The term ‘digital adoption’ gets plenty of mentions in efforts whose aim is to fundamentally change a business for the better. At its very core, the concept highlights a very basic approach that revolves around the implementation of digital tools in daily operations. As such, it’s fairly easy to take it for granted as almost every modern business uses some form of SaaS to automate their processes and improve workflow.
However, true digital adoption refers to maximizing the digital transformation of business by fully leveraging its digital tools and assets. Anything short of that and the ever-important ROI will be short too. That can be particularly harmful to enterprise-level organisations with traditionally significant overlaps between numerous teams, projects, and processes. Unfortunately, for many businesses that seems to be the case.
So, the keyword here is ‘true’. While technology is the key driver of digital transformation, it doesn’t necessarily have to be successful. A large business that purely adopts new software (especially because it’s the right thing to do’) into its operations isn’t implementing it successfully if the software isn’t gaining full returns. This is a strategic technology investment that should result in an optimized technological infrastructure where users can communicate and perform effectively.
Relieving the pain points for both customers and employees
The word ‘users’ encompasses both sides of the business spectrum: customers and employees. It’s important to note that while technology may be “foreign” in some regard, all users are human and businesses must empower them to keep up with the advancing technology.
As such, the brunt of digital adoption efforts focuses on user experience, where the end goal is to maximize user engagement and interactions, and take customer satisfaction to another level. For example, a new customer may not feel completely comfortable using a new SaaS platform and may require extra care and guidance. This allows the business to be proactive by anticipating similar scenarios in the future and provide solutions, but also drive self-support and reduce customer support costs.
Perhaps even more important is the employee perspective. Any organization’s capacity to function effectively is solely based on the employees’ ability to grapple with relevant operational processes, features, and practices. This is particularly applicable for large-scale digital transformations, where there are abundant opportunities to optimize for more efficient processes through various systems: increased business agility, improved employee productivity, faster training and onboarding, and several other back-office functions.
In other words, maximizing software efficiency means better user adoption and automation of complex business processes that ultimately drive the bottom line. Neglecting the employee’s user experience in the workplace can manifest painful disasters, especially for large enterprises. In order to develop and achieve true digital adoption which provides tangible results, there are a few requirements.
Arguably the most important one is implementing a digital adoption solution. Let’s not beat around the bush: this is the most direct path to true digital adoption as such solutions help build a consistent user experience while also decreasing costs. These are essential for effective adoption because they represent a system that enables a business to see the big picture, whether it’s identifying specific organisation-wide points of friction that are preventing the adoption or uncovering underutilised aspects of the business that can yield more value with more support.
Apart from the right tool, the baseline requirement is to create a strategy based on measurable results. The point is to genuinely commit to digital adoption and have specific guidelines along the way to measure progress. This includes clearly defined goals and objectives, as well as relevant metrics and KPIs such as user engagement and productivity.
True digital adoption is a competitive advantage
In a highly competitive enterprise landscape, being one step ahead of the rest is a difficult task. There are only a few things that can differentiate a business on a large scale, and true digital adoption is one of them. However, every enterprise that doesn’t embrace it risks seriously lagging behind its competition. The longer the wait to realise the full potential of digital assets, the wider the gap will be.
As the business environment gets more digitised, soon it will not be enough for enterprises to just be invested in their technology. To succeed in the long run, they will have to be fully invested.
That’s not to say true digital adoption doesn’t come without obstacles. Some level of resistance when learning about a new system is to be expected. Employee training and onboarding will yield some difficulties, as will providing a uniform and engaging user experience across the board. There is bound to be some pulling back and forth.
However, all these challenges are well worth taking head-on due to the enormous benefits true digital adoption brings. It will amplify income by improving customer experience and streamlining employee productivity and engagement. It will open doors to new opportunities for growth, and prevent the initial technology investment to go to waste. In short, it will allow a business to reach its full potential.
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