The Enterprise Kingmaker: Digital Adoption Platforms

Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) have emerged as the enterprise kingmaker. As a layer above the digital product providing customized user guidance and data visibility, they lead to increased technology adoption and better user experiences that drive business outcomes. Rafael Sweary, Co-Founder and President at WalkMe, takes us through the process of technology adoption and how it can be improved.

In an age when digital transformation reigns supreme, technology adoption is the gatekeeper. Businesses are investing in digital technology more than ever before. In 2021, almost half of the CEOs in PwC’s 24th annual CEO surveyOpens a new window planned to increase their rate of digital investment by 10% or more — more than any other spending category. Executives have realized that their businesses are at risk if they can’t better embed digital technologies into their businesses. Yet, according to PwC’s US Cloud Business Survey, 53% of companies are not realizing substantial value from their investmentsOpens a new window . 

Technology adoption is the missing link between the investment in technology and the value being realized. Think of all of the resources spent by enterprises to adopt new technology. Regardless of the incredible benefits the technology promises, people need to use it to see its benefits come to fruition. Strategizing, planning, implementing, training, and supporting are all costly undertakings for organizations embarking on the journey of introducing a new enterprise technology. Enterprises invest in technology far beyond the price tag. 

With technology adoption as the gatekeeper to success, digital adoption platforms (DAPs) have emerged as the enterprise kingmaker. DAPs exist as a layer above a digital product providing customized user guidance and data visibility leading to increased technology adoption and better user experiences that drive business outcomes. 

Focusing on User Experiences To Drive Business Outcomes 

In a world where there’s an app for every problem, from time management to grammar mistakes, companies need to start asking themselves: how can we maximize the value we get from our existing technology investments? Spoiler alert: The answer comes down to data and action. 

Large enterprises invest in dozens of applications. The average employee spends their workday navigating in and out of likely upwards of seven applications as she works in today’s most hybrid working environment. While every enterprise software lauds itself for innovating its sphere of work, it isn’t hard to waste time and energy on the logistics of how to get one’s job done when all of the necessary software is constantly changing. Workarounds are commonplace. Many teammates don’t know half of the functionality of the technologies at their fingertips, let alone how to use them for their specific business goals. This is happening at most enterprises, and it’s mainly going unmeasured. 

See More: Three Reasons to Level Up Your Legal Department with the Latest Tech

The Importance of Management Buy-In

Technology adoption often goes unmeasured because management’s attention is not where the value is achieved. Management is very involved before a new system goes live. They are very focused on identifying the business needs, the development strategy, and deployment. However, only once the new system goes live is value being realized. As illustrated in the chart below, by go-live, management’s attention is usually already focused on the next digital transformation, leaving the new system without the dedicated resources it needs to realize its full potential and bring home the best possible ROI. Enterprises need a dedicated person or team focusing on this critical moment in a digital transformation. This can be a digital adoption professional who exclusively works on the successful adoption of technology within an organization. 

                                                                      Source: WalkMeOpens a new window

Three Key Benefits of DAPs

What if employees could do their jobs even better without having to fully understand and keep up with enterprise software and its many features and updates? Instead of spending hours–or days– training staff on new software updates or applications, DAPs sit on top of these technologies like a glass layer guiding users on how to best use the technology to get their jobs done. 

1. Increased visibility: DAPs provide enterprises with unprecedented visibility into the usage data of their technology investments and proprietary digital products, allowing them to course-correct users with pinpoint accuracy and maximize their ROI from technology investments. With this level of data visibility across an enterprise’s tech stack, organizations can precisely see how users interact with their applications, where they are getting stuck, and swiftly deploy solutions.
2. More time savings: The wasted minutes an employee spends trying to figure out how to perform that somewhat rare task on a platform they don’t use every day add up – big time. When someone spends time figuring out how to request time off instead of doing their job, there is a cost to the enterprise.  DAPs can quantify that time and empower the organization to resolve the issue by guiding that user to perform that task quicker and get back to accomplishing their goals. Technology is supposed to make work easier, not harder. 
3. Better user experience: DAPs provide immediate insights to uncover the gaps between the user experience and an organization’s business goals. With actionable insights, organizations can create and deliver elegant experiences that enable users to access their applications’ full functionality and value, ensuring adoption and ultimately fulfilling the promise of digital transformation. 

Adapting and Adopting Better

DAPs close the gap between technology investment and adoption by empowering people to finally harness the power of technology to do their best work. Organizations must realize that user experience has immense potential to drive business outcomes. That means meeting the user right on their screen. The customized user guidance makes work easier for thousands of unique individuals who make up an enterprise. That is the true future of work – a user-centric future in which seamless digital experiences fuel business outcomes. 

What are the biggest challenges you face in digital adoption? Share with us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear what you have to say!