Avnet Inc. is a global distributor of electronic components, enterprise IT and embedded technology with 19,000+ employees doing business in more than 120 countries.

Challenge

Despite a robust enterprise-level program for continuous lean and process improvement, Avnet was confident it could take this work to the next level. Employee adoption and usage was identified as an area that could make significant difference if given the appropriate attention and support.

Challenge Highlight

To increase project and initiative success in every level and region of a global organization through a change management capability build.

Initially, Avnet partnered with Prosci to simply add change management to its Organizational Excellence department. Change management was to be an add-on to people’s work, a go-to tool and enabler for executing continuous improvement.

Very quickly, leaders at Avnet saw the intrinsic potential of change management to catapult them toward exceptional performance and their desired results. With this realization, Avnet created a new initiative: to embed change management into the very fabric of its organizational business operations. Change management was to become a core competency.

A Prosci license was critical to building enterprise-wide change capability. The license gave us both the structure to standardize Prosci’s change management approach and the flexibility to integrate change management into our established strategy, leadership development and project process.

— Carla Howard, Change Management Center of Excellence at Avnet

Solution

Application

Beginning with the Prosci ADKAR® Model, Avnet spread key elements of the Prosci methodology throughout the organization. With an ever-deepening commitment to change management, Avnet invested further. The change management team trained all levels of the company, building role-based competencies so that every role in the organization was equipped to support change management work, and later created a Center of Excellence for Change Management, established to support Avnet’s growing network of change managers around the globe.

Solutions Highlights

• Acquire a Prosci License
• Facilitate role-based and custom trainings for all levels in all regions
• Establish a Change Management Center of Excellence (COE)
• Establish a Community of Practice for Avnet change practitioners

Partnership with Prosci

Avnet acquired a Prosci site license and began to facilitate internal change management training programs and workshops. Prosci role-based trainings included: 

• Change Management Sponsor Briefing
• Change Management Certification Program
• Change Management Program for Managers
• Change Management Employee Orientation

In addition, Avnet also developed customized trainings for its future change managers. Using the Prosci methodology and materials, Avnet hosted regular lunch-and-learns, workshops and presentations. A consistent language for change was established and over 450 global change leaders were created within their organization, actively sharing the Prosci methodology and encouraging its application. 

Prosci Site License

The site license Avnet purchased was critical to its success, providing unlimited access to Prosci’s role-based training materials and tools. The license also enabled Avnet to create customized trainings that were tailored to the unique needs of Avnet’s widespread audience. With the license, employees could receive specific trainings customized for and designed to improve their existing operations. Avnet continues to leverage these types of trainings.

Establishing A Change Management Center Of Excellence

A substantial turning point for Avnet was the commitment to and creation of change management as its own department. Evolving from an add-on, change management had a defined function with resources to match. Transitioning from primarily providing trainings, change professionals could now develop change strategies and coach individuals through change initiatives, accelerating their application and success.

Community of Practice: The Change Exchange

To reinforce change management’s new role as an organization-wide competency, the Center of Excellence set up the Change Exchange, facilitating quarterly global meetings to:

• Discuss challenges that change managers were facing
• Brainstorm and share solutions 
• Offer support and resources

Based on the success of the global Change Exchange, independent regions took the initiative to set up their own collaborative change groups. Both the Change Exchange and these regional groups have empowered change managers to take ownership of their change work and build their own change competency. Moving more into a coaching role, the Center of Excellence was able to offer all departments and regions the tools and support they needed to succeed.

Additional Support: Community of Practice & Metrics

Alongside the quarterly Change Exchange meetings, the Center of Excellence collected and shared stories of change management success from around the world via a SharePoint site. Departments across the globe could leverage and build upon other departments’ success.

The Center of Excellence also tracked change maturity in different departments, regularly following up with recent training participants and their supervisors. Where participants required additional skills or a department required more knowledge, coaching was provided.

Results

Avnet has successfully built enterprise-wide change management capability across all regions of its global organization. With improved organizational performance, Avnet has experienced and continues to experience: 

• A rise in project success
• Lower productivity drops
• A higher return on investment 

Today, Avnet has over 450 certified change management practitioners. Every region within the organization is growing in its change management competency, with many regions at a change management maturity level of 3, 4, or 5 on the Prosci Change Management Maturity Model (meaning that they consistently apply change management to their projects or have change management competency at every level of their organization).

Change management is a fundamental practice at Avnet. It is considered a crucial component of strategic planning and evident in all initiatives. Major projects and initiatives are assigned a change manager in addition to a project manager and sponsor. Additionally, global projects are assigned regional change leaders. These regional leaders adjust change management plans for cultural differences while ensuring consistency in leading the people side of change.

For the implementation of a new warehouse management system, Avnet was once again recognized for exceptional performance and named on the Supply and Demand Chain Executive 100, an annual listing of the top supply chain projects. This marks Avnet’s fourth year in a row on the list, and change management was a critical success factor in attaining this recognition.