Written by Minami — Paddy & Water Inc. / Technology & Platform

Change Management

An Approach to Organizational Transformation and Talent Development

June 2026

Introduction: If SAP Goes Live but the “Organization” Does Not Move, It Is a Failure

In SAP S/4HANA implementations, the most easily overlooked yet most critical failure factor is the “lack of change management.” The system went live on schedule. The data was migrated correctly. Yet six months later, the workforce was using Excel instead of SAP, and the verdict that “SAP just doesn’t work” had taken hold on the ground. Such tragedies are far from rare.

Change management is the umbrella term for the organized, planned activities used to address the “resistance to change” and the “difficulty of behavioral change” that inevitably arise when a new system or business process is introduced. It is not a matter of “holding a single briefing session” or “distributing an operations manual.” Rather, it means deploying, across the entire organization, the processes people need in order to change habitual behavior.

This guide explains the theory and practice of change management in SAP S/4HANA implementation projects. Our aim is to confirm that squarely accepting the difficulty of “moving people” and facing it head-on is the only path that turns digital transformation (DX) into real, tangible results.

Chapter 1　Why Change Management Is Necessary: The Nature of “Resistance to Change”

1-1　”Resistance to Change” Is a Human Instinct

Resistance to change within an organization does not arise from individual laziness or lack of competence. It is rooted in human cognitive and psychological instinct. This tendency, known as “status quo bias,” is a psychological mechanism through which people seek reassurance, when confronted with uncertainty, by clinging to the known way of doing things—even if that way is inefficient.

Consider how an employee who has managed order processing in Excel for thirty years feels the first time they encounter SAP S/4HANA. “This system is going to take away my job.” “I could never learn something this complicated.” “The way we do it now is much faster.” These feelings are not a rejection of change—they are simply a “normal human reaction” to change.

The starting point of change management is for the organization as a whole to understand this “normality of resistance.” Rather than treating resistance as an “obstacle,” it must be built into the plan as something that “inevitably occurs in organizations undergoing major change.” Only from that starting point does an appropriate response become possible.

1-2　ADKAR: The Five Elements That Create Change

A leading framework in change management is “ADKAR.” Proposed by Prosci, this model defines the five elements an individual needs in order to accept change and alter their behavior.

Element	Term	Meaning	Concrete Measures in an SAP Implementation
A	Awareness	Awareness of the need for change	Messaging from management on “why we are introducing SAP”
D	Desire	A desire to want to change	Concretely showing “how this will make my job easier”
K	Knowledge	Knowledge of how to change	Conducting operations training and business-process training
A	Ability	The ability to actually change	OJT, super-user support, hands-on practice
R	Reinforcement	Reinforcement of the changed state	Adoption monitoring, KPI setting, sharing success stories

What this framework shows is that change does not happen simply by “informing” people. Only when “desire,” “knowledge,” “ability,” and “reinforcement” are all provided organizationally do people actually change their behavior. If even one element is missing, the change stalls. This is why the notion that “a single briefing session is enough” leads to failure.

Chapter 2　Stakeholder Analysis: “Who to Involve, and How”

2-1　Creating a Stakeholder Map

The first task in change management is creating a “stakeholder map.” This involves visualizing everyone affected by the SAP S/4HANA implementation and analyzing, for each of them, the “magnitude of impact,” their “stance toward the change (supportive/neutral/opposed),” and the “action required.”

Stakeholder	Initial Stance Toward Change	Influence	Engagement Strategy
CEO/COO	Broadly supportive (driving force)	Greatest	Co-creating the DX narrative; sustaining engagement through monthly progress reports
Business unit heads	Neutral to skeptical	High	Demonstrating “resolution of their own division’s issues” through individual hearings
Head of IT	Supportive (a direct stakeholder)	High	Positioning them as a co-leader of the project
Frontline managers (section chiefs)	Neutral to opposed	High	Actively involving them as super-user candidates
Frontline staff	Opposed to neutral	Medium	Giving them early hands-on experience of “a system they can actually use”
Labor union (if present)	Opposed (concerned about changes to work)	Medium	Making clear this is a shift to “higher-value work,” not a headcount reduction

2-2　Executive Sponsor Leadership: Without “Change from the Top,” Change Will Not Happen

The single biggest variable determining the success of change management is the quality and quantity of the executive sponsor’s leadership. What is required is not “management that watches the project from the outside,” but “management that speaks about the need for change in its own words and confronts frontline anxieties head-on.”

The concrete actions expected of the executive sponsor are as follows.

Actions Expected of the Executive Sponsor

① A direct message at the company-wide kickoff briefing: explaining, in management’s own words, “why this project is needed now”

② Attending the monthly project review meeting: continually demonstrating the project’s importance

③ “Listening to” frontline “resistance” rather than crushing it: responding directly to questions at town-hall meetings

④ Consistently communicating the message that “there is no option of not changing”: closing off the option of maintaining the status quo

⑤ Declaring priorities: when the project competes with regular business operations, deciding in favor of the project

Failure Case

The CEO gave a speech at the kickoff, but was rarely seen in the project afterward. The frontline concluded it was “all talk,” and willingness to cooperate with the project dropped sharply. For an executive sponsor’s involvement, “continuity” is everything.

Chapter 3　Communication Plan: The “Right Information” at the “Right Time”

3-1　The Need for a Communication Plan

An SAP S/4HANA implementation project is, in most cases, a long-term undertaking spanning one to three years. During this time, an information vacuum easily forms on the front line—people not knowing “what the project is actually doing.” That information vacuum gets filled with “rumor” and “anxiety.” “Half the positions will disappear once SAP is introduced.” “Starting next year, everyone will be forced to do the work of three people.” Baseless rumors like these divert the organization’s energy toward resisting the transformation.

A communication plan is a set of planned activities designed to fill this information vacuum with “accurate information.”

3-2　The 5W1H Framework for Communication

Item	Design Point	Concrete Example
What	Communicate only the “facts” that can be shared at this point in time	Project progress, upcoming milestones, training schedule
Who	Choose the sender of the message to match the audience’s position	Management → whole company, division heads → their division, PM → the project team
To Whom	Clarify the target stakeholders	All employees, a specific division, the management layer, super users
When	Establish a regular cadence of communication	Monthly newsletter, weekly super-user meetings
How	Use different channels for different purposes	Company-wide email, the intranet portal, divisional morning meetings, one-on-ones
Why	Convey the message so recipients see it as relevant to “themselves”	Being concrete about “how your job will change”

3-3　How to Deliver “Bad News”: Transparency Creates Buy-In

The hardest part of change management is communication for “when problems arise on the project.” A delay has occurred, a functional requirement could not be fully met, cutover has been postponed—the human instinct is to want to hide this kind of “bad news,” but doing so leads to a fatal loss of trust.

The recommended approach is to disclose the issue promptly using a four-part structure: “problem → impact → countermeasures → expected recovery.” By conveying not just “what happened” but also “how it is being handled,” recipients can conclude that “the project team has the situation under control.” This transparency is nothing less than the source of buy-in in a long-term project.

Chapter 4　Talent Development Program: Systematically Cultivating “People Who Can Actually Use the System”

4-1　Designing the Training Program: “Who, What, and How”

SAP S/4HANA operations training must be designed from the perspective of “having people master the new business processes,” not merely “teaching them how to operate the system.” If operators of the old system simply become “operators of the new system,” no substantive change occurs in the work itself. The goal is to develop “new owners of the business process”—people who understand “why the business flow has changed” and “what they themselves should do under the revised process.”

Audience	Training Content	Format	Duration
Executive leadership	The significance of ERP, key KPIs, approval workflows	Executive briefing	Half a day
Managers (department and section heads)	Business-process changes, authorization settings, reporting functions	Workshop	One day
Super users	All business flows, exception handling, cross-departmental coordination, administrator functions	Intensive training + OJT	Three to five days
General users	Day-to-day operations (limited to scenarios relevant to them)	Hands-on training	Half a day to one day
IT system administrators	SAP administrator operations, authorization management, monitoring of scheduled batch jobs	Technical training	Two to three days

4-2　The Super-User System: Cultivating the Organization’s Own Driving Force

What ultimately determines the success or failure of an SAP implementation is neither the consultants nor management, but the people known as “super users.” A super user is the “foremost SAP practitioner” assigned within each department, and carries three roles: fielding questions from the frontline, driving the adoption of the new business processes, and handing work over to new employees.

A super user is not simply “someone who knows a bit more about SAP.” They are “change champions,” able to dispel frontline anxiety and resistance far more gently and effectively than consultants or management can—precisely because they are “people from the same front line.”

Criteria for Selecting Super Users

① Prioritize “a willingness to teach and the trust of colleagues” over technical knowledge (someone people rely on is preferable to a flawless operator)

② Mid-level to senior staff who thoroughly understand their department’s day-to-day work (ideally, three to ten years since joining the company)

③ People with an open attitude toward change (there is also a strategy of making a symbolic figure of the opposition into a super user)

④ Secure a structure that frees them from their normal duties for a set period (having super users double up on their regular job leads to dysfunction)

4-3　Ways to Improve the “Retention Rate” of Training

What is learned in training is forgotten within a week—this is common knowledge in e-learning research. According to the “Ebbinghaus forgetting curve,” about half of what is learned is forgotten within 24 hours, and about 75% within a week. To counter this forgetting, the following approaches are effective in SAP training.

• Concentrate training just before cutover (four to six weeks before go-live). Training that is held too early results in “going live after everything has been forgotten.”

• Keep the hands-on (actual operation) portion at 70% or more. Lecture-centered training is not well suited to embedding SAP operating skills.

• Narrow the content down to “only the scenarios used in one’s own job.” Teaching every function only causes confusion.

• Administer a “confirmation test” after training, and set up a system in which super users individually follow up with anyone who fails.

• For two to four weeks after cutover, have super users stationed on the floor to provide “on-the-job training in the field.”

Chapter 5　Embedding the Change: A Mechanism That Does Not End Once “the Work Is Done”

5-1　The Essence of Embedding Change: “Turning New Behavior into Habit”

The comment heard most often after SAP S/4HANA goes live is that “managing things in Excel is faster than entering them in SAP.” This is a natural sentiment, and there is no point in blaming people for it. It is said that it takes a person an average of 66 days to turn a new behavior into a habit (Phillippa Lally, UCL). The essence of embedding change is not to force people to fight through those 66 days alone, but to help them get through it with organized support.

5-2　Adoption KPIs: Confirming “Whether the System Is Being Used” with Numbers

As a means of measuring adoption, we recommend setting the following KPIs. These can be obtained from SAP’s own log data, making it possible to visualize “who logged into the system and when” and “which screens were used, and how much.”

KPI	Measurement Method	Target Value (Example)	Action
System login rate	SAP SU01/SM20 logs	95% or more of all target users	Super users follow up with users who have not logged in
Excel bypass rate	Reports of deviation from the business process	0% (eliminate Excel entry followed by SAP re-entry)	Prohibit Excel-to-SAP entry as a matter of business rule
Number of help-desk inquiries	Weekly trend in ticket volume	50% or less of the first week’s volume, four weeks later	If it does not decrease, add further super-user training
Master-data quality score	MDG quality check	Quality score of 90 or above	Automatically detect low-quality data → data stewards correct it
Number of delayed business approvals	Workflow logs	Zero, four weeks after go-live	Individual coaching for users causing delays

5-3　The Moment to Declare the Transformation “Complete”

Change management requires a “declaration of completion.” Transformation is not an “effort that continues forever”; it is a process of “confirming that the target state has been reached and embedding the new state in the organization as the new normal.”

We recommend holding a “transformation results review” three to six months after go-live, creating an opportunity for management, managers, super users, and frontline staff to gather together and share “how things have changed.” By combining quantified results (a shorter monthly closing cycle, improved inventory turnover, a higher rate of automated order processing) with the unfiltered voice of the front line (“it was hard at first, but it’s easy to use now”), the transformation becomes etched into the organization’s memory as “something we achieved.”

That, precisely, is the moment at which SAP S/4HANA takes its place in the company’s history not as a mere system replacement, but as genuine digital transformation.

End