In the past 10 years, the percentage of companies using cloud-based CRM systems has risen from 12 to 87%.
This is the pace of digital transformation.
If you read our articles regularly, you’ll know how important digital adoption is to successful transformation. But it’s not always easy. Many enterprises are still making fatal mistakes with their adoption.
So we’re going to look at some top digital adoption tips that will help organizations to avoid making the same old mistakes — mistakes that threaten to derail their transformation efforts.
Common digital transformation mistakes
Hands up if your organization says it’s committing to digital transformation but nothing seems to be changing very fast. (Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone.)
Transformation is no small feat. For large enterprises, these process, people, and culture changes take time.
Unfortunately though, time is not on your side. Gone are the days when organizations could be slow or cautious when rolling out big changes.
Enterprises today must leave no stone unturned, but must also complete transitions at a much swifter pace.
Daniel Newman writes in Forbes that now is the time for companies to act. Enterprises can no longer drag their feet when it comes to integrating their business operations and culture with the digital world.
Another common mistake is that companies don’t communicate the need for change and inspire employees to get behind it. Reasoning and decision-making is kept within the sphere of upper management and isn’t sold effectively to the rest of the company.
Enterprises must get everybody on board in order for true transformation to occur. This leads us into the realm of adoption and our top digital adoption tips.
5 digital adoption tips that could get you promoted
1. Set clear goals
Your technology adoption needs to be strategically planned, with goals clearly defined from the outset to enable measurement.
Defining you goals will help you to manage the change process more smoothly, because you’ll be able to create a vision of life after the transition, which will inspire and motivate employees.
2. Focus on the user
Sadly, many companies spend millions on new platforms, then watch them wither away. This is because they ignore the most important thing — the users.
Above all digital adoption tips, this one must be prioritized.
Companies must market digital change within the business and embed it into company culture. It’s only by focusing on the end user that this can happen.
It’s about easing the digital user experience (UX), whether those users are employees or customers. The faster users get to grips with new technology, the faster the enterprise can transform.
3. Be strategic with budget and resources
Yes, time is of the essence. But when it comes to digital transformation, one of the most valuable digital adoption tips we can give is to allocate resources strategically.
Companies need to be aware that successful digital adoption requires investment. Investing in the new platform is only the start. Resources must be allocated to change management, training, and evaluation.
4. Use a DAP
Effective use of digital tools could mean profit or loss for companies today.
Let’s imagine it’s your sales team that’s using a digital tool. If they have to call tech support every time there’s a system update or when they have to perform an unfamiliar task, they’re wasting time that could be spent selling to customers.
A Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) eliminates this problem by adapting to the user and providing bespoke guidance using the digital tool, actually at the time users need  it.
The DAP answers any questions and anticipates problems users may experience. By using a DAP, your sales team can spend more time selling and less time grappling with digital admin.
5. Track your digital adoption
It’s important that, once new technology is rolled out, the adoption experience is continuously tracked and reviewed.
The implemented digital tool will have its own usage analytics. But it won’t effectively gauge adoption. For that, you should look to the DAP, which provides detailed insights into where users are struggling and how to improve.
By using the DAP, companies can review, monitor, and anticipate what issues are likely to occur in order to make necessary changes. Digital transformation becomes a lot simpler once this is possible.
Concluding thoughts
The same old digital transformation mistakes are still made. It’s rapid action and the ability to get everybody on board that is critical to transformation.
These digital adoption tips should help you to execute digital transitions with comparative ease and ensure company-wide transformation is well and truly on the agenda.
