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Change Management

Change is essential but far from easy. Roughly half of all change management projects—and 75% of large-scale transformations—fail to meet their objectives. BCG’s change management consulting services help organizations beat these daunting odds.

Change management efforts allow companies to reinvent themselves as new opportunities and challenges arise, leading to greater participation in—and earnest adoption of—critical transformation initiatives. This adaptability allows businesses to hone their competitive edge.

BCG's change management consultants unlock transformation’s true potential, using approaches and tools that incorporate artificial intelligence, behavioral science, deep learning, and data analytics. The underlying principles come from our Smart Simplicity concept, which teaches that understanding people’s behaviors, along with the context in which they work, reduces complexity and improves performance.

The success of our change management consulting approach can be seen in the track record of the more than 3,000 companies in our Transformation Check benchmark:


How BCG Uses Change Management to Help Clients Gain an Edge

BCG works with clients to address their most pressing business transformation challenges. We help:

  • Align and activate leaders around strategic initiatives
  • Craft and execute persona-driven communications and engagement plans
  • Prioritize and manage complex portfolios of change initiatives
  • Establish and advise the office of the Chief Transformation Officer (CTO)
  • Transform organizational performance and culture
  • Manage transformation-related people changes and cost reductions
  • Create program-management best practices for complex business strategies

Our Change Management Approach

BCG’s network of change management consultants helps clients through our proven three-journey approach:

Leader Journey

People Journey

Program Journey

Change Management and Behavioral Science

Our approach to change is driven by data and informed by the latest research in neuroscience, behavioral economics, and psychology. BCG experts in these fields have established the Behavioral Science Lab, which develops and applies a suite of propriety data-driven tools and evidence-based approaches to help clients achieve meaningful and lasting change. At the Behavioral Science Lab, we:

  • Study and diagnose human behavior through a scientific lens, using proprietary diagnostic tools—one tool, for example, measures employees’ "change energy," that is, their emotions, confidence, and capacity to take on new work throughout a change initiative. 
  • Design behavioral solutions, including nudges, to change behavior and achieve desired outcomes. 
  • Build behavioral science capabilities and “nudge units” within organizations to institutionalize sustainable change.

Our Change Management Enablers

Our change management strategy experts deploy several foundational tools to support our change management approach, including:

 

Meet Our Change Management Consulting Leaders

Reinhard Messenböck

The Critical Role of Change Management in Large Scale Transformation

Michael Lutz

The Key CTO Competencies to Steer and Manage a Transformation

BCG’s Client Work in Change Management


Our Latest Insights on Change Management

Change Your Trajectory: Monthly insights on business transformation.