Building support: The human side of IT optimisation

The biggest barrier to optimising your IT costs isn’t your IT.

It’s your people.

This is a fact that I’ve witnessed time and again in many years as a passionate adoption and change management professional.

It’s also something that’s just been confirmed yet again in SoftwareOne’s latest research report: Driving business outcomes through cost-optimised innovation.

The facts: 40% of companies cite staff resistance to change as their biggest barrier to optimising IT costs —a figure that’s right up there with the complexity of IT itself as a transformation blocker.

Optimising adoption

For businesses prioritising cost-optimised innovation, this human factor often determines whether initiatives succeed or fail.

The best companies pay attention to that, and it’s one of the big reasons why they succeed.

In our research, we found a select group of businesses that consistently outperform their peers. We call them “Optimised Innovators”. These companies aren't just technically savvy – they excel at managing the human side of change too. They understand that technology alone isn't enough: success depends on leadership alignment, strategic communication, and robust cultural foundations.

I can illustrate the truth of this observation by connecting insights from the report with practical examples from SoftwareOne’s own client engagements. It's in these real-world scenarios where we see both the challenges of the human factor and—more importantly—how they can be solved.

Beyond deployment: the adoption imperative

In fact, the research highlights another compelling difference between Optimised Innovators and their peers which hints at these solutions: 89% have made significant progress in building modern digital workplaces, compared to just 55% of other companies.

This investment improves the employee experience and creates a powerful foundation for change.

We see the practical importance of this approach daily in our client work. Organisations implementing Microsoft Copilot, for example, often discover they haven't fully adopted the Microsoft 365 capabilities they already own. It’s great to get the opportunity to help them address that challenge. We can demonstrate the importance of the human factor, showing that even the most promising technologies become expensive shelf-ware if people aren’t supported (and encouraged) to use them.

For me, that proves cost effectiveness is only one side of the ROI coin. The other side—actual value creation—requires effective adoption strategies, especially when deploying sophisticated tools like Microsoft Copilot.

Optimise to innovate creates the potential. Adoption turns potential into achievement.

Why change works: Breaking down the barriers

Of course, resistance to change isn't simply stubbornness. More often, it's a rational response to perceived threats. For many employees, “cost optimisation” sounds like code for job cuts or increased workloads. Technical teams often resist changes to familiar systems, while business units naturally defend their budgets and resources. Without addressing these concerns directly, even the most promising initiatives are likely to run aground.

SoftwareOne’s work with clients across multiple sectors adds crucial context about what these barriers look like in practice and how they can be beaten down for everybody’s benefit.

When I look at successful change management in action, one particular client example always comes to mind. AAMI, a semiconductor manufacturer, wanted to modernise its workplace with Microsoft 365 and Copilot. It was a tremendous success. What made the difference? CEO SC Ho didn't just approve the project—he championed it personally.

AAMI took the time to get people on board right from the start when they implemented this change. Through SoftwareOne's Copilot Advisory Service, they introduced the technology to a controlled group of early adopters during its first week of general availability. This wasn't just about new technology—it was about changing fundamental work habits.

The company tackled outdated practices head-on, shifting staff away from saving files locally to storing them in OneDrive. This seemingly small change created massive improvements in security and collaboration. By aligning staff workflows with cloud-based tools, AAMI maximised their Microsoft 365 investment and created a platform for ongoing innovation.

Ho’s active leadership involved:

• Demonstrating the strategic importance of the initiative
• Creating accountability at the highest levels
• Sending a clear message that resistance wasn't constructive

Support from the top, buy-in from below

I've seen this pattern consistently in change initiatives that succeed and it reflects exactly what our research study uncovered too.

In organisations identified as Optimised Innovators, the C-suite was identified taking an active role in IT cost decisions, ensuring that these decisions are not only aligned with the organisation’s strategic vision and innovation plans but are also embraced across the business.

But while executive support opens doors, compelling communication is what gets people to walk through them.

City of Lincoln Council demonstrates this perfectly, offering a complementary perspective to AAMI's leadership-driven approach. While AAMI's CEO personally championed their digital transformation, Lincoln Council focused on changing the conversation at every level of the organisation.

Their experience demonstrated that addressing the "why" of change—not just the "what" and "how"—creates the kind of momentum that can power continuous improvement long after an initial project ends.

The Council faced a complex set of challenges. They needed to modernise their IT infrastructure while dealing with budget constraints and a workforce accustomed to traditional ways of working. When implementing Microsoft 365, they could have focused on efficiencies and cost savings—but they knew that would trigger resistance.

Instead, they framed the change around tangible benefits that mattered to different stakeholders:

• Better service delivery for residents through improved access to information
• Enhanced working flexibility for staff, including genuine remote working options
• Direct alignment with the Local Government Digital Declaration—connecting the change to larger organisational values

This wasn't just clever messaging. The Council backed up their communication with practical support, including targeted training and designated champions who could demonstrate the benefits in real-world scenarios. They created spaces for staff to experiment with new tools before full implementation, reducing anxiety and building confidence. They shifted the conversation from what people might lose to what everyone would gain.

The results were impressive: better productivity, enhanced collaboration, and successful adoption of new ways of working—with minimal resistance and surprisingly quick uptake of the new tools.

Making change a self-sustaining cycle

These success stories show how to build initial buy-in when change is in the air. But sustainable transformation requires even more than executive leadership good communication. It needs financial momentum that makes the process of change fundamentally self-sustaining.

The highest-performing Optimised innovator in our study create this momentum through a "flywheel" approach where savings directly fund innovation. Ascot Group, a specialty insurer, demonstrates this perfectly—they reinvested software licensing optimisation savings into tools that dramatically accelerated underwriting decisions, creating value that funded additional improvements and making change self-perpetuating.

This approach to making change delivers measurable commercial results as well. By making change not just a one-time event but a self-sustaining cycle, Optimised Innovators achieve twice the ROI on digital initiatives compared to their peers. And everyone can buy in to that.