Change Management: The Often-Forgotten Key to Success

Exora Advisory and Exora Automation were founded in 2025 by Gijsbert Slob, an experienced automotive aftermarket professional with decades of expertise in the Independent Automotive Aftermarket (IAM). Successful transformation is not just about creating the right solution; it is about ensuring people embrace and adopt it. Effective change management helps overcome resistance, build trust, align stakeholders, and accelerate adoption, turning strategic vision into measurable results.

Change management typically operates between two extremes: introducing a new application that nobody knew they needed, and replacing an application that has been embedded in core business processes for years.

In the first scenario, value is immediately visible. Early adopters quickly become ambassadors, sharing positive experiences with colleagues and accelerating adoption throughout the organisation. Scaling happens almost naturally. It is the ideal scenario—yet one that rarely occurs.

The second scenario is far more challenging. Replacing or even slightly modifying a business-critical application can create significant disruption if not managed carefully.

Our first piece of advice: fix the roof when the sun is shining. When organisational performance is already under pressure, introducing a new application can unintentionally provide the perfect explanation for poor results. Teams may quickly attribute operational issues to the implementation, making it difficult to separate fact from perception. Once that narrative takes hold, it becomes increasingly difficult to regain control.

A second lesson: don’t go too big, too early. Launching a widely used application—internally or externally—to a large user base before support processes and feedback mechanisms are fully prepared can be disastrous. During implementations of critical applications, we have seen more than 1,000 support tickets opened within days. User confidence evaporates quickly, and rebuilding trust requires considerable time and effort.

Another common challenge is organisational window dressing. Even highly professional PMO departments within multi-billion-euro organisations can fall into the trap of reporting against incomplete metrics, focusing on the wrong KPIs, or failing to connect critical dependencies before go-live. Projects are often presented as being on time and on target—until the first live tests reveal a very different reality.

These are only a few examples of situations where an external perspective can make a significant difference. Fresh insights, independent assessment, and experience from similar transformations can help identify risks before they become costly problems.

Change management is a complex and delicate process that requires continuous attention. One of the most valuable—and surprisingly often overlooked—elements is the user group.

A well-structured user group should consist of internal and/or external users, depending on the scope of the application, and should be divided into relevant subgroups where necessary. The participants should not only be recognised experts in their respective areas but also individuals who are open to change and capable of becoming ambassadors for the initiative.

One of the biggest challenges is determining how feedback is prioritised and acted upon before progressing to the next phase. Only individuals with deep process knowledge and market understanding can effectively distinguish between critical requirements and desirable enhancements. User groups therefore need strong guidance from domain experts, ensuring alignment on what is essential and what can be addressed later.

Commercial teams are another stakeholder group that is frequently involved too late—or not at all. Particularly for customer-facing applications, sales and commercial organisations should be engaged from the very beginning. They need to understand not only what is changing, but why it is changing and how it will create value for customers and for themselves. Depending on the scope of the initiative, they should have representation within the user group.

Communication and engagement are equally critical. A professional communication plan should ensure that each stakeholder group receives targeted, relevant messaging. Employees today are overloaded with information from multiple departments, causing genuinely important updates to get lost in the noise. Interactive workshops and live online sessions help create engagement, strengthen alignment, and provide direct feedback channels beyond the formal user groups.

Finally, there is the classic IT-driven project. Despite years of lessons learned, we still see implementations where IT owns the initiative almost entirely. Every process is documented, every requirement is captured, every compliance and security box is ticked—and yet the project struggles. Why? Because it lacks agility, effective product ownership, and meaningful connection to the business. Successful transformation requires more than technical excellence; it requires genuine alignment between technology, processes, and people.

Poor management of the balance between time, budget, scope, and user expectations can quickly derail even the most promising initiative. Change management is not a one-time activity—it is a continuous discipline that determines whether a project delivers lasting value or becomes another missed opportunity.

If you are facing a transformation that requires extra attention, independent validation, or additional expertise, let’s discuss how we can support you in making it a success.