Change Management for An Enterprise Point of Sale

So you’ve picked your point of sale. Now what?

This is the first post in a series exploring best practices for common challenges facing enterprise point of sale (POS) solutions, co-authored by Cristal Ghitman, enterprise sales executive at Revel Systems. To begin the series we’re starting with the painful process of change—that is, change management for an enterprise point of sale.

Sometimes selection is the simple part

We’ll start with a scenario. Let’s say you’ve been tasked with spearheading the selection of a new POS, a long and arduous process often driven by factors outside your control. Changes in the industry, advancements in technology, phased out hardware or costly upgrades, evolving consumer behaviors, or even a global pandemic… the list of uncontrollable influences is lengthy. Eventually your current solution doesn’t work out, and it’s time to find something new.

Finally, your search lands you with new technology after months of painstaking evaluation and testing. You’ve had buy-in across all of your organizations, validated partnerships, asked for development, and vetted out with all areas of your brand including operations, HR, and finance. You have determined that the new solution will emulate the processes you cannot change and value within your organization. You have agreed on the things your new technology can do to better your brand.

But now you’re realizing selection may have been the simple part of this undertaking. No matter how perfect the solution is or how thoroughly you have vetted it out, the real test remains to be seen in your stores operating every day. The success of your selection hinges on your employees across the organization and how their use of the new platform translates to customer experience and revenue.

Implementation, the unsung hero

It’s rubber hits the road time, where the true unsung heroes of technology change come in and start doing the dirty work. Implementation folks. The dream-to-reality team that makes it all happen. And no matter how ideal your solution may be, or how carefully you have thought through the change, this is where the real magic happens.

Lingering questions about change management and implementation

While implementation is a known, magical piece of the enterprise change management process, there are definitely some lingering questions we need to address about it:

• Why do we often introduce implementation strategies so late?
• Why are there not enough questions asked upfront about what the installation and project management will look like?
• How confident are you that your provider can execute that change?

There are so many things that can go wrong: Complicated installation processes. Poorly managed projects. Teams that lack infrastructure and leadership. The list is lengthy.

As acknowledged in the introduction of this post, this is the first of a short series that will dive deeper into the key factors to consider when choosing your point of sale and actually seeing it come to life in your business. We’ll start with a major factor: project management.

Project management is essential

According to Craig Crawford, director of implementation at Revel Systems, the number one thing you can do to improve change management for an enterprise point of sale (or any major systems change, for that matter), is bring in project management early and often.

“Sometimes a deal gets sold and the ball gets tossed over the fence, but the team on the other side doesn’t even know what sport we are playing yet,” Craig says. There are a multitude of approaches and scenarios around change management. It’s important to start building trust with the team you’re engaging with from the beginning. This is the team that will ultimately get the work done, for better or for worse.

A few project management best practices

1. Have a clear plan. Clarity is key to a new project's success. Starting with a project brief or clear outline of what you hope to achieve through the project will help keep you organized and on track to meet milestones and your overall project goals. Don't forget to identify team member roles and responsibilities. And if certain tasks are contingent on completion of other tasks, map out what needs to happen in consecutive order.
2. Communicate clearly, often, and consistently. Regular communication will help you quickly identify issues and roadblocks throughout your project so you can address them before they spiral. From the start of the project, establish and maintain your communication channels and cadence for the duration of the project.
3. Prepare to take corrective action when needed. Wouldn't it be great if projects progressed without issues? Ideal as that would be, challenges will inevitably arise as your project unfolds. Have a plan in place from the outset to handle needs for adjusted timelines, budgets, and task management as they happen. When you find yourself deviating from the plan, take early and decisive action to address the changes and right your course.
4. Stick to the scope. Scope creep is real. Even projects with clearly defined boundaries in the beginning can balloon during the execution phase. When possible, stick to the original scope and only change it if absolutely necessary.
5. Keep key stakeholders involved. Whether you are launching a new project, reaching critical milestones, or nearing project completion, you'll want to keep your key stakeholders up to date in every project stage. This means getting official sign-off from everyone involved and keeping them in the loop from start to finish.

Stay tuned for more…

Changing your POS will always be a painstaking process. It will take months of careful evaluating, planning, selection, and preparation. While we’ve scratched the surface in this blog post on the many factors that impact a change of this magnitude, you’re invited to stay tuned for future posts in this series for even more insight on change management for an enterprise point of sale. We’ll explore factors like key stakeholders, training, ecosystem integrations, and issue management.

In the meantime, see how the team at Focus Brands—a leading developer of iconic, multi-channel foodservice brands—deployed Revel Enterprise® across more than 1,300 Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, and Carvel locations.