2B service providers, the stakes are especially critical. Faced with rising client expectations, complex compliance demands, and increased cost pressures, change isn’t optional. It’s essential. But getting it right takes more than a new platform or a detailed Gantt chart.
In this article, we explore:
- Why traditional IT change management is broken
- What success really looks like
- The missing piece: orchestration
- And how to future-proof your strategy
What’s broken about IT change management today
Change management often looks perfect on paper. Shiny projects, crisp presentations, and confident bureaucracy. But reality tells a different story.
The leadership issue
The problem usually starts with a top-down mindset. Senior leaders approve a change, budgets are allocated, and decisions are made by those at the top. Yet the teams expected to adopt these new systems are often left in the dark. One ops leader summed it up: “This was as much a human psychology challenge as it was a technical one. The biggest challenge for us is getting people working in a different way.”
Leadership might talk about ‘agility’ and ‘transformation’, but in many cases, staff are still emailing updates and updating spreadsheets manually. That disconnect breeds frustration. To correct miscommunication and clarify expectations, a rollout team found themselves going through several iterations of process design: “We were given a spreadsheet with categories and queues to fill out. It took two or three goes before we got it right.” That delay wasn’t because of complex tech. It was due to unclear guidance and a lack of direct support.
The hidden costs of low visibility
Then there’s the visibility issue. Many businesses don’t know whether a new process is effective until something breaks. An SLA is missed, a ticket gets stuck, or a client complains. This delay means leaders are often reacting to problems, not proactively solving them. One service manager put it bluntly: “We didn’t know whether it was working until the complaints started.”
Even when a system is live, usage can be inconsistent. Teams fall back on email and manual admin because it's what they know. And with limited internal focus on change, it’s tempting to slow things down. One service provider we spoke to admitted “There’s a limit to how fast we can roll out. It’s a behavioural change. We’re asking people to work differently, and it’s complex.”
People fear the change, not the platform
It’s also important to recognise how much anxiety change can bring. People worry about what a new technology platform means for their role. Some see workflow visibility as a positive shift, others perceive it as micro-management. As one leader witnessed: “Some teams embraced this lifecycle view. Others were reluctant, and some felt threatened.”
Not every vendor cares
Lastly, vendor support can be hit-or-miss. While some partnerships are collaborative and proactive, others leave customers doing the heavy lifting. Writing their own test scripts, managing configurations, or addressing functionality gaps with internal resources. “We thought the vendor was handling it, but we were doing the testing ourselves,” shared one transformation head. Forget having the right tools. Without the right support, success is near impossible.
What success looks like in IT change management
It’s easy to mistake the change management process for a checklist: requirements, implementation, training. That’s it. But real success differs.
It starts with a technology provider that goes beyond licences. A customer success representative who becomes an extension of your team. As one of our customers described, “They worked with us week by week, helped us configure for over 30 clients, and kept the rollout moving. It wasn’t just about tickets. It was about solving problems together.”
The technical foundation matters, but what truly makes change stick is when it becomes embedded in daily operations. That means your systems work together, your teams know how to use them, and your leaders have real-time reports into what’s happening.
When done right, IT change delivers:
- X-ray vision into work, workloads, and blockers. So you can act before service slips
- Process orchestration that standardises how work flows between people, teams, and tools
- Automation that removes bottlenecks and eliminates unnecessary effort
- Faster onboarding of clients, with reliable processes across service lines
- Company-wide collaboration not just a few people at the top
One business reflected on the result of conducting IT change management this way: “We’ve saved a significant number of hours, but the bigger value is in how we measure performance now. The shift from inbox-based tracking to lifecycle views completely changed our operations.”
The missing piece of IT change management: Orchestration
Most change management programs focus on implementing new systems, yet miss the crucial layer in between. That’s where orchestration comes in.
Orchestration is the glue between your people, your systems, and your processes. It connects work, making sure every task is with the right people at the right moment. It’s not about replacing your tech. As one operations leader said:
“We’re not using orchestration just for our workflow. We’re using it to coordinate humans and bots together to deliver services.”
With orchestration, everyone follows the same standardised processes. Issues are automatically raised so you gain visibility across teams, functions, and tools. Ultimately, it lets you automate the boring bits and focus on human-critical work.
This means you get to work in a way that supports continuous improvement. One customer described how they use orchestration to simplify processes across regions, integrate RPA, and adapt to new business demands without needing to start over each time.
“We’ve reduced processes in one service line by 70–80%. That’s orchestration in action.”
Future-proof your change management strategy
IT change management is only successful because of clear communication, careful preparation, testing and ensuring employees are actively informed. When employees feel seen and supported, they are more likely to embrace change.
This requires the help of a technology vendor who will work alongside you to ensure implementation and rollout are successful. You need engagement from all parts of the business to get the best results possible.
The right orchestration and AI software will ensure everything works together. Enate orchestrates work across teams, systems and processes so B2B services can run efficiently, deliver better results, and scale with confidence. We don’t just deliver technology. We help make transformation sustainable.
Ready to consider how change management can be successfully implemented?
Get in touch to schedule a 1-2-1 discovery call or join a bespoke workshop tailored to your goals.
