After carefully considering the merits, you've chosen to give Kika a try. Congratulations, you've just taken a big step towards increasing productivity and reducing admin costs. What a relief !

Sadly, you're not home free yet. People generally resist any changes to their status quo. And asking them to adopt a new way of doing things will feel like an unwelcome disruption.

If you aren't completely clear about why Kika benefits them and their workflow, they'll be sceptical. Or worse, resentful.

Use these steps to improve your Kika implementation plan.

1. Communicate early and often

It's important to prepare the road ahead by talking about the need for adopting Kika. Communicate that Kika was built by an experienced removalist just like them who didn't like the available options and wanted to ease the inventory process for everyone. Explain that it will benefit them all by saving them time and effort when doing anything related to inventories.

If your staff understand the logic behind your decision to adopt Kika, and how it makes their lives easier, they'll be more likely to support the change when it happens.

2. Cultivate champions

When preparing to implement Kika, it's a good idea to garner support at the operations level. These early adopters, or champions will be vital in helping convey a positive message about Kika, while promoting transparency around the upcoming change. They will also help bring the others around

The office admin side of Kika will be much easier to convert as involvement at this level is minimal.

Before roll out, you'll want to hear any concerns they may have regarding Kika. The earlier the input, the better you can address worries or resistance.

3. Feedback mechanisms

It's important to build mechanisms in your company for everyone to share feedback, concerns, frustrations and issues before, during and after Kika is implemented.

There is also a Facebook and LinkedIn Group called the Kika Community which anyone can join and directly communicate with Damien (founder) or someone from the team.

4. Set goals

Setting and communicating your goals for implantation is as important as creating mechanisms for feedback. It helps to know how your company is responding to Kika. It also helps users get more value out of Kika if these goals show users how Kika impacts their day to day work.

It's common for new technology to be phased into business operations, but it is vital you let everyone know what will be expected of them at each stage.

5. Accomodate all learning styles

Use the supplied Kika training material to accomodate for the different learning styles.

However the best way we've found that people in our industry learn to use the Kika Tablet App is just to use it as often as possible.

Allow your staff to create their own demo jobs to work through the app as many times as they like. Doing that in conjunction with the User Guide is a great way to speed up familiarity with the system.

Questions to consider in relation to training include :

• Do we need a trainer to head up or will the supplied material be good enough ?
• Does the user guide need to be printed out or distributed as a digital pdf ?

Keep your eye on the prize

Humans are creatures of habit, so change doesn't happen easily and can take time.

Don't lose sight that you're using Kika to ease the inventory admin burden, reduce stationery costs and increase operational productivity.

Once Kika is successfully integrated into your business workflows, the benefits that your company will enjoy will have made the effort that has gone into the implementation worthwhile.