Pecchia Communications recently wrapped up its eighth change management consulting engagement, supporting a series of technology projects for nearly two years at American Electric Power, a public utility based in Columbus.

Dan Pecchia served as the organizational change management and communications lead for the program and worked as a subcontractor to Capgemini, a global consulting firm with a long history at AEP.

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Here’s the Ohio part of a large AEP/Capgemini team that worked with Dan Pecchia (standing, near the middle) for the past two years on a set of important technology projects. A larger part of the team worked from India.

The project followed similar engagements with Timken, Whirlpool, Glidden Paints, PPG Industries, American Greetings, Tate & Lyle and GE Digital. (Read about our next OCM engagement here. See our Testimonials page for client comments.)

“As long as companies continue rolling out major changes to stay competitive, we expect the communications/change management niche associated with these projects to continue growing,” Dan said.

“These change initiatives are led primarily by client executives and technology professionals, but many of them require communications counsel and leadership. We help employees – and often customers, suppliers and others — understand the rationale and benefits of these major changes and prepare to work through them. We typically build a communications plan, then create the broad range of materials the plan recommends, including slide presentations, email updates, intranet content, posters, videos and more.

“It’s a very interesting niche, and one in which we’ve enjoyed a string of opportunities since Timken tried us in 2006 and liked the results.”

These projects usually involve working as part of a project team that can range to more than 100 people, many of them consultants, with niche expertise in information technology, operations, finance, human resources and more. Engagements can last from a few months to well over a year.

Several Pecchia Communications staffers have worked on these engagements with Dan.

“One of the trends we like in this space is remote work,” Dan said. “New technology enables easier collaboration online, making it unnecessary to always be on-site. This lowers costs for clients and enables them to secure valuable expertise that might not be available nearby.”

For more information about our approach to these projects, visit our Change Management page.