Organisations investing in ERP, CRM, AI and digital transformation rarely get it wrong on the technical side.
The platforms are chosen carefully, the implementation partners are credible, the business case is solid and yet the value doesn’t land the way the leadership team expected.
The reason is almost never the technology; it’s what happens to people when the technology arrives. Engagement falls away, priorities pull in different directions, resistance builds quietly and momentum stalls. Without people who are genuinely aligned and ready to move, even the most capable systems fail to deliver.
The gap between what the programme promised and what the business actually gets isn’t a technical gap. It’s a behavioural one. That’s the gap Applied Change exists to close.
Our story
Applied Change was founded by Mark Vincent, a transformation leader, executive coach and advisor with more than 25 years of experience helping organisations navigate complex change.
Mark’s perspective on the human side of technology implementation was shaped during one of the most disruptive periods the music industry has ever faced. Working on major transformation programmes at EMI in the late 1990s, as Napster dismantled the commercial model the entire industry had been built on, the pattern he saw wasn’t what most people expected. The organisations that adapted weren’t always the ones with the best plans or the most resource. They were the ones where people were genuinely engaged, where leadership created clarity under pressure, and where adoption wasn’t left to chance.
That observation has underpinned everything since.
Over more than two decades, Mark has worked with organisations across media, financial services, engineering and technology, including EMI, Warner Music, Sony PlayStation, JP Morgan, Vodafone and Accenture. He has sat inside major ERP and CRM implementations, AI programmes and strategic transformation initiatives, and he has watched the same pattern repeat: the technology gets installed, and then the hard question arrives. Will the people actually use it?
Applied Change was built to answer that question before it becomes a crisis. The Change Journey Navigator gives leadership teams hard data on adoption readiness before a programme stalls. The High Impact Changemaker methodology turns the behavioural work into a repeatable, measurable discipline.
We also work in collaboration with the University of the West of England, the Association for Project Management and the Change Management Institute, keeping our approaches grounded in behavioural science and current leadership practice.
What we believe
Most technology investment doesn’t fail at implementation. It fails at adoption. The system goes live, the consultants leave, and within months the shadow spreadsheets come back.
Resistance isn’t obstruction. It’s usually a signal: uncertainty that hasn’t been addressed, friction that hasn’t been removed, or purpose that hasn’t been made clear enough for people to commit.
Momentum doesn’t sustain itself. It has to be created deliberately, and it has to be protected. Organisations that thrive through change are rarely the largest or the best resourced. They’re the ones where leadership does the behavioural work, not just the technical work.
Adoption is measurable. That’s the most important thing we’ve learned. What looks like a soft problem has hard data behind it. And once you can measure it, you can manage it.
Working with us
If you’re leading or sponsoring a digital transformation, ERP implementation, AI initiative or strategic change programme, we’d welcome a conversation. Just click the button below to get started.
You can learn more about how we help organisations or try the free Change Journey Navigator® diagnostic. It takes three minutes and gives you hard data on where your adoption risk actually sits. It’s a useful place to start, and it costs nothing.
If your programme is already mid-flight and adoption is a concern, we can talk through what that usually means and what tends to help.
