Building The Change Capability Behind an Enterprise AI Transformation
Acquis helped a global healthcare company stand up an enterprise change function during a company-wide AI modernization program.
Operationalizing AI
The company committed to a multi-year AI modernization program with an ambitious operational savings target across eight priority areas of work. The program had executive sponsorship, a technology roadmap, defined behaviors, and a clear value opportunity, but it lacked the internal capability to drive change at an enterprise level.
The evidence was in the execution. The program would require people to rethink how they made decisions, approached risk, staffed work, and responded to failure. It would require cohesion across the organization. But teams in priority areas felt disconnected from one another. Teams outside those areas couldn’t see how the program was relevant to them. Leaders understood the changes required in practice but struggled to execute them consistently.
Without an internal function to champion the program and empower its people, the company relied on external firms to drive the work. That created dependencies around a capability the company would ultimately need to own itself.
The company had the investment and the strategy. It needed the capability to turn them into changed ways of working.
Create the capability for AI transformation
Acquis helped the company build its change management capability while leading change across the AI program. The work focused on three needs: establishing the function, translating the transformation into how people work, and giving the organization a way to understand and respond to change as it happens.
Build the change function
Acquis designed the enterprise change function from the ground up. The operating model centralized the function while maintaining dedicated focus on the company's core segments. It also established clear ownership between the change team and business leaders, enabling the function to provide structure and support without becoming the sole owner of change across the organization.
The model included a staffing plan to transition the function from external contractors to a permanent internal team as contracts expire. Acquis structured the recommendation around decisions the sponsor needed to make, including where internal capability should replace external support and how the organization should be structured to support the work. The resulting model lowered reliance on outside firms, thereby reducing costs.
Make the change actionable
Acquis developed the program's case for change as a single source of truth. The narrative connected the individual initiatives to the broader shift in how the company would work with AI and made clear that the transformation extended beyond the teams directly involved.
Acquis then worked with each priority area's leadership team to translate that change into practice. Sessions focused on the decisions teams would need to make differently: what work to stop, how much risk to accept, how to staff the work, who should make key decisions, and what a launch needed to clear before going live.
The work produced specific commitments from leaders around the behaviors they would model and reinforce. It also gave teams a concrete standard for what working differently with AI should look like.
Make it self-sustaining
The company needed a way to stay connected to the program's progress across the organization. Acquis designed and activated a change network of people leaders from across the business units, giving the internal function a direct view into how teams were experiencing the transformation.
Members surface where friction is building, how new behaviors are landing, and where teams need additional support. They also reinforce the behaviors within their own teams and learn from what is happening elsewhere in the organization.
Acquis paired the network with a recurring measurement system. A monthly health check shows how teams are responding to the program, and a bi-weekly forum brings change practitioners across all priority areas together to surface patterns and risks. Those insights feed into regular reporting for program leadership.
The ability to modernize with AI
The company now has an established enterprise change function to support its AI modernization program.
The function has a defined operating model and governance structure, along with a path to transition work from external contractors to permanent internal capability. It spans all eight priority areas and gives leaders a common approach to leading change across the organization. The change network provides an ongoing connection to the organization, while the measurement system gives leadership a recurring view of where change is taking hold and where attention is needed.
When the AI modernization program began, this internal capability did not exist. Now, the organization has a function capable of leading enterprise change, understanding how it is responding, and continuing to develop that capability over time on its own.
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