Digitalizing Water Bill Payments

(a) Situation faced: Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is a public utility company undergoing a digital transformation. The company began transforming its billing processes in 2016. A vital component of the transformation agenda is the digitalization of customer payments, where customers can make water bill payments through mobile money and other digital payment platforms. Management of the company has realized that some of its commercial department employees (customer-facing staff) are consciously or unconsciously resisting the change. Therefore, to increase adoption, and usage of the payment channels, management has decided to implement a change management program. (b) Action taken: A mixed-method approach was used to obtain staff views on the ongoing digital transformation process at GWCL. This was achieved through a survey and focus group discussions. The study targeted to collect data from 200 staff. There were 160 staff who returned completed questionnaires. The analysed data from the survey and five focus group discussions were used to develop a digital payment change management framework incorporating implementable action points that will enhance organizational appreciation of digitizing bill collection. (c) Results achieved: The survey and focus group discussions showed that the ongoing digitization projects at GWCL have resulted in apprehension, anxiety and fear among many of the staff. Overall, the company staff understanding of change is characterized by operational practices rather than behavioural practices. The research resulted in a digital payment change management framework which has been accepted by the company senior management. The framework establishes how changes will be proposed, analysed, accepted/rejected, implemented, monitored, controlled and documented. Currently, the company has successfully implemented a series of pragmatic change initiatives using the framework to facilitate the usage of digital payments for bill collections. (d) Lessons learned: The most important lesson is that it is not possible to manage change in this public sector organization using a checklist of change management steps. The lessons learned are as follows: (1) A transparent and systematic approach to change management enhances digitalization (increases usage and adoption). (2) An iterative approach allows failure and lessons to be learned. (3) Use a context-specific change management framework to establish sustainable change. (4) Use change champions to drive change.