Guiding renewable energy financiers through digital transformation
As project financiers race to match the pace of the industry’s growth, renewable energy project finance and investment financing organizations must evolve their internal operations to remain competitive. Choosing a digital solution to streamline and standardize responsibilities like deal-making, compliance reporting, and portfolio management is only the first step — the real challenge lies in getting your team to embrace that digital solution. Resistance to change and competing priorities leave project finance and portfolio management teams stuck in a rut, slowing down adoption.
Managing organizational change and new technology adoption is no small task. At Banyan Infrastructure, we have first-hand experience helping project finance organizations through digital transformation processes. Here are the strategies that successful operations professionals use to get their teams on board with the change and up to speed in the new tools.
Involve collaborators early
Much like business representatives search for project “champions” to influence key decision makers, change-making operations professionals can use collaborators across the organization to get early buy-in. From the start, work with employees within all departments — finance, investment, strategy, portfolio management, risk, and compliance — and across seniority levels to establish a digital transformation committee.
Collaborators should be the first to receive an introduction to the purpose of the change and how it will affect their team’s daily work. Meet with the committee on a regular basis to bring them into the change process. Topics to cover include:
- The purpose of the change
- Who is responsible for implementing the change
- The implementation timeline
- How their team’s specific work will be improved
- How they can help their colleagues adapt and learn
Be open with these collaborators as you encounter questions you may not know the answer to yet, and seek their input. Their perspective from different roles within the organization will offer invaluable insights into how processes can be improved and how the rollout can be streamlined. Take this opportunity to address early feedback before introducing the new system to the rest of the organization. Receive their feedback in deliberate surveys and talkback sessions, and be sure to adjust your plans to address their concerns.
By the time you are ready to implement the new system, collaborators from this committee will be instrumental in sharing their experience with each of their departments. This approach will build trust with the collaborators and greatly improve the effectiveness of the digital system implementation.
Share your digital transformation vision first
Think back to when you chose to make this change for the company: You could see how it would ultimately help the organization grow and improve in the future. When you introduce the whole organization to the change process on which they will embark, share your vision of this digital transformation. This approach welcomes other leaders into your line of thinking. Once leaders can see the big picture the way you do, you’ll have a much easier time working with them to deploy the mechanics of the change.
Share the news with enthusiasm at a staff meeting, and let everyone know that this is just an introduction with many more opportunities to gather information to come. Let leaders and their teams know that this process will be a conversation that involves their input just as much as it involves yours. This is another great opportunity to be transparent and build trust.
Alleviate uncertainty
Ultimately, guiding your organization through digital transformation is difficult because people find change cumbersome. As an operations leader, you can ensure a smooth transition by working to understand and alleviate employees’ uncertainties. Being transparent is, once again, a great tool at this stage of the rollout. The more employees feel they have all the information, the less suspicious they will be of the incoming change.
Share your implementation timeline with the company so that they know what to expect and when to expect it. Be sure to map this timeline in relation to other major company dates, like project launches, groundbreaking events, and industry conferences. This will show employees that you understand that the digital transformation you are undertaking does not stop other company happenings and that you’ve made an effort to work around what is already important to their work.
This is a great time to call in the collaborators who participated in the committee from the start. Use the committee to teach elements of the new system that pertain to their particular team, gather ongoing feedback, and garner additional support. Just like at the committee stage, be sure to take actionable steps to respond to feedback and share with the company when these steps are implemented.
Finally, the best way to dispel skepticism and uncertainty is by providing adequate training so that employees feel confident in using the new tools. Provide a mixture of scheduled training sessions and asynchronous learning tutorials. Schedule periodic office hours and welcome employees to drop in with questions and feedback so that they know you are continuously available to help. You’ll know the rollout is well-received when you begin receiving fewer “why” questions and more “how to” questions.
Embracing digital transformation
Digital solutions drive efficiency through automation, streamline cross-team collaboration, and offer valuable insights to help organizations successfully scale their business. Look to the experts within the digital solutions organizations for assistance, like the advisory services offered by Banyan Infrastructure, to help you build the roadmap to digital transformation.
Launching a new system in an organization is never easy, but focusing on the needs of people who will interact with the new tools daily will always be the best way to lead your organization through digital transformation. Keep the end goal of a more efficient, better organized, and higher valued portfolio in mind while navigating a system change to keep you focused on what brought you and your employees down this path in the first place.
For a full analysis of how digital transformation affects organizations that invest and lend in renewable energy infrastructure, see Banyan Infrastructure’s brief, Standardizing project finance: The path to market scale, with Latitude Media.
Interested in how digital transformation can evolve your renewable energy project finance processes? Reach out to Banyan Infrastructure today to learn more.