The difficulty with making changes is two-fold. First, of course, people are typically wary and uncomfortable with making transitions from the familiar to the new directives that often result with changes. Secondly, the rationale for instituting changes is often flawed or poorly explained to those affected by the changes.

For instance, there are some common flaws when it comes to implementing changes. They are often proposed:

    · to solve superficial problems;

    · without extensive understanding of the ramifications;

    · with an unclear explanation to others as to why the change is being made;

    · without a firm grasp of the costs and/or consequences; or, perhaps worst of all,

    · and are then announced, unmonitored, not enforced, and eventually forgotten or ignored.

In an overwhelming majority of the situations described in these scenarios, more than just the promised or desired results are lost. The credibility, leadership, and confidence in the executive and management team are also sacrificed.

Why Make the Change?
In the case of Eagle Point Software Corporation, a developer of CAD-based software for civil engineers, land surveyors, and landscape architects since 1983, the reasoning for making the change was relatively simple.

“The reason we changed/are changing is that the industry demands a broader range of solutions to achieve their goals,” explained Eagle Point co-founder John Biver. “While there remains a demand for software and technology enhancements, but land development organizations demand implementation services and are increasingly recognizing that technology is only a small part of the equation.”

Before, and soon after repurchasing Eagle Point in December of 2001, Biver and his executive team spent numerous hours reviewing the facts and figures of his company and the ever-changing market. A number of key factors determined the future direction of his company:

    · Eagle Point employed dozens of knowledgeable and talented employees who had spent hundreds of thousands of hours within the offices of thousands of land development organizations over the past 20 years.

    · Over 40,000 clients owned Eagle Point software products.

    · Company engineers, technicians, and programmers had worked deep within the coding of virtually every CAD product within the land development industry in an effort to maintain competitiveness and interoperability.

    · Technology users in the marketplace, regardless of whether they were using Eagle Point products or competitors, still were not seeing the efficiency gains promised to them when they purchased technology products.

Setting the Future Direction
Eagle Point recognized that it is the only organization that was focused exclusively on the land development industry. Some companies, such as Autodesk, were larger and even had more customers, but they often worked in a diverse array of disciplines and the land development market was just one of many to which they catered.

In addition, as a technology provider, Eagle Point served a diverse range of professionals within the land development market. No other company worked directly with land surveyors, civil engineers, and landscape architects and designers as did Eagle Point. No organization in existence could deliver the type of industry-specific expertise necessary to complement the strategic business management and workflow process expertise to help land development organizations survive and thrive.

Combining these two additional bits of information to the five factors described above, Biver announced to company employees and then the industry in March 2002 the future direction of Eagle Point.

The cornerstone of the company’s new direction was its corporate vision to be the leader in land development business solutions.

To guide its quest to meet this goal, six strategies were established that would be the measuring instruments and determine every decision being made:

    · Building Client-Centric Relationships
Come to a complete understanding of a clients’ personal and organizational technology needs to allow us to provide the best solutions to their needs.

    · Highest Product Quality
Develop the most stable applications, the most intuitively designed, with the highest level of functionality in the industry.

    · Easiest to Do Business With
Become consistent and fair in business practices and develop processes and policies that make it easy for clients to partner with us.

    · Successful Implementation Assurance
Develop thorough implementation plans that will include requirements established by the needs of clients to ensure a successful implementation.

    · Dynamically Integrated Technologies
Focus on bringing modules and functionality to the market that are specifically dedicated to providing clients with the most complete electronic loop.

    · Strategic Alliances
Develop and foster strategic alliances with business partners to enable us to recommend the best solutions to the full range of clients’ business needs.

Eagle Point’s third major task after establishing its goal and strategies was reviewing and adjusting its organizational structure.

Over the next year, changes were made to many internal processes as well as job descriptions and responsibilities. In fact, it was necessary to make some important personnel changes.

“Not all of the changes we made were easy to make,” states Biver. “However, it was essential for us to make sure that the decisions and changes we made were for the betterment of our clients – thus allowing us to meet the company goal. Some of these adjustments involved difficult personnel decisions.”

Together, these three components (goal, strategies, organizational structure) comprise the corporate business model. While Eagle Point was adjusting its business model, it was also trying to alter something that is often overlooked during times of significant change – its corporate culture.

For the purposes of managing and implementing change, the corporate culture is impacted by two primary factors: company philosophies and employee expectations.

Company philosophies are statements of the type of working environment an organization wants to create. While strategies direct the way employees interact with your external clients, philosophies direct the way employees interact with each other.

Employee expectations are often a touchy matter for most companies and are often treated superficially. For instance, most organizations have some form of job descriptions for their employees.

“Since investigating this situation at firms during our initial consultative discussions,” Biver reveals, “we often find that these descriptions are outdated, do not accurately reflect the real work an employee does and are not results-oriented. That was also the situation at Eagle Point before we made some changes.”

Organizations with clear performance expectations for their employees that are in line with the rest of their vision are much more likely to make progress toward their goal. Performance expectations must be written results which employees are expected to achieve. 

“While performance expectations are generally not well defined in most organizations,” continues Biver, “we found that behavior expectations are virtually non-existent. This is an area that most organizations struggle with because it forces the organization to deal with employees that do not fit into the organization’s defined culture. However, having well-defined performance and behavior expectations is essential because it allows you to hold employees accountable for contributing toward the organization’s vision.” 

One of the key points that Biver stresses is that many personnel moves were necessary for the company to make progress toward its goal. Without complete “buy-in” by all employees and the monitoring and enforcement of new policies and procedures, it would be impossible to work as a team toward a common goal.

The Results
The transition at Eagle Point took a full two years to implement completely. In fact, Biver admits that the adjustments continue.

“I think in some ways, it has been even more difficult for the executive and leadership team,” explains Biver, “especially those that have been with the company for 10 or more years. It is so easy to slip back into the old mindset. Obviously, revenues are still important. But the decisions we make are now based upon the long-term best interest of our clients and not the quarterly financial reports.”

While technology solutions, namely software products and surveying hardware still constitute a high portion of the Eagle Point revenues, discussing, investigating, proposing, and implementing business solutions to land development organizations have begun to become a significant factor in the company’s revenue stream. It’s a pendulum that is expected to swing in Eagle Point’s favor.

“There isn’t a company in the world that has more experience dealing with the wide range of land development organizations as we do,” claims Biver. “Not only do we know and understand the problems and situations that have arisen in the area of technology within the industry, but we also understand how the roles of each discipline and the specialties within each discipline have evolved. The need to increase collaboration, meet and exceed various regulatory challenges, and succeed as a organization, are getting more difficult.”

In fact, it is expected that business improvement initiatives will continue to be a hot topic for business leaders in the coming decade. There are many fads and they will continue to reinvent and repackage themselves in a thousand different ways, promising to be the magical cure to all that ails various organization. However, the way the initiatives are packaged will never define the difference between success and failure. A firm’s willingness to plan and, most importantly, execute your business improvement initiatives is the only true way to ensure success.  Anything less is success by luck. SLDT