Focus on employees’ views in new IT strategy

Six different IT departments with six different sets of culture and habits that in the future are to work together as one unit. Six sets of business processes and applications that in time are to be integrated in order to support one cooperation. And employees in six different organisations that should not feel the IT support of their day-to-day activities will be negatively affected by these structural changes.

The above describes some of the problems faced by DONG Energy in 2006, when the six Danish energy companies DONG, Elsam, ENERGI E2, NESA, Københavns Energi's electricity activities and Frederiksberg Forsyning merged to form the new DONG Energy. During the next 3-5 years, the group will face massive IT and organisational change processes when merging and integrating the 6 companies to form one single energy company.

In connection with a merger, which has been described as “probably the most demanding merger in Denmark”, how may integration of the IT departments be ensured to support the new group in the best possible way? In addition to the problems outlined above, DONG Energy has defined a number of challenges in relation to meeting the objectives as set out in the Group's new IT strategy, including:

• To ensure the least possible interruption of business processes in connection with the merger and optimum business support following the merger
• To eliminate overlapping/superfluous business processes and applications
• To support efficient and safe data integration throughout DONG Energy

To secure the utilisation degree of the ERP systems In order to ensure that the IT strategy is successfully implemented and to proactively support the change process, DONG Energy places great emphasis on employee involvement in the process, making the employees understand the necessity and content of the changes. Specifically, a total of 4 IT benchmarking analyses have been planned: One every year from the autumn of 2006 to the autumn of 2009.

The analysis

The analyses are performed by IT Optima, which has previously conducted analyses for the DONG, Elsam, NESA, and ENERGI E2 companies – and with DONG Energy's new benchmarking initiatives, all agreements have been restructured to form one agreement covering the entire group. Through standardised benchmarking analyses IT Optima throws light on the utilisation and efficiency of the most important IT systems, and, in addition, DONG Energy will achieve the following:

• An overall status on user satisfaction, including an estimate of strategy and partnership, adaptive capacity and readiness for change, Service Desk, etc.
• Documentation of business, IT employee and IT management evaluations of whether the objectives have been met
• Rendering visible which users/departments are satisfied, and which users/departments need extra focus
• Prioritizing – ongoing allocation of employees (business and IT) for operation and projects 
• A tool for detecting “unnecessary” dissatisfaction among users 
• To ensure that the users' daily activities function during the change process, allowing them to perform their daily tasks  
• To ensure that changes are firmly rooted among users.

The user survey, ”DONG Energy IT Survey 2006” forms a central part of the analysis and is intended to show employee satisfaction with IT systems in DONG Energy. The survey covers a total of 1,400 IT users, who have been carefully selected in order to ensure representation of all locations, central systems and business areas. Participants in the user survey are asked to state their experience of support, operation and information in the IT area. In addition, they are asked to evaluate the degree to which IT systems support tasks which are performed every day.

“It is important for us to always know how the users perceive the service we offer. That way, we may become better at fulfilling user requirements,” says Group IT Director Michael Moesgaard.

During a merger, a user survey – and active use of the results – is an invaluable tool for keeping employees informed about process developments and to ensure communication
between the IT department, management and employees:

“We hope that participants will provide constructive evaluations in the survey to ensure that we may improve and deliver even better solutions for IT users in DONG Energy,” Michael Moesgaard adds.

During the implementation phase the company's strategy is put to the test, and one criterion for successful implementation is efficient communication of the strategy to employees. DONG Energy chose to conduct the IT analysis as an ongoing process comprising 4 analyses during a 4-year period, and this is an important aspect in relation to employee involvement. With an analysis process covering several years, motivation and focus among both management and employees will be maintained over time, and the probability of a successful IT strategy is significantly improved.