Finance Strategy and Leadership
4 Change Management Tips To Help Get Your People on Board a Technology Shift
Help your people embrace new technology changes with these four change management tips.
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Even the best technology fails without adoption.
Finance leaders invest significant time and resources in selecting and implementing new systems like advanced planning platforms, automation tools, and analytics software. But these investments often fall short of their promise simply because people don’t use them.
This adoption challenge is particularly critical in finance, where what’s at stake are crucial business processes that impact how a company manages its resources. When systems sit unused, not only do organizations waste their investment, but they also risk delays in financial reporting, gaps in compliance and missed opportunities to uncover and deliver insights that drive growth.
And research shows it’s a widespread challenge.
While 71% of FP&A professionals use an enterprise performance management (EPM) tool at least quarterly, according to the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), they're primarily using it for control and consolidation, not for advanced planning and forecasting.
As one AFP survey respondent notes: "Expanding use of the current tools we utilize is our challenge—getting more decision makers comfortable with the tools."
But there’s good news. A solid change management plan can help you get the system adoption you need from your team from the beginning, so that you can get the full value of your investment. The difference between success and failure in any transformation project is how you lead people through the change.
In this blog, we’ll explain the psychology of change management, why it’s particularly hard for finance teams, and how you can roll out successful transformation projects based on what we’ve learned over the course of thousands of Vena implementations.
Change management involves the approach, techniques and tools that prepare your organization—and the people in it—for change.
In finance transformation projects, it’s about guiding users from the comfort of spreadsheets and established processes to new systems and ways of working, all without sacrificing accuracy, compliance or morale during the transition.
Change management is no easy task. As Scott Jorgens, Sr. Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships at Endeavour Solutions, notes on The CFO Show podcast when discussing large-scale technology projects such as migrating ERPs: "Don't underestimate the resistance to change. It takes a lot of effort in change management just to get people involved and excited."
But when end users are engaged and excited about the transition, change management is well worth the effort.
Prosci’s research shows that organizations with excellent change management programs meet or exceed objectives 88% of the time. Those with good programs achieve success 73% of the time, while only 39% of organizations with fair programs reach their goals. With poor change management, just 13%—roughly 1 in 8 projects—meet objectives.
When finance leaders don’t adopt new technology, software becomes shelfware. And without effective change management to drive adoption, organizations miss out on the full benefits and ROI, while risking project delays, missed milestones, budget overruns and dwindling resources as company sponsors lose interest.
Many organizations focus exclusively on the technical aspects of change, such as timelines, milestones and deliverables. But even meticulously planned projects fail when people don't embrace the change.
What stops finance teams from adopting new technology? Human nature.
According to Prosci, resistance is defined as the psychological and physiological reactions to change. It's a natural response, deeply rooted and occurring at both unconscious and conscious levels.
Several psychological factors make employees resistant to change:
Humans selectively seek information that supports existing beliefs, including "the way we do things around here." When finance teams have spent years perfecting their Excel workflows, they'll naturally focus on reasons new software won't work rather than the opportunities it creates.
People prioritize avoiding losses over making gains. In many cases, finance professionals may fear losing their hard-won expertise and established workflows more than they value potential efficiency gains.
People assign more value to things they already own. That complex spreadsheet a controller built over five years? It feels more valuable than a new system promising similar outcomes, simply because they created it.
People tend to adopt the beliefs and actions of a group. When respected colleagues express skepticism about new software, others follow suit, creating a cascade of resistance.
McKinsey research identifies that when people’s actions don’t line up with their beliefs, it creates tension and discomfort. If finance teams believe in organizational growth but resist tools that enable it, they'll experience dissonance. The key is helping them see how new behaviors serve the organization's financial health.
Based on B.F. Skinner's work on behavior and rewards, people are more likely to repeat actions that are recognized or rewarded. If you ask managers to spend time learning new software but don't factor this into performance reviews or provide recognition for adoption, they won't prioritize it. When reward systems contradict stated priorities, the stated priorities lose.
Adult learning specialist David Kolb demonstrated that adults can't learn through instructions alone. His four-phase learning cycle shows people need time to absorb new information, experiment with it and integrate it with existing knowledge.
But this learning process often conflicts with the reality that team members must balance their learning with the day-to-day responsibilities of their role. Effective change management breaks training into manageable chunks with practice time between sessions.
People reflect the behavior of those in positions of influence. For widespread adoption, it's not enough for senior leadership to champion change. Respected figures at every level must visibly embrace new ways of working.
These psychological factors intensify in finance departments, where the stakes feel particularly high.
Finance teams follow a very cyclical schedule, and the rest of the business depends heavily on that work. This makes it particularly hard to justify the time investment and disruption that introducing new systems brings.
Finance-specific challenges include:
You can’t move the end of the month—or the deadlines that come with it. Finance teams fear that learning new systems during critical periods will cause them to miss deadlines, leading to cascading problems across the organization.
Finance teams operate under strict regulations. They worry whether new systems can meet their business's unique compliance and reporting requirements. And they know validating this takes significant time. Every business has its own unique way of operating, with specific reporting structures, approval workflows, and regulatory needs that new systems might not support without extensive configuration.
Your team likely has financial models you’ve spent years building, living entirely in spreadsheets. Finance professionals fear losing institutional knowledge, breaking proven workflows or compromising audit trails that examiners have already validated.
A single misplaced decimal can have million-dollar consequences. With little or no margin for error, finance teams are particularly risk-averse when considering new tools (and who can blame them).
When issues arise during critical moments—like the end of a quarter or late at night—finance teams need immediate solutions. They might fear learning a new system could leave them unable to respond quickly enough when fire drills come up.
If change management doesn’t address these fears, teams may push back or quietly stall adoption.
As one respondent to AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey revealed: "Our forecasting tool is a bit clunky to use and expensive to update. It is currently being used more like a data repository for reporting purposes as opposed to a tool to assist in forecasting and analyzing historical data."
The survey also found that FP&A teams juggle multiple systems. Half use at least eight different tools for planning and 10 for quarterly reporting. This tool sprawl makes finance teams hesitant to add another tool to their already crowded tech stack.
As Mark Erdmann, Vena’s VP of Solutions, put it on a Vena webinar, successful change management comes down to two core principles: starting small and staying collaborative.
You don’t have to transform everything at once. Take a phased approach that builds momentum through early wins. And don’t go it alone. Involve your team closely with implementation partners so they can learn by doing, build confidence and take ownership of the software.
The following principles form the basis of effective finance transformation. To put them into practice, we've developed a handy framework we call “BRIDGE”: six steps that guide successful implementations:
Finance transformation projects work best when they're transparent and incremental, treating change like a marathon rather than a sprint.
When rolling out new tools or processes, begin with something that delivers quick value without drastically changing how people work. This builds trust early and creates momentum, even while full integration is still in progress.
For example, start with one use case, like budgeting, and customize templates to match how your teams already work. This honors existing knowledge while introducing new capabilities. Once people see tangible value—like faster consolidation, cleaner audit trails and easier variance analysis—you can expand into more advanced areas like workforce planning and product-level forecasting.
Follow this up with short and medium-term milestones, and a shared end goal that serves as a finish line for the entire process, aligning everyone toward the same objective with consistent expectations.
Change doesn’t happen just because leadership says so. It takes champions across the organization who get both the big picture and the day-to-day realities.
That’s why it’s important to involve change agents early, even during the planning stage.
As Scott from Endeavour Solutions notes on the CFO Show Podcast, "The day-to-day end users of the system that's going to be an advocate of the change, it would be really great to get those front-line individuals also involved in the process. So they are aware and they can also contribute back to the potential impacts on the day-to-day operations as well."
Reaching out to stakeholders across departments to bring them into your core group of change agents helps anticipate problems and prepare responses. By bringing more people into the process earlier, you create deeper, more widely held commitment.
It’s also important for organizations to recognize that serving as a change agent is added work. As Scott observes, "Very few clients are backfilling positions when we put in a new ERP. So it's side-of-desk work, it's evenings and weekends. It does take, obviously, leadership and executives to say, ‘Hey guys, let's not throw on a few extra projects during this same time. Let's lighten it up a little bit.’"
Support your change agents through:
Reduced project loads during implementation phases
Public recognition for their contributions
Direct access to leadership for escalating concerns
Protected time for training and system exploration
Clear authority to make decisions within their domain
Clear, consistent communication around the change is just as important as the actual system itself.
By keeping users informed, engaged and focused on the benefits, you can drive adoption and reduce resistance throughout the rollout. Keep the following in mind as you build your communication plan:
No one wants to have new tools and processes sprung on them at work. So don't send an email a week before deployment saying, "Hey, this is coming." Start communicating as soon as you approve the project and select your technology.
Reach different audiences through email updates, town halls, team meetings, Microsoft Teams or Slack channels, intranet posts and one-on-one conversations. Repetition through different media helps the message stick.
Get end users excited about the software by clearly articulating what's in it for them. Don't lead with something like, "The new system has automated consolidation." Instead, say, "You'll get two days back each month that you currently spend on consolidation."
You can also build a connection by framing the change as part of a greater purpose, not just another initiative. This helps you develop language that communicates both the work ahead and how the company and employees will benefit.
Training isn't a one-time event at the start of implementation. "It's really important to have a continuous learning and enablement mindset throughout implementation,” Vena’s Mark Erdmann emphasizes.
Effective training starts with foundational knowledge but extends throughout the entire implementation through collaborative learning. Here's what that looks like in practice:
Begin with structured training. For Vena implementations, for instance, we recommend approximately 12 hours of combined e-learning and instructor-led sessions. This establishes a baseline understanding of system capabilities and navigation.
Remember that as adults we need time to learn. You can't teach everything in one session. Break formal teaching into chunks with time between sessions for learners to reflect, experiment and apply new principles.
Deep learning happens when users work alongside consultants or internal experts on actual use cases. For example, configure the first few reports your team will need together with your consulting team, with experts explaining decisions and alternatives as they work.
After collaborating on several configurations, shift to a coaching model where users complete tasks themselves while experts observe, answer questions and provide guidance. This "learning by doing" approach builds genuine competence and confidence.
Post-implementation, plan what future phases of the platform will look like and execute continuous improvements. Create a feedback loop where users regularly share what's working, what's frustrating them, and what additional capabilities would add value.
To drive adoption, focus on making new software easy to access and use.
Make it extremely easy for people to access and use the software. Consider enabling single sign-on so people don't even need to log in.
People are inundated with technology at work. Your new system must be intuitive and make their jobs genuinely easier. Focus relentlessly on user experience, because satisfaction drives adoption more than any other factor.
Once you implement the software, your job isn't done. That’s just phase one. Take on a continuous improvement mindset and monitor usage patterns, gather feedback and iterate constantly. This ongoing optimization is what drives long-term adoption.
A clear goal, strong vision and dedicated team are key to initiating any change, but for it to stick, you need to support it through long-term enablement.
Ongoing support keeps the project on track and helps you spot resistance or new challenges early so you can address them before they slow progress.
Be prepared to make adjustments during implementation. These adjustments might involve technology configuration, process refinement or timeline modifications to keep things moving forward efficiently.
Maintain parallel systems during critical periods. Run old and new processes simultaneously during at least one full close cycle. This safety net reduces anxiety and provides validation that new systems work correctly.
Create clear escalation paths. When users encounter problems, they need to know exactly who to contact and how quickly they'll get support. Nothing erodes confidence faster than being stuck without help during a critical deadline.
Celebrate wins. This is a big one—when teams successfully complete their first milestone in the new system, acknowledge it. When someone discovers a better way to use a feature, share it widely. Recognition reinforces positive behavior and encourages continued engagement.
The right combination of processes, technology and people support will move your organization successfully toward the finish line of any transformation effort.
When executed well, introducing new systems delivers benefits that extend beyond process efficiency, including:
Gaining a competitive advantage for talent acquisition
Reduced risk and improved compliance
Improved partnerships within the organization
Organizational resilience and the ability to adapt to disruptions and changing demands
Vena is uniquely designed to support successful change management. By working natively with Excel, the interface finance teams already know, Vena eliminates the need for users to relearn a new spreadsheet interface or formula language.
This familiarity reduces resistance while delivering the powerful planning capabilities your organization needs. And as your team gains confidence, Vena makes it easy to build on additional use cases as you scale, whether that's workforce planning, capital expenditure management, or operational forecasting—all within a single, unified platform.
Remember that finance change management is an ongoing commitment. Start where you are; you don’t need a perfect plan to begin. Focus on transparency, incremental progress and genuine support for the people most affected by the change. Because finance change management isn't about forcing people to abandon what they know, it’s about helping them achieve more.
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